Jun
The Google -30 Penalty
Naughty, naughty. If you get caught doing evil optimizing, Google will downgrade your search ranking automatically by 30 positions, so your site can literally go from number one on page one to number 31 on page four (where you’ll get very little traffic, as three pages are about the limit of people’s scrolling patience).
This is called the -30 penalty or the -30 filter, referring to the fact that the downgrade is applied automatically for any of these three sins:
- Guestbook spamming (putting your link on too many guestbooks and blogs hoping to build Page Rank);
- Using doorway pages that are optimized for certain keywords but automatically redirect the visitor elsewhere;
- Using JavaScript redirects, which can be confused with the above doorway technique (use the .htacess redirect instead).
On one forum I researched, someone complained of a -950 penalty, but I couldn’t find any confirmation that Google had such a drastic option available. Still, it may be true, as this site owner complained of going from first to virtually last in the SERPs.
If you wish to check for penalties on your site, use this Google search to see where you rank and if your backlinks are listed (ranked low with no backlinks can mean you’ve been penalized): site:yourdomainname.com -asdfasdf. Or simply write help@Google.com.
For reference, here is a Google penalty checklist.
If you do get busted and correct the sins for which you paid a penalty, you should follow this reinclusion advice from Google’s infamous Matt Cutts.
Tags: -30 penalty, -30 filter
