You’re probably familiar with penalties in professional sports. If a player does something unsportsmanlike, or violates the rules of the game, they are often penalized for their actions. Depending on how severe the infringement is, they may even be removed from the game, or suspended from playing for a period of time.
Google penalties are very similar to sports penalties. At their core, they’re designed to punish websites that have done something wrong. These penalties aren’t always handed out manually, and they may impact websites built by those who had no idea what they did wrong, but they can still greatly impact a site’s performance in search results—and beyond.
A Google Penalty Means Trouble
A Google penalty means your site is either no longer listed on search results, or that your ranking for your targeted keywords has dropped dramatically. When your site gets a Google penalty, your target audience can’t find you. And when you are invisible to your target audience, your traffic, and ultimately revenue, drops.
It can happen to any website. A Google penalty can be the result of well-intended and honest efforts to improve your site’s ranking. But once you receive a Google penalty, it isn’t easy getting your good ranking back and getting back into Google’s good graces.
Source: Webpagefx
