While referees can be very unpopular, their words carry a lot of weight. This week Google published a report titled \u201cHow we fought webspam in 2015<\/a>\u201d chronicling what they discovered and accomplished last year. Impressively, the manual actions team sent more than 4.3 million messages to webmasters last year. That means webmasters were notified personally not only of a yellow flag being thrown, but also about what caused the penalty action.<\/p>\n From a searcher\u2019s perspective, all of this refereeing is fantastic news. It means that if I search for \u201creferee clothing,\u201d I will actually see striped shirts and not spammy, unwanted junk. Touchdown!<\/p>\n From a business’s perspective, however, Google penalties can be livelihood-threatening realities. Since the introduction of the Panda Update in 2011 and the subsequent waves of algorithmic and manual action Google penalties, we\u2019ve seen a rise in SEO services<\/a> clients requiring penalty assessments and removals. This latest report from Google is important for online businesses to be aware of because it points to trends in webspam and identifies red-flag digital marketing tactics to avoid.<\/p>\n In BCI’s 20-year history<\/a>, our digital marketing company has been a pioneering voice for ethical search engine optimization. Due to our methodology founded on SEO ethics<\/a>, we\u2019ve helped countless clients recover from manual and algorithmic penalties, and now eagerly await the next Penguin update to see additional penalty recovery resolutions. (Read a testimonial<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n To partner with a top-tier technical SEO agency and grow your website\u2019s revenue-driving potential, <\/em><\/strong>fill out our request form<\/em><\/strong><\/a> or call us today.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Below I\u2019ll explain more about how webmasters can deal with Google penalty situations. But first, here is the state of webspam, according to Google\u2019s report.<\/p>\n It bears repeating that Google’s manual actions team sent more than 4.3 million messages to webmasters<\/strong> last year. Many “penalties” occur algorithmically and can blindside webmasters with a sudden, unexplained loss of search traffic to their sites. You’ve got to appreciate the fact that the search engine takes the time to notify this many people directly to communicate that a problem and\/or penalty has occurred.<\/p>\n SEO Tip<\/strong>:<\/em> You\u2019ll find any messages sent by the manual actions team if you look in your Google Search Console account messages. So if you haven\u2019t set up Google Search Console<\/a> yet, do it now!<\/p>\n Compared to the previous year, the number of sites being hacked was up by 180 percent<\/strong>! Google\u2019s report identified site hacking as a top webspam trend of 2015. Here\u2019s what being hacked means: One day, you wake up to find your nice, clean website covered with the graffiti of someone else\u2019s spammy content. (Jump down<\/a> for what to do about hacked sites.)<\/p>\n Google\u2019s manual actions team reports that \u201csites with thin, low quality content\u201d are the second most commonly increasing form of webspam<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw an increase in the number of sites with thin, low quality content. Such content contains little or no added value and is often scraped from other sites.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Businesses should know that we\u2019ve been living in the age of Google\u2019s Panda algorithm update for several years now. What is Google Panda? Panda eats low-quality content for lunch. And Google told us earlier this year that Panda is now part of its core ranking algorithm<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Google manual action notice is usually terrible news for business owners. A penalized site drops in the search engine rankings, losing untold revenue from website traffic that\u2019s no longer coming from search.<\/p>\n If this happens, site owners may not understand how to recover. Sometimes the issues are straightforward and, after a bit of housecleaning, the site owner can submit a Reconsideration Request to Google and be restored to good standing.<\/p>\n However, many sites have long-standing issues or layered penalties that require more expertise. We\u2019ve had a number of clients come to us after struggling for a year or more to fix their own sites without regaining much ground in the SERPs. (If that\u2019s your situation, read about our SEO penalty assessment service<\/a> and let\u2019s talk.)<\/p>\n But can a notification by the manual actions team be GOOD NEWS? It can be if it alerts you to a problem.<\/p>\n If you receive a manual action message, stay calm. It might be a penalty, but it might just be a warning. When you read the notification, here\u2019s what you\u2019re going to want to understand ASAP:<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n If your website is hacked, Google\u2019s manual actions team may be the first to notice it. Google\u2019s webspam fighters have gotten pretty good at identifying when a site is the victim of hacking, rather than purposely trying to spam through deceptive SEO conduct. And that\u2019s great news for webmasters.<\/p>\n Juan Felipe Rincon, a lead of Google\u2019s Webmaster Outreach team, spoke on manual actions at SMX West<\/a>. He explained: \u201cContent that wasn\u2019t put there by the legitimate site owner and website hacks account for 45 percent of manual actions.\u201d<\/em> Forty-five percent of 4.3 million manual action notices represents a HUGE number of sites victimized by hacked content.<\/p>\n SEO tip: <\/em><\/strong>If your site has been hacked and you get the news directly from Google, be thankful. It\u2019s a diagnosis you need to hear so you can work on curing the problem. For all webmasters, Google’s recommended preventative measures<\/a> can help you protect your content and keep your site safe from hackers.<\/p>\n Sites scraping content from other sites to fill their own pages is apparently happening more and more.<\/p>\n This is a bad practice from an ethical perspective (because it\u2019s stealing) and also from a business perspective. The search engines can identify where content comes from, including its original source, because they know the date and location they first discovered that content. So the reward just isn’t there for the crime of scraping! But since I\u2019m pretty sure scrapers are not reading the Bruce Clay, Inc. Blog, I\u2019ll end my rant. ;-)<\/p>\n There are plenty of other reasons, besides outright scraping, that your site might appear to have \u201cthin, low-quality content\u201d to a search engine. Some of the most common scenarios are:<\/p>\n If you have received this type of Google manual action, here\u2019s SEO advice for what you can do about thin content<\/a>.<\/p>\n There\u2019s light on the horizon of this whole Google penalties\/manual actions world. A lot of light, actually, especially for people practicing SEO ethics.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s webspam team acted on 65 percent of the more than 400,000 spam reports that users submitted globally last year, and considered 80 percent of those to be spam.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Have you seen a drop in traffic to your website over the last several years? If you have been wondering why, know that if it\u2019s due to a penalty, you\u2019re not alone. Here\u2019s the story of one client we helped recover from the depressed traffic of a penalty.<\/p>\n A niche ecommerce company named Groomsmen.com suffered Penguin penalties that all but wiped out their organic traffic from Google. Trying to recover on their own, they cleaned up their SEO conduct as best as they could and ended their paid links program. However, for two years their rankings did not improve.<\/p>\n On a friend\u2019s recommendation, they came to BCI for help. We gave them a hyper-focused, three-month SEO project that combined our Penalty Assessment and Link Pruning services. During the six months following our project period end date, the site\u2019s organic traffic from Google grew five-fold compared to the previous year, yielding a 513 percent increase in ecommerce revenue from search.<\/p>\n Competition is fierce among organic search results. But compromising on ethics is a sure road to disaster!<\/p>\n Want an experienced, ethical SEO agency to grow your website\u2019s revenue-driving potential? <\/strong>Reach out using our form<\/strong><\/a> or call us today.<\/strong><\/p>\n Your business is on the field of one of the most competitive games of all: organic search rankings. If you play by the rules, you have a chance of making your website visible to searchers and winning site visitors. If you don’t follow the rules, you have no chance of scoring those goals if there’s a referee on the field.<\/p>\n Search engines play the role of referee in the search engine optimization game. For business owners, that means ethical SEO conduct pays off.<\/p>\n This week Google published a report titled \u201cHow we fought webspam in 2015\u201d chronicling what they discovered and accomplished last year. This latest report from Google is important for online businesses to be aware of because it points to trends in webspam and identifies red-flag digital marketing tactics to avoid.<\/p>\n![\"Refereeing](\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/referee-300px-300x175.jpg\")
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\nWebspam-Fighting Highlights<\/h2>\n
Hacked Sites Up by 180 Percent<\/h3>\n
Thin Content Is Trending Up<\/h3>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Ethical-SEO-Help-for-Businesses-580px.jpg\")
<\/h2>\nSEO Advice for Businesses Facing Google Penalties<\/h2>\n
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Recognizing a Hacked Site<\/h3>\n
Solving for Thin Content<\/h3>\n
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![\"find](\"https:\/\/www.bruceclay.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/CTA-seo-penalty-assessments.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Good News about Ethical SEO Conduct<\/h2>\n
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A Story of SEO Redemption<\/h2>\n
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