Google’s Matt Cutts recently announced that that if you get messages relating to site guidelines in your Webmaster account, you’ve been hit by a manual penalty.
Now, this is not an algorithmic penalty, it’s a manual process where a real person at Google is going through your site manually and checking it for any violations.
Google has a capability of manually inspecting you site and giving you a notification about the penalty via webmaster tools. There have been threads at webmaster world that have received such messages.
Dear site owner or webmaster of
We’ve detected that some of your site’s pages may be using techniques that are outside Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.Sincerely,
Google Search Quality Team
I am very excited about this approach as Google now makes it clear if your site has been affected……well at least manually if not algorithmically.
As per Google, 99% of the sites that have been manually affected will get this message, this means that its time you start using the webmaster tools if you’ve not being using it regularly. And keep a check for messages on this, clean up your site if you receive any such messages and make a reconsideration request.
I am hoping Google can start using the webmaster tools to communicate with webmasters and be more transparent about their penalties ( manual or algorithmic ) and regular update. It will surely make the web a better place.
Have you checked your webmaster account ? Did you get any notification ?
Image Credits:Ataken Sevgi
6 comments
That’s interesting. I know they were doing a lot of those warnings dynamically, based on algorithm issues, but now that they’ve been doing manual warnings maybe that’s a sign of them attempting to fix some of the current issues they’re having.
When Google speaks, you want to listen. If you notice that you’ve gotten a message, it’s important to take the time to figure out what caused it or what you are doing wrong. It’s better to catch an error early to try and diminish any negative outcomes.
this is a great one. I never knew they have a blog where I can check the recent update of the SEO rules. I thought it is something of secret.
thanks.
I faced some adverse condition with my site before using webmaster tools. I got some unwanted message too, but now I use webmaster tool and bing tool and also I have cleaned up my site by removing few articles to give it a better quality.
Now, this seems interesting. If Google is sendinga notification for a penalty of the site, then it will be helpful for us to improve our website quality. For me, it is a good move by Google to inform us about the mannual penalty for the site.
Excellent, I always wonder if one day I will do something to make Google hate me. I am using webmaster tools, so nice to know I will be notified if I inadvertently cause offence.