Google's -30 penalty

**Brandon Sheley** · 11-02-2006, 08:43 PM

Webmasters in online forums have discovered a new Google filter that Google uses to downrank web sites in its result pages. Has this filter been applied to your web site? How can you avoid that Google applies that filter to your site? What is Google's -30 filter?

The -30 filter is a penalty that Google applies to web sites that use spammy SEO techniques. If Google applies the penalty to a web site, the rankings of that site are downgraded by 30 positions.
Many webmasters in online forums reported that they had top rankings on Google and now they cannot get beyond position 31 in Google. Some webmasters even have #31 rankings for all of their keywords on Google.

Why does Google apply the -30 filter to some web sites?

It seems that Google applies the -30 filter to web sites that use certain spamming techniques. It seems that the following techniques trigger the -30 filter on Google:
Guestbook spamming

If you try to get inbound links by spamming guestbooks and blogs then Google might apply the filter to your web site.

JavaScript redirectsJavaScript redirections might be misinterpreted as a spamming attempt. Better use 301 htaccess redirect if you must redirect URLs on your pages.

Doorway pagesGoogle doesn't like doorway pages. If you must use special landing pages for PPC ads and other ads, make sure that these pages cannot be spidered by Google and other search engines. You can use robots.txt to do that.

What can you do if Google applies the -30 filter to your site?

First of all, you should remove the spam elements from your web site. If you use JavaScript redirects or doorway pages, remove them from your site.
The -30 filter seems to be an automated filter. If you remove the spam factors from your site then you'll probably get your rankings back after some time. You can also send a reinclusion request to Google.
If nothing helps, then the only way to get reincluded in Google is to get a new domain name.

Google doesn't like spammers. If you want lasting results then you should focus on ethical search engine optimization methods.

**jw00dy** · 11-07-2006, 11:31 PM

Very interesting information. I have learned a lot tonight about how google works (good or bad).

Thanks for the information.

**Brandon Sheley** · 11-08-2006, 02:47 PM

your welcome, and don't forget the "thanks" button

**jw00dy** · 11-10-2006, 01:21 AM

Sorry... I guess I'm not sure I "get" the premise behind the thanks system? Then again, I don't use anything like it, so of course I wouldn't

discorati · 11-26-2006, 09:34 PM

what does Google consider a "doorway" page?
How can I learn more about this?

**Brandon Sheley** · 11-26-2006, 09:39 PM

a doorway page is just a page with a lot of links to other parts of your site..

Some argue that the thread tag's and the thread clouds are doorway pages.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jw00dy

Sorry... I guess I'm not sure I "get" the premise behind the thanks system? Then again, I don't use anything like it, so of course I wouldn't

you used it perfectly

**acers** · 12-03-2006, 07:49 PM

come to think of it, isn't posting your link say on forums as sigs also the same thing.
whats the difference there? Ultimately having link in guestbook doesn't automatically mean you have deliberately spammed there. You might actually wanna thank a guy.

**Brandon Sheley** · 12-03-2006, 08:25 PM

yup, thats one of the arguments that sig links can hurt a site or not.

**acers** · 12-03-2006, 08:37 PM

time to remove my sig links from god knows how many sites :rolleyes:

jokes apart, if this is the case, thats a pretty serious issue no? Almost everyone i know has links in sigs pointing to their site. And if the guestbook logic is true, then i doubt google looks at sigs in any different manner. If eveyone starts getting a -30 penalty, there are going to be some mediocre sites topping google.

Tcier · 12-03-2006, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brandon

a doorway page is just a page with a lot of links to other parts of your site..

Some argue that the thread tag's and the thread clouds are doorway pages.

you used it perfectly

Brandon- can you tell me if the homepage on my site , tripcart.com is considered a doorway page, since we have a whole list of links to our inner pages on the bottem.
Thanks!!!:-/

**Brandon Sheley** · 03-15-2007, 07:19 PM

Here is some more Related info about the Google -30 filter.

Google tries to keep its search results as clean as possible. For that reason, they have a variety of spam filters in their ranking algorithm that try to remove low quality web sites.
If your web site gets caught by one of these filters, it will be very difficult to get high Google rankings. In this article series, we're taking a look a the 15 most common Google spam filters and we'll tell you how you can get around them.
Google's -30 filter, the Google bomb filter and the page load filter

Google seems to apply the -30 filter to web sites that use spammy SEO methods. If Google finds out that your web site uses invisible text, JavaScript redirects, doorway pages or similar spam techniques then your rankings will drop by 30 spots.
The Google bomb filter seems to be applied to web sites that get too many identical links in a short time period. If a web site gets many links with exactly the same link text then Google will downrank the page because such an unnatural linking behavior indicates a manipulation attempt.
The page load filter is not exactly a filter. Nevertheless, it can affect your Google rankings. If your web site takes too long to load then the search engine spiders will time out and continue with the next web site in the list. That means that your web site won't be indexed and that it won't appear in Google's result pages.

How to get around these filters

If the -30 filter has been applied to your web site then you must remove the spam elements from your web site. After removing the spam elements from your site, send a reinclusion request to Google.
It is very important that all spam elements have been removed from your site before contacting Google. Otherwise, the reinclusion request won't work. Use white-hat SEO methods to optimize your web pages.
If the Google bomb filter has been applied to your web site then you also have to file a reinclusion request. However, it is better to avoid that Google applies that filter to your site. Try to get high quality inbound links with similar but varying link texts. These links will tell search engines that your web site is relevant to a special topic.
If you want to avoid that a slow loading web page prevents search engine spiders from indexing your page, make sure that you have a reliable web host. If your web host offers 99% uptime then this means that your web site can be down for nearly 4 days per year. If search engines try to index your site when it is down then it will be removed from the index.

**MaestroX** · 03-16-2007, 02:38 AM

I don't agree with you when you say "guestbook spamming" and "sig spamming". If this was so, it would be easy for anyone to degrade a competitors site in the SERPS.

Sounds silly right?