Does Google Penalize Webmasters?

[Vantelli]

One month ago Google penalized several my sites for thin and duplicate content. I'm afraid they will now automatically penalize all my new sites in the future.

I'm thinking to start one big site instead of my small sites but how safe that is? Will G chase me around the internet and ruin everything I start or I'm just too paranoid?

[goodroi]

Google is juggling a few trillion webpages, almost all of their penalties are automated. Some webmasters are especially talented at manipulating Google and have earned manual penalties but they are the minority.

Google has been clear with their words & actions about penalizing thin/duplicate content. So it is not surprising that your thin/duplicate content was removed. I would guess with 99.99% confidence you were hit by an automated filter. It is very unlikely Google is following you (the webmaster) around, they are fairly efficient at spotting duplicate content and removing it. It doesn't matter if you have one big site or many small sites if the content is all duplicated/thin you will most likely have bad results.

If you are very smart you can use certain tricks to perform well in the short term with thin/duplicate content but most webmasters are not willing or capable to do this. Most webmasters are better served by following SEO best practices which are safe and boring but generally a more profitable option in the long term.

[Vantelli]

Thanks for the reply, Goodroi. My content is unique, but still my sites are penalized. I fixed one of them and they rejected my reconsideration request.

Now I'm thinking that improving penalized sites is wasting of time, energy and money. I want to start a new site, move all my content to it, make it better but I'm afraid they will sniff my old content and will say something like "Aha! This is the guy whose sites we penalized. He think we're stupid so he deleted his old sites and merged his content into a new site. What a prick, let's penalize his new site for nothing and lets watch him suffer!"

I'm worried if my online career is ruined or all my future sites are not in a bad position from the start just because it belongs to me.

Are they watching now for content from my penalized sites? I mean, if I post that articles on a new site, will some red lights start to flash in Google?

[robzilla]

I mean, if I post that articles on a new site, will some red lights start to flash in Google?

There will probably be a few meetings!

Are you sure it's a manual penalty that requires a reconsideration request? Does it show up in your Search Console under "Manual Actions"? If so, and they rejected your request, then apparently it's not really "fixed", regardless of what you may think. I'd continue fixing it until it's fixed. Starting over on a new domain can be tougher than getting a manual penalty lifted.

In regards to whether or not they will penalize all your sites (past, current or future) for violations on a few of them, I highly doubt it, and agree with goodroi that it's probably possible but only when you really make a mess of things (but those who do tend not to have Search Console accounts, I would guess).

[Vantelli]

Of course I received notifications in my search console. Here you have more details about my sites and the manual action: [webmasterworld.com...]

[Vantelli]

Sorry for misunderstanding. Now I noticed that I didn't mention that I received notification about manual actions against my sites.

So, my question is: do Google track webmasters with a manual action? Do they track their content, accounts, do they spy on me somehow? For example, if I put my adsense code to a new site, will their algo or a member of spam team check it? Will my adsense code act like a bait?

[tangor]

It is highly unlikely g has a "vendetta" with any webmaster manually penalized. As for sites and content, that is what they do with machine algos which are tireless and single minded at finding duplicate/thin content. Webmasters who do not learn from the experience are doomed to repeat it, even with a new domain.

Try a KISS method in that Content First, User Experience Second, and No SEO TRICKS. Start there and then expand with site promotion via other means (tv, radio, print media) and grow a valid visitor base.

Rumors of targeted webmasters are just that, what really is happening is some webmasters just don't take the hint and continue their bad practices under different domains.

[Vantelli]

What's considered as SEO TRICKS? If I do a keyword research and put in my article all relevant queries which users type, is that a trick? If I fine tune title tags, is that a trick? Is it a trick to have most important keywords on the beginning of articles, in image alts? If such things are SEO tricks then I'm not sure how to rank anything without tricks.

[Shaddows]

keyword research and put in my article all relevant queries

If you do that, it will look over-optimised. Try keeping it to a few possible keywords, and have multiple pages, with sensible interlinking.

fine tune title tags

One man's fine-tuning is another algo's keyword stuffing. Beware.

important keywords on the beginning of articles

Yes, that's a trick. Important keywords should be spread in a natural pattern.

image alts

alt="keyword"

is bad, yes. "adjective keyword verbing in context" is better. (Each of those words need replaceing, obvs)

[Vantelli]

So, it will be the best to hire a bunch of guys who never had any touch with any internet business and to ask them to "write interesting and useful content". Giving them any instructions is strongly prohibited.

You just reminded my how much I hate the fact that all of us know what is an perfectly optimized page, but still we have to do our the best to avoid any optimization, because everything is considered overoptimization. We all have to pretend that we're super innocent and without any knowledge.

What's the point? If I know what people who want to buy Nexus 6P search for, should I avoid to write about all that things in my article, just to avoid over-optimization? Instead to put top queries about the product in subtitles and write a few paragraphs about each, what I should do? To avoid those queries just not to be over-optimized?

[Shaddows]

It depends on your point of view. If you're the searcher, and you type in your predictable search string, would you rather land on:

- A page of well written content produced by an expert in the subject who had never conceived of optimisation
- An expertly optimised page that perfectly mirrors your search term, and repeats it back to you in various permutations covering all the other search terms you might have considered

Google is betting that most users want the former, so write algos that strongly reflect that preference. That involves hurting sites with signs of over-optimisation, and rewarding sites with strong content.

To put it bluntly, Google wants to rank pages in line with the value of their content, not how optimised they are. They frown upon blatant attempts to get a page ranked higher than the content would naturally allow and act accordingly.

Edit for clarity

[edited by: Shaddows at 4:13 pm (utc) on Oct 13, 2016]

[tangor]

Search engines are neither vindictive or stupid. The quality ratings which have been fed into the machine have allowed more refined (vetted) results and the old ways just don't work the same as they used to.

These days context and natural content goes further than formulaic artificial content.

Finding the right balance is what's required and, if one can recognize what Old SEO looks like and also realizes SEs have changed, then one can find the right tone and language for content that will rank.

[glakes]

Google has penalized all the sites within WMT accounts before, which many believe that is proof that Google punishes webmasters. More likely is that their manipulative practices were used on all the sites they manage. I'm glad I make a good product and provide a good service to my customers and don't have time to manipulate search engines. These days I don't spend a lot of time/money with search engines anyway and instead focus on building bulletproof relationships that are shielded from any algo or manual penalty.

My advice to the OP is to build a quality site. Getting penalties for thin and duplicate content shows a lack of effort on your part. It's better to do it right the first time then have to replace sites or fix them after they are penalized so they are right anyway.

[Vantelli]

If my sites are so bad that they even do not deserve to compete equally with others, why they were in the top 5 positions for almost any relevant query for longer than 6 months?

It's easy to say "create great content" but I think that's for hobbyists. You know, people who have a job, but when they back home they work with joy on their small gardening website which earns $35 a month. I can't spend years and years on one site. I'm doing this for living, I have to produce tons of content each month.

The problem is that my sites are penalized but guys who are coming to my site and use it as source for their sites (they scrape and rewrite my articles) are still around. Those guys are so lazy, they even don't upload images to their servers but just are using images directly from my servers. Their gibberish sites are okay, but my sites with well researched and well written articles which actually provide information that visitors are looking for, are penalized. If G is not stupid then it's evil definitely.

[Robert Charlton]

Vantelli, about a week before you posted this thread, you started a thread whose title suggested that you were fairly aware what your problems were. I gave you some answers and asked a few almost rhetorical questions... including some hosting and backlink questions... that I thought were sufficiently clear that you would figure out the rest...

Duplicate Content, Manual Action, and Multiple Sites?
Oct 7, 2016
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4821209.htm [webmasterworld.com]

Though you've since mentioned the thread, the discussion we're having now should have been a continuation of that discussion. Your title in the other thread suggested enough awareness about the issues that I've thought maybe you were in denial about them here.

Now, I'm guessing, it's maybe because you don't understand the difference between dupe content and reworded content, where the rewording doesn't really change any information. To a degree, it might be a subtle point. You may also not understand why it is that reworded content under certain hosting and linking conditions might make Google think that you're spamming.

The conditions that probably apply to you...
- 7 or 8 similar Made-For-Adsense sites
- on the same server
- with backlinks that could appear to be coordinated
- backlinks from non-authoritative sources that are clearly related.

Regarding the content itself... Shaddows gives you a really solid basic answer on this thread, and I recommend you reread it a bunch of times.

Re why you ranked once but are now being out-ranked by scrapers, that's perhaps because you were ranking because of links that have now come to be discredited, or the algorithm has gotten more refined. Too many variables to give you a more precise answer.


To answer the question you're asking on this thread, "Does Google Penalize Webmasters?"... I'd say, No, unless those webmasters continue to spam (and continue to use the same techniques). At a some point, particularly post-Panda, penalties might get harsher, particularly if, as aristotle suggested, you submit too many reinclusion requests before fixing the problem.