Search Engine Penalties – How Can SEO’s Identify?

If your site has seen a drop in search traffic or rankings very suddenly – which is a very scary scenario, but don’t panic too much. Analyse what went wrong. Generally, if there was a “known” issue, and Google has placed a penalty for your website ranking, you shall definitely be informed about it in Google Web Master Tools. Google does make sure that they post a notification to the website’s Web Master Tools account whenever a penalty for a known issue is applied. Well, if that’s not the case, you can check your website lost rankings due to some recent algorithm changes. It is very important as an SEO expert to keep track of the recent changes in algorithm. Check all the recent news on Google’s official blog and check trusted discussion forums for information. The worst penalty could be a de-indexation. You can easily check that with a “site:”. This is not to scare you, but to discuss the possible reason for a lowered traffic. It is important that your site complies with the Webmaster guidelines published by Google (and other search engines). Being an SEO expert you should be aware of all the recent changes and analyse your website against all the major factors that changed.