Hello, I ve got a question. When your website is penalized by Google do you always get a message in the manual actions section of Webmaster Tools? If not, then how do you go about finding out if your website is penalized or not?
I think nowadays all the manual actions are reported but if there is no action listed then the penalty could be algo and not manual.
Only if your website was manually penalized will there be a note in webmaster tools. If your website has fallen rankings and you weren't notified then it comes down to an algorithm issue.When did you notice a drop in rankings?
Penalties like Unnatural Outbound Links will usually be notified through Google Webmaster Tool. Other form of penalties (or because of algorithm issues) is when you do a site:domain.com and there's no search results or when you search for your domain.com name on Google... Google is showing sites unrelated to you in the first few pages. You will not get notified for these two.
when you website is penalize by low quality links, you will receive the notification in webmaster but if website is ranking down then google algorithm issues.
Thanks for all the answers and thank you all for taking time to reply. I did dig deeper into this problem and I saw that there is no message in the Manual Action section of Webmaster tools and that I am ranking around the 12th place for a couple keywords. I guess there is nothing to worry about then.
If there are no results for site: that means that your site was hit by a manual penalty and not an algo penalty. That means the site was deindexed, which happens very very rarely.
Manual Penalty aka Google Manual Actions are of generally of three types. 1. Sitewide Matches - Affecting all incoming links (this is in the case you mentioned) 2. Partial Matches - on some incoming links 3. User Generated Spam Sites are deindexed in automated algo updates too.
No, websites are never deindexed for algo updates. Deindexed means that pages are no longer even in the index. When you receive an algo penalty your site loses rankings but is never deindexed.
The reason for deindexing should be high number of non-relevant backlinks using tools. Disavow non related backlinks which might be harming your websites.
You just proved tycho right. The link and examples you provided are referring to when Google takes manual action against a website. Manual action =/= algorithm.
I don't think Google mentioned any specific guidelines related to Penguin, Panda or Manual Actions but insisted on "Quality Guidelines). Panda to filter better quality content (Mind it "Quality) Penguin to slap unnatural or low quality links (Again "Quality) I know I added "Quality term" from my perspective but I think you got it well. Now if a site violates, quality guidelines of Google no matter Panguin or Panda , Again I must say "Sites are deindexed in automated algo updates too" Kindly go to the attachment & have thorough read on highlighted sentences.
I'm debating with someone that hasn't been in SEO long enough then. In my 10+ years I've never seen a site algorithmically deindexed. What you highlighed doesn't prove your point at all. You are confusing deindexing and a website losing ranking. When a site is deindexed that means that no pages are visible in the SERP results. If you type in site:url.com then the site will not show up. Deindexing doesn't mean not ranking which you have confused.
10+ Years hhmmmm. I completely understand the meanings of both - Being de-indexed and loss in ranking. So far as I think I don't see any terms related to ranking in my posts. What I focused - Sites are deindexed in automated algo updates too". Here do you think I mentioned completer, whole, fully complete, or similar terms in this sentence. (CTRL+F you will find it in this post only). Out of several tests and algo updates how many times you are notified personally for any update or release, off-course neither . Kindly look into this post ... http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-ppc-seo-discussion-forum/673572-my-site-got-de-indexed-google.html I don't think the guy is talking about any Penguin, Panda or Webmaster Notification but site got deindexed. What do you think? I am not here to debate with such an experienced guy, Member on this forum since Dec, 2013 (Forum digital point I think it's almost more than 10 years old), Why so late Tycho (Didn't you hear about Digital Point earlier). In my first post, I mentioned the the type of penalties and took you into thread. Lastly I added " Sites are deindexed in automated algo updates too" It may be temporary due to "Copyright, Trademark, Brand Infringement etc. or Permanently due to non-adherence of Google Webmasters Guidelines. Here for more " De-indexed site doesn't mean it can't be recovered". Follow the recovery steps & send reconsideration request, may be it will live up again.
I got a manual penalty. I did get a message on webmaster tools. Website was not de-indexed. It went down to about page 5. The reason was that there were too many backlinks. These were backlinks coming from a vendor that supplies leads. I had vendor backlinks removed, but I am not planning on doing anything else. I asked Google for reconsideration to remove the manual penalty, but was told to contact all the admins for bad backlinks that disavow tool was not enough. I am trying to figure out what happens if I do nothing. I am hoping it is just a time penalty and it will come back up.