Google penalty question

[brandonre]

Is a google penalty like in hockey you have an infraction against you and you are put in the penalty box for a certain time? I see people saying their site has a 30 day penalty. Can someone explain the google penalty further.

[webmaster]

No it is not, Google penalties are not time limited penalties - they are specific to something you have done wrong, and until you fix the issues, write Google with proof that you have fixed the issues, apologize for what you did and promise to never do it again. When and if Google removes the penalty is up to Google.

What has been reported in the past is that after a certain fix for a certain excessive linking issue "some" users were getting let back in after around 30 days, but that is not the same thing, it is not constant and just an observation.

I do not believe that anyone knows specifically how long any Google penalty will last (Other than Google of course)

[Agnafl]

Is buying a directory submission the same thing as a paid link. On Google Webmaster Tools there is a link to the left of the control panel that says "report paid links". Dear God tell me that is not the same thing.

[Auliya]

No it is not the same thing. I'm sure there are some people who think it is the same, but there is a big difference between say paying $100 to be included in an online directory compared to paying say $50 a month to get a link from someones website, personal or commercial.

[Agnafl]

OK thanks.

[Jason Painter]

No it is not the same thing. I'm sure there are some people who think it is the same, but there is a big difference between say paying $100 to be included in an online directory compared to paying say $50 a month to get a link from someones website, personal or commercial.

I guess I might be one of those people. Although I'm not totally disagreeing with you, looking at the other side of the coin I would say they might indeed be the similar. Why would someone want to be linked from a high ranking directory? Link Juice. You are essentially paying to be in a huge group of state pages in most cases. I guess I have a hard time seeing the difference. You pay for it via cash or reciprocal links which we know Google hates both now.

I think it would be hard to argue that any discernible percentage of the population would use directories to search for anything in todays age. Thats what search engines are for.

Here is I guess the best way to look at this question, would you spend all these countless hours linking from directories if they all had no follow links? I would guess Google sometime in the future might use this as the litmus test and devalue the outgoing links accordingly. This is just my uneducated opinion though, I'm a real estate broker, not a SEO specialist! I guess I should keep my mouth shut...

[JimOlenbush]

Here is I guess the best way to look at this question, would you spend all these countless hours linking from directories if they all had no follow links? I would guess Google sometime in the future might use this as the litmus test and devalue the outgoing links accordingly.

Good point. They may already be devalued to some degree. I don't think they will ever hurt, but they may not help much either.

[brandonre]

Thanks for the explanation Morgan
I don't think I have ever been penalized,and hope never will.

[Lydia]

For what it's worth, seomoz has a blog post about real estate reciprocal linking penalties here:

Seo Moz post about RE recip linking penalty

I'm sure some of those penalized would notice this line,"He's been in the penalty zone, allegedly, for over 60 days, and I wouldn't be surprised if the penalty took another 5-10 weeks (or more) to lift."

[JimOlenbush]

I wonder why some sites would get to come back in several weeks and others would get nailed for several months? (assuming the same "violations") The whole thing has been so handled so unfairly.