TommyCarey
Level X3
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I'll go over a few ways to figure out if your website has been hit by a Google penalty. No two websites are created equal, so even if you think your website hasn't been hit, I would recommend talking to someone who knows a lot about SEO.
1. Google Search Console
Log into your Google search console and you will see something labeled “Search Traffic” and it should be a tab. Click the tab and then go to “Manual Actions.” Here you will be able to find out if Google told you directly that you had a penalty. If they didn't, there are a few other ways to check, keep reading 
2. What does your backlink profile look like?
You can go back into your Google search console and click “Download your latest link report.” This should give you a pretty extensive report on what backlinks have been built for your website. If you see a ton of low quality and spammy backlinks, you could be getting a link related penalty from Google. You'll need to begin removing these links with the disavow tool immediately.
NOTE: Using the disavow tool doesn't actually remove the links. It's more of a tool to suggest to Google that the link isn't something you placed. It's up to Googles discretion whether they take the links out of your ranking factors or let them stay.
Go through all of your links and pull out the ones that you would think are low quality and possibly hurting your website. Add all the links to .txt file for your records. After you have a large list of what you consider "bad neighbors" to link to, send it to an SEO expert to see what their opinion is. After the SEO person gets back to you, you may need to run your .txt file through the disavow tool in the Google search console.
3. Check Your Content
If you have duplicate content from doing a copy/paste job from a different website or you just happen to write something similar to a different site, you could be getting a penalty from Google. A duplicate content penalty is tough to find, but you can run your content through paid services like copyscape to see if you have content that is already online.
NOTE: You won't actually hurt the rankings of your other pages because of a penalty. But the page with the content will be extremely difficult to get indexed. This is more of a "Google slap on the wrist" lol
The only downside of running your pages through copyscape is that each page will cost you some money to check. You might be able to find a different service that does multiple pages for the same price, but I haven't found any good ones that I could list here
4. Check The Algorithm Changes
Google tends to tweak it's algorithm a few times a year and not tell us. Well, a bit more than a few lol, it's over 400 times a year Now most of the algorithm changes are small and barely do anything, but there are the big ones like the panda and penguin updates which moved the rankings around a lot.
Moz.com actually does a great job of tracking the changes here: https://moz.com/google-algorithm-change
A lot of my clients that come to me are suffering from at least one penalty that they don't know of, and I help them fix it. But you should treat your website as it's own business and run it professionally so that you don't incur a penalty the next time Google does a big change to it's algorithm.
I would also recommend that you get into social media marketing as well as paid advertising using Googles PPC (pay per click) platform called Adwords. Generate multiple traffic streams
If you take everything I said to heart, you will lift any penalties and increase your rankings over time, which increases your businesses worth and also increases it's profits
I've definitely been hit by automated and manual reviews before. Normally the manual reviews are on Adwords and the automated are for the rankings, but they both suck when you get hit lol
Well if you're writing your own content then there is a pretty low chance that your work will get seen as duplicate content. But there is always a chance that it could be seen as something that was duplicated and that's why I suggest people run their articles and pages through a content checker just to make sure.
If you're writing your own content there will probably be 1 in 100 that get seen as duplicate content. But that 1 page or article could hurt your website pretty bad. You could go into a probation period where Google watches your new content being added and if they think something is shady, they will drop your rankings a bit. If they see the content somewhere else first, they don't want to see it on your website. They will basically knock your rankings because they think you're doing a copy and paste job, which isn't true. Even though there are some of the smartest people working at Google and programming some amazing scripts, software, websites, algorithms, etc. they are only human and can make mistakes. And the horrible thing is that the scripts and bots they program are set with rules that can nuke your rankings without even going into a manual review :( I've definitely been hit by automated and manual reviews before. Normally the manual reviews are on Adwords and the automated are for the rankings, but they both suck when you get hit lol :D
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I'll just hit some bullet points on this.
You're correct about the disavow tool. I should have mentioned that it does not remove the links, it just notifies Google :D
As for duplicate content, you're right about the penalty, but your pages won't always get indexed if the exact same content is already indexed within Googles search rankings. I called it a penalty because a "Google slap on the wrist" just doesn't sound right lol :D
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Lynne
Thanks for this, it is very interesting. I just wanted to ask you something, there was another discussion recently about what tools are best to check for plagiarism. I have never used a plagiarism tool because I always write all my website content completely from scratch. I always use white hat techniques for my website and although I have purchased some SEO packages from some sellers here they are top notch sellers that I trust completely.
So back to my question, am I at risk of getting a penalty if I continue just doing what I am doing?
For exampe, I can't see that anything that I write completely from scratch could ever be considered duplicate content because that would be just way too much of a coincidence. Hi Razzy Thanks for this, it is very interesting. I just wanted to ask you something, there was another discussion recently about what tools are best to check for plagiarism. I have never used a plagiarism tool because I always write all my website content completely from scratch. I always use white hat techniques for my website and although I have purchased some SEO packages from some sellers here they are top notch sellers that I trust completely. So back to my question, am I at risk of getting a penalty if I continue just doing what I am doing? For exampe, I can't see that anything that I write completely from scratch could ever be considered duplicate content because that would be just way too much of a coincidence.
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