In part 1 of our Google Minus 30 Penalty series we talked about the essentials of what the penalty is and some problems that can cause big G to slam the penalty on a site in the first place.
Here in part 2, we’re going to talk about how to identify the problem and find out if you really have a Google Minus 30 Penalty.
1. Create an account with Google Webmaster Tools you’re concerned about, and add any other domains you have as well. You will get all kinds of feedback, from robots.txt issues, HTTP errors, domain.com vs. www.domain.com errors and much more. Wait until your site has been spidered at least a couple times and go to Statistics >> Query Stats. This will give you a list of keywords your domain ranks for.
Tip: If you have the Google Minus 30 Penalty, you domain won’t rank any higher than 31 for any given keyword.
2. Make sure you really have the penalty. Remember, there’s always a number #31 result in Google given even mildly competitive keywords. To put it into perspective, there’s always something on the 4th page if you have competitive keywords, so make sure the site that comes up is yours.
3. First off, you should have been ranking well or at least decent, e.g. on the first 3 pages of Google for your keywords, and preferrably ont he first page for your own URL.
4. Type your full domain name as it appears (be careful here; there is an important difference between http:// and http://www) . If your URL ranks no higher than 31, whereas it previously ranked higher, you can be pretty sure you’ve got a Google Minus 30 Penalty.
5. Besides checking your rankings, you can also check your Google referrals. If they’ve been dropping dramatically (e.g. 3000 to 300), there’s definitely a problem.
