Receiving a Google penalty can be a disaster for a WordPress website. Your page rankings will drop and stop bringing many visitors. If organic search is your primary source of traffic, you’ll race against the clock to find and recover from a Google penalty as sales stagnate.
The worst is that sometimes, the reason a Google penalty happens and what you should do to fix and prevent it in the future is not obvious. This guide will try to help you in this effort.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- What is a Google penalty in SEO, and how to spot it
- What are the most common types of penalties
- How to recover from a Google penalty
- How to prevent actions taken against your WordPress website
Let’s start with exploring what Google SEO penalties are.
How to identify if your WordPress website is penalised
A Google penalty is an action taken by Google against your website if it suspects you are breaking one of its spam policies. As a result, the penalised page will either drop in rankings, or be completely removed from the search engine result pages. The same can happen to the whole website.
Mostly, when we talk about Google penalties, we mean manual penalties. These are issued by Google employees who have reviewed your WordPress page and decided it goes against one of the many Google guidelines on spam.
Google also uses an AI-based spam detection algorithm, SpamBrain. Google detects and takes action against 40 billion spammy pages per day, and it’s safe to assume 99.9% of those pages are taken down by the algorithm, not a human reviewer.
Algorithmic actions against your site aren’t technically considered a penalty; only manual actions are. The way it works is the same – Google believes your website is breaking the spam policy and demotes your site or page in search. Google doesn’t call it a penalty, simply the correct functioning of the spam detection algorithm that demotes websites.
This article will refer to manual and algorithmic actions as Google penalties because they have the same effect.
Detecting a manual penalty is straightforward. You will receive a notification and can find it in the Manual Actions report in Google Search Console (GSC). You’ll learn why your site was penalised and how to fix the problem.
It’s much harder to detect an algorithmic penalty. They’re not available to view in GSC, so you’ll have to base your assumptions on other factors.
Look for sudden drops in traffic and impressions on your site. Competitors might outperform you in search, but this process tends to be gradual. If you see a drop across the whole website that happens in less than a week, it is likely that the Google algorithm deemed your site spammy.
It’s best to overlay your traffic dynamics over the Google algorithm updates timeline. Your WordPress website may be hit with a penalty at any time, but it’s very common to see a lot of sites drop ranking positions after the algorithm update. The rules change, and the algorithm considers something that was normal before a spammy practice.
On this site, for instance, traffic dropped significantly after each update in 2024.
Source: SE Ranking
Alt: Traffic drops after Google updates.
Keep in mind that some drops in traffic are normal during the update. The search results become volatile for 3–5 weeks as Google’s updated algorithm finds the best fits for each keyword. If the traffic drops significantly and doesn’t bounce back in a month, your site was probably demoted.
Common reasons for Google Penalties on WordPress websites
Google’s Spam Policies contain around a dozen major types of violations, each containing multiple ways it can be done. Let’s focus on the five most common reasons an average WordPress website would get penalised.
1. Thin or duplicate content
Most WordPress website owners don’t have a dedicated content writing team that creates dozens of unique pages for them. If you cut too many corners when it comes to content and many pages on your site are the same or very similar to others on the internet, you might get penalised.
Specifically, Google is looking for content reposted from other sites without or with very minimal changes and content created with AI tools with little value. Using tools that replace words with synonyms and rearrange phrasing to combine multiple texts and rephrase them without adding anything of your own also falls under this category.
If you’ve been re-posting content from other sources, work on making it unique – or rewrite it completely for Google penalty removal.
2. Keyword stuffing
Keyword optimisation is a necessary part of WordPress SEO. But if you overdo it, it becomes keyword stuffing and can lead to a penalty.
Google won’t take action against you for a few more keywords than usual, though. It looks for specific patterns, like paragraphs that only contain keywords or location names, or unnatural repetition of keywords in the text, or in HTML tags – like the title and H1 heading.
The key here is unnatural. A list like this won’t be considered a violation. Even though all of the terms in bold are keywords, it makes sense in the context of showcasing services.
Source: HML Law
Alt: Keywords used naturally in the text.
If you were to create a bullet-point list of only keywords, that might be considered a breach of the rules.
A few violations like these won’t trigger the algorithm, but if it’s a common pattern on your site, you might face a penalty.
For a Google penalty removal, optimise your pages for keywords properly. If you have too many pages to go through manually, you can use an SEO tool that allows you to analyse pages and suggests an optimal number of keywords to include.
Unnatural backlinks
Links are a very important ranking factor for Google. It’s the factor that was and still is abused the most, and Google takes measures to combat this and prevent people from manipulating their algorithms.
Your WordPress site can get penalised for suspicious links pointing to your site, and when you link to suspicious websites.
When a lot of spammy websites link to you, it’s typically either because you have bought links from shady vendors or because someone is trying to demote your site. You can find those if you run your site through a backlink analysis tool and look for websites with low trust metrics and a high spam score.
You can ask website owners to remove those links or disavow them with Google’s Disavow Tool.
When your site links to spammy ones, it’s because you’ve taken part in a link exchange scheme before, your site has been hacked, or you have left your post or page open for comments. Sometimes, people will leave multiple comments with spammy links, and your site will take a hit for that.
Find those links on your site and delete them. If you don’t recall placing them, it’s best to do a security audit to remove third-party access to your site.
Slow website speed & poor user experience
One of the hundreds of ranking signals Google uses in its formula is Core Web Vitals. It includes website speed and website performance factors like the time it takes to load the first piece of content and the visual stability of the page while loading.
If your website performs poorly on mobile or desktop, it won’t be manually penalised but rather demoted by Google’s algorithm.
There are factors in play when it comes to website technical health, so it’s best to run a technical audit with a specialised tool like SE Ranking’s SEO audit tool. A tool like this will highlight problems your website has and provide suggestions on how to fix them, like compressing large image files or lazy loading for some resources.
A common best practice is to keep your WordPress plug-ins updated and get rid of unused ones to improve speed and security.
Cloaking & hidden text
Cloaking – or hiding elements of a web page from users while showing them to the search engines – is a sneaky way to take advantage of Google’s algorithm. However, most WordPress users penalised for this have done it as an honest mistake.
Your site can have CSS code displaying text out of the screen, text hiding behind an image, having zero font size, or black-on-black text. All of these can happen unintentionally due to a lack of experience in using WordPress or a new plug-in, and it can sit on your site for years. If Google catches it, you might receive a penalty.
To remove it, find instances of hidden text and edit them.
Sometimes, when WordPress sites get hacked, the hacker will insert links with cloaking, and you won’t even know about it. A handy way to find them is to use Google’s URL Inspection Tool to see how pages are shown to the search engine.
A step-by-Step guide to Google Penalty removal
Many WordPress website owners won’t know there’s something wrong with their site until they have to recover a Google penalty. Here’s how to recover from both manual and algorithmic actions against your site.
Recovering from Manual Actions
Manual penalties can be easier to recover from because you actually know what’s wrong with your site. Log into your Google Search Console and go to the Manual Actions report. It will show you what type of problem Google reviewers have found and what pages it affects.
If only a couple of pages are affected, inspect them closely to find the problem. You might have to use the URL Inspect Tool to find hidden text or links. When you’ve pinned the problematic part of the page down, bring it in line with Google’s best practices.
Issues that affect the whole site are typically tied to spammy links pointing to it. In this case, you’ll have to use an SEO tool to analyse your backlink profile. If you don’t want to purchase a costly subscription, a freelancer can do this for you and send you a link report for an affordable price.
The best backlink checker tool is one that shows you metrics like trust and spam scores. You’re looking for links with low-trust and high-spam metrics, especially the ones that were added not long before the manual action. Now, you could just go ahead and disavow them all, but Google reviewers might not consider it a “good faith effort,” as per its guidelines.
You’ll have to contact webmasters and ask for the links to be removed. You might not get an answer from most, but the record will serve to convince Google you’re a good-faith actor when you appeal. When you’ve tried to get some of them taken down, use the Disavow Tool to remove them from your profile.
After fixing all of the issues, go to the Manual Action report and click on “Request Review.” Describe what the issue was and what you did to fix it.
Fixing Algorithmic Penalties
SEO penalty recovery for algorithmic actions is harder because you don’t know exactly what caused the traffic to drop. So, you’ll have to start with an SEO audit. Look at the following areas:
- Any changes done to the site before a traffic decline
- Any new backlinks you’ve received recently
- Security issues you might have encountered
- Keyword optimisation patterns on your site
- Content quality across the whole website
- User-generated spam in the comments
- Technical optimisation
With a decently sized WordPress site, it might take a week or two to gather and make sense of all this data. When you do, look for areas that might be breaking Google’s spam policy or slowing your site down.
Typically, you might find problems with thin content, keyword over-optimisation, or spammy links pointing to your site. Fix the problems on your site and disavow bad links.
After this, double down on good SEO practices. Earn new links from authoritative websites and update your website regularly by posting new quality content. This will improve the odds of Google recrawling your website and discovering that it has improved.
How Long Does the Google Penalty Recovery Process Take?
The speed of the Google penalty recovery process for a manual penalty depends on how many issues you have to work on. Fixing problems on a few pages might take you a couple of days, and site-wide issues might take weeks.
From there, it might take around a week for Google to review your request. Reviewing issues related to backlinks might take more time.
Recovering from an algorithmic penalty is more of a guessing game. You may find the issue outright and bounce back in a few months. Or you may spend upwards of six months trying to find and fix it. If it’s been months and your traffic is still down, contact professionals.
Best Practices to Avoid Future Penalties on WordPress Websites
Recovering from a Google penalty is hard and takes time. Here are the best practices that will help you avoid most penalties.
Run Regular WordPress SEO Audits
The first prevention tool is a simple SEO audit. Knowing your website in and out will help with catching potential problems before they escalate into a penalty.
Monitor keyword positions, traffic and impressions for sudden drops, as they may be a sign of a penalty. Monitor technical SEO for common issues with Core Web Vitals or redirect problems. Do a regular security audit to prevent site hacking.
Monitor Backlinks with a WordPress SEO Tool
Another area to monitor monthly is the backlink profile. Penalties issued for spammy links take the longest to recover from, so it’s best to find bad links and handle them before they become a problem.
You can use a specialised WordPress SEO tool like SEOPress or Link Whisper for this or an all-purpose SEO tool.
Also, check for spammy external links. If your site has links to unfamiliar spammy sites, it’s a sign of it being hacked.
Update Themes & Plug-ins Regularly
Sometimes, your site can be perfectly fine in terms of security and optimisation, but an outdated theme or plug-in can make it vulnerable to hackers. Make sure to update them regularly, as new updates can include security bug fixes.
Use a Lightweight Theme
Another tip to improve the performance of your WordPress website is to use a lightweight theme. A theme like GeneratePress or Astra doesn’t take up much space and is optimised to load fast.
This can help you avoid being demoted in search due to poor Core Web Vitals.
Avoid Overusing SEO Plug-ins
Sometimes, it makes sense to use two or more SEO plug-ins when they can offer different useful features. If you do this, make sure to configure them correctly. Otherwise, both may create meta tags that conflict with each other and cause duplicate content issues.
Follow Google Search Essentials
The best tip for staying safe is to read Google Search Essentials and follow them. There’s a lot more to WordPress SEO than these, but if you don’t stray away from Search Essentials, you shouldn’t get penalised.
Do this not only for the spam policies but to follow guidelines on content creation and technical website optimisation as well.
Focus on High-Quality, User-First Content
Backlinks and content quality are at the top of Google’s list of priorities when it comes to issuing penalties. Create unique, helpful content, and you’ll be able to rank more easily and avoid manual action.
Avoid Black-Hat SEO Tactics
If you try to manipulate the search algorithm, you’ll likely receive a penalty instead of increased traffic.
Most WordPress website owners aren’t exactly black-hat SEOs, so this mostly means staying out of buying links and engaging in link exchange schemes.
Summary
With the tips from this guide, you’ll be able to recover from a Google penalty. Stick to Google’s best practices to make sure you don’t get hit with one in the first place.
Improve technical website health, don’t try to dabble in questionable SEO practices, and create high-quality content.
Learn about improving WordPress security, as many manual penalties are given to unsuspecting owners of hacked sites.
