Identify The Penalty Before You Make Any Changes
A lot of Webmasters start trying to change parts of their site before they’ve found out what’s caused the problem.
Not only is this a dumb move, but it can also go on to make problems worse in the long run.
Instead of making an emotional decision you should take a step back, analyze the problem, and build a rehabilitation strategy that’s going to work for your site.
7 Google Penalty Checker Tools That Make Life Easy
This list isn’t ranked in any order from best to worst, however, it is a little bit split.
Tools number one to four will allow you to see the penalty that hit your site.
And tools number five to seven will help you keep an eye on Google activity and protect your site against possibly upcoming algorithm changes & Google updates.
A change in the Google algorithm can hurt your site’s performance on Google search results that’s why it is crucial to get tools that help to take manual actions.
#1 – Moz Change History
Moz maintains a very helpful page that lists all of the major algorithm updates (such as Google Panda & Google Penguin), the date they happened, and additional information about the update.
You can also use this page to get further reading to help you understand how this problem might affect your site, or what could be coming in the future.
This page is updated immediately after a major change is reported so if you’ve seen a big drop-off in your results, there’s a good chance that it’s been featured here.
If you ever suspect you’ve been hit with a Google Penalty, I’d suggest you start with this tool.
#2 – Panguin Google Penalty Check Tool
The Panguin Tool from Barracuda has been around for a long time. It’s simple, easy to use, and provides a lot of quick information for you with a great user experience.
All you have to do is sign in with your Google Analytics accounts and you’ll be able to instantly see a map of your traffic data and the exact moment a Google Update went live:
The vertical lines on the graph represent the different major algorithm updates to show you the impact they could have had on your traffic.
If you click on any of the lines it’ll give you a description of the update, why it happened, and what it could mean for your site.
In my opinion, the Panguin Tool is the best Google penalty checker on the planet.
#3 – Rank Ranger
Rank Ranger combines elements of Moz’s Change History tool and their MozCast tool to bring you all the information on one screen.
It offers a deeper level of information for you about each individual update:
It’s also a little more black and white about what it considers to be an important change.
If the chart is in the green range you’re okay, once it’s red you’re in danger, and when it’s blue you don’t need to worry about anything at all.
It simplifies the information a little while giving you a deeper insight into what might be happening.
A really cool alternative.
#4 – Fruition’s Google Penalty Checker Tool
Fruition’s Google Penalty Checker is a little-known, but powerful tool for pinpointing exactly what made a difference to your site.
To use it, you’ll need a free account set up. But once you’re in you can get a wealth of data. The first data you’ll see is a plot graph of updates on how they’ve impacted your site:
It really comes into its own when you scroll below the fold and look at the written data.
In the chart it will show you every recent Google algorithm update, and calculate the probability that it will have changed traffic to your site:
You’re even able to see the changes in traffic that it could bring you through different devices.
And, if you’d like, you can learn more about each of the changes in further detail.
#5 – SEMRush Sensor
SEMRush Sensor is by far the most comprehensive tool on this whole list.
While Panguin is still arguably my favorite, this comes in a close second.
Taking a slightly more ‘medical’ approach it shows you a pretty precise monitor of what Google has been doing the last few days:
But you can also look at the activity within individual niches too. Which is a truly extraordinary set of results to be given away for free.
Drilling down into the tool further you can add your own site for analysis.
Then SEMRush Sensor will look at every page and the keyword you rank for and spit back a bunch of data about your personal SERP volatility-
#6 – Accuranker’s Google ‘Grump’ Rating
This is one of my favorite tools for monitoring what’s going on with Google’s Algorithms.
The Grump Rating shows you how active the Google Algorithms have been updating lately, and how likely a change is going to come today – or in the next few days – that will impact your SERP rankings.
You can check this out across a range of devices and locations around the world. Gives you location-specific insights for wherever you’re located.
#7 – MozCast
If you prefer your data delivered to you in a more bite-sized chunk, a good alternative to Accuranker is MozCast.
MozCast displays the current state of Google’s activity like a weather forecast, showing a daily weather report-
If the forecast is getting warmer and stormier you could be heading towards an algorithm update. And if it’s cool and clear skies, rankings will be staying where they are.
You don’t have the same level of flexibility you do with the Accurank tool, but it’s nice if you want a morning rankings report to see what’s happening on a general level.
What To Do Once You’ve Identified Your Penalty
Once you have isolated the problem with a Google penalty checker tool, you can start to analyze the cause of the issue.
Always check Google Search Console for error messages/problems first.
Remember that correlation of your search traffic dropping with an algorithm update doesn’t necessarily mean it is the update at fault!
For example, your site may have been hacked and hosting malware.
If you notice that your traffic drop does correlate with an algorithm change, then that should point you in the right direction of what to look at first as a cause.
Usually, issues fall into 2 or 3 categories-
- Backlink Based – If you have a backlink-based penalty that means that you’re having link building issue. To fix it you need to perform a backlink analysis thanks to a backlink audit. Link Building is for many considered a black hat SEO technic – even though I believe that black hat/white hat SEO are stupid labels – you must be careful about how you build your backlinks to stay out of trouble. You must avoid excessive link schemes & spam links on your web page.
- Content-Based – If you have a content penalty, follow this guide or this guide to perform a content audit. You can get a penalty if the algorithm detects low quality, duplicate content, keyword stuffing, anchor text, or thin content.
- On-Site Penalty – If you have an on-site penalty that is not caused by thin content issues then use a tool like URLProfiler (see my full URL Profiler review) or Screaming Frog SEO Spider to analyze your site.
Many webmasters set off in the wrong direction from the get-go, so make sure you take time to understand why the site dropped on the search results with the Google penalty checker tools before taking any action.
Once you identified the root cause and fixed the issue, submit a ‘reconsideration request‘ to let Google knows.
Content Source: Google
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