I Got My Website Banned by Google, What To Do?

Fortunately, there is a process you can follow to figure out why your site was banned and how to get it reinstated. If you’ve been hit with a Google ban, here’s what you need to do next.

Find Out Why You Were Banned

The first step in dealing with a Google ban is figuring out why it happened in the first place. This can be tricky since Google doesn’t always provide an explanation for its decisions. However, they do offer some helpful tips in their webmaster guidelines that can help shed light on the situation. In particular, their guide on content policies and prohibited practices provides some insight into which types of content will result in a ban from the search engine giant.

Clean Up Your Site

If you think your site was banned because of one or more violations of Google’s webmaster policies (such as keyword stuffing, sneaky redirects, cloaking, etc.), then the next step is to clean up those violations and any other issues related to them. It may take time and effort but it’s worth it if it means getting your site back online and accessible via search engines again.

To make sure everything is done correctly, consider hiring an SEO expert who knows the ins and outs of webmaster policy compliance. They’ll be able to quickly pinpoint any issues that need to be addressed before requesting reinstatement from Google.

Likely Reasons for a Google Ban

1. Spam links
2. Duplicate content
3. Incorrect schema set-up
4. JavaScript redirects
5. Redirect chains
6. Presenting different content to Google and different to users
7. Keyword stuffing
8. Hidden text

It is important to always check if you, yourself have not inflicted your website with a problem by accidentally de-indexing it. Otherwise most times, one of the above reasons or a combination of them will be the culprit.

Request Reinstatement From Google

Once you’ve cleaned up your site and made sure it complies with all of Google’s webmaster policies, it’s time to request reinstatement from the search engine giant. You can do this through the reconsideration request form provided by Google. When filling out this form, make sure to include all relevant information about your website (including its URL) as well as detailed descriptions of the changes that have been made since the ban was put in place. Once submitted, Google will review your request and decide whether or not they will reinstate your site back into their index.

Do Not Break the Rules

Losing access to search engine traffic can be devastating for businesses – especially when it happens without warning or explanation like when a site gets banned by Google. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to figure out why you were banned and how to get reinstated so that your website is once again visible through search engines such as Google and Bing.

Through careful research into content policies and proper cleanup of any violations or potential issues found on-site, you should eventually be able to successfully request reinstatement from the search engine company so that people are once again able to find your business in search engines.