Pure Spam Penalties: The Next Big Thing in Content Quality?

In Google’s ongoing quest for high quality user experience and a better Internet, pure spam penalties may be the next big thing in content quality. Google has already made it clear that content matters and if all of the algorithm updates centered on quality content haven’t scared your web efforts enough, pure spam penalties will have you running away screaming. While that may be an exaggeration, the prospect of Google de-indexing your site due to pure spam penalties is frightening for any company.

What are pure spam penalties?

Pure spam penalties occur when pages on a website use techniques outside of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. These sites typically use aggressive spam techniques such as:

• Automatically generated gibberish
• Cloaking
• Scraping content from other sites
• Repeated or outstandingly bad violations of Google’s quality guidelines

Pure spam penalties may be the next big thing in content quality. How do you know if you’ve received a pure spam penalty? Within Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools) you’ll receive a message noting that your site has quality issues and it details the actions you can take to resolve them.

Why Quality Content Matters

Digging deeper into the root cause of pure spam penalties, we see that most of the reasons concentrate on content. Through quality content you prove to Google that your site provides value to searchers and deserves to be indexed. If your site doesn’t provide any original content or value, you may receive a pure spam penalty. Pure spam penalties can result in de-indexing by Google, which means you won’t be able to be found online.

What Can You Do To Remove Pure Spam Penalties?

It’s possible to have pure spam penalties removed. In addition to making deliberate efforts to improve the quality of your website, you will need to submit a reconsideration request to Google. Once you have updated your site to meet Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and submitted the reconsideration request, the pure spam penalties can be removed. What should you include in the request? We suggest:

• Admit to possible spam tactics and explain what steps you’ve taken to fix the problems
• Don’t be argumentative and point out why Google was wrong to give you a penalty
• Explain what steps you’ve taken to add quality content and discuss the value you’ve added

Google wants to see you’ve put in a good effort toward improving your site. There are circumstances when you may not have actual spam issues. For example, if you recently bought a domain name that was once used for spam. In this case you’ll need to explain to Google in the reconsideration request that it had a pure spam penalty attached to it when you purchased the domain. In order to have the penalty lifted, you’ll have to have your own, new content on the site.

Websites can recover from pure spam penalties, but if it wasn’t clear enough already, quality content matters. Face your fears by developing quality content for your website and don’t let Google’s pure spam penalties frighten you.