Penalty Recovery

Traffic Drop Audit

It is incredibly important to determine the cause of a search engine penalty as quickly as you can. There are several reasons for drops in traffic that each require different measures to correct, the most common of which is a Google penalty. Engine Ready’s traffic drop audit can determine the problem and lay out a plan to restore ranking and avoid further damage.

What We Do:

• Identify the cause of the traffic drop and implement a remedy
• Monitor the progress of the recovery plan and ensure traffic is growing
• Make suggestions for further steps to improve on ranking

Some cause of drops in traffic:

1. Manual Penalty – When Google’s web-spam team penalizes a site after (manually) determining that linking or on-site SEO has been implemented in conflict with their guidelines
2. Automated Penalty – Same as above except Google’s crawlers apply the penalty automatically
3. Hacking – A hacker gains access to your site to insert harmful code that Google will find and penalize
4. Google Hijacking – AKA proxy hijacking or 301 hijacking wherein someone clones a site’s content onto another site with better search metrics in order to outrank the original site
5. Code Errors or Missing Web Pages – Due either to human or CMS errors
6. Redirect Errors – When pages redirect to the wrong locations due to implementation errors
7. Wrong Google Search Console Settings – Errors entered into the Google Search Console that lead to improper indexing of web pages
8. DDOS (Denial of Service) – Usually perpetrated by hackers intending to crowd out legitimate traffic and make a site unavailable

Why choose us:

Along with the above list, there are numerous other causes for sudden traffic drops. Engine Ready’s analysts can determine the cause of a search engine penalty and implement a resolution before the problem gets worse. Our professional team has dealt with many types of penalties in the past and have implemented numerous successful recovery plans. Our experience can help you avoid a short-term problem becoming a long-term disaster.

Google Penalty Recovery

Google penalties, when not discovered and dealt with swiftly, can be devastating to your search engine ranking and virtually put a stop to your traffic and sales. Google penalizes websites when they discover unnatural links pointing to the site. Regardless of how the links were created, the essential first step to penalty recovery is to locate and remove bad backlinks. The quicker and more thoroughly this is done the better. Engine Ready’s penalty recovery strategy involves an immediate and complete analysis of the site’s linking profile. After we locate and remove the bad backlinks, we quickly contact Google with a report to request they lift the penalty. We follow up until the request is granted and all penalties are removed. We can then work with the client to reestablish search engine ranking and restore prior traffic levels.

Google Penguin Recovery

Google’s Penguin update was implemented in 2012 as a way to more effectively screen websites for improper ‘spam’ tactics (ie. buying links designed to trick Google and boost ranking). The Penguin update aims to ensure only sites with high relevance, good content, and quality, organic backlink profiles are ranking highly in Google. Each time a new Penguin update is released, sites that do not adhere to Google’s guidelines are discovered and penalized. Engine Ready’s Penguin link removal service is designed to assist clients whose sites have been hit with a Penguin penalty. We then work through the steps of a manual penalty recovery with the client.

What we do:

• We immediately assess whether the client was hit by a Penguin or other type of penalty
• We then determine what content on the site or in the backlink profile caused the penalty to be incurred
• We then design and implement a custom recovery plan and work until the penalty is successfully lifted

Disavow Backlinks

Creating a disavow link involves adding a snip of code that tells Google not to count a particular link toward search engine ranking. This is a way of avoiding penalties without having to actually remove bad backlinks. For instance, if we discover a bad link from another site to yours but the webmaster has not yet removed (or refuses to remove) the link, we can add a disavow command to the link to ensure Google won’t penalize you for it. This can also be useful when you don’t want to remove backlinks entirely. For instance if a link is bringing in traffic but we determine that Google will penalize you for it if they consider it toward ranking we will disavow it. Engine Ready can keep your site healthy in Google’s eyes by locating and disavowing bad links.

What we do:

• Our team rapidly identifies hazardous links by performing a manual analysis
• We contact the sites where the links originate and politely request they remove the links to our client’s site
• We then disavow any hazardous links that are not removed quickly by the third party
• Finally, we provide our clients with strategies to protect themselves against future penalties

* To maintain a healthy website and avoid penalties you should remove bad backlinks on a monthly basis.