Google wants only the best. In December 2000, the search engine began changing its algorithms every so often to change the ranking of the web pages on its search results. The purpose of this monumental change is to offer only the best content to its users. Google wants nothing more but accurate information, unique content, and quality writers and Tampa web design‘. It doesn’t want to associate itself with bad content. As a result, the search engine improves its algorithms to weed out the bad websites from the good ones.

This is all good news if you are a legitimate website with a legitimate business. The only downside is that there’s a penalty involved for websites that cannot comply with these rules. This is the consequence of Google honing its ranking factors to give you only the best kind of search results. While some penalties are well-deserved, some websites fall victim to circumstances. If you have ever found your site penalized by Google, you obviously want to know why.

Since December 2000, Google has continued to refine the quality of its search results. While refining the search results, it was also busy removing bad content from its index. This means that a website with poor-quality content will not be ranked anymore. That’s the beginning of penalties.

When Google introduced the Penguin update in 2012, it affected at least one for every 10 websites. It penalized websites with poor-quality content and forced web designers, web developers, and content writers to improve the quality of their website design and content. Never before have web designers, content writers, and developers been at the mercy of a search engine. But Google, with all its might, made web owners fear the next big update.

How can you know if your Tampa web design as penalized? It’s not always automatic. This means your site won’t automatically go off Google’s radar. Sometimes, you will receive a warning that your site is about to be penalized. Sometimes, the search engine gives you enough time to fix the problem. Most of the time, you won’t have enough time to fix the issue. You’ll suddenly find your website out of Google’s index, and that’s it.

So, what are the common causes why websites can be penalized? Buying links, excessive reciprocal links, duplicate content or plagiarism, overusing H1 tags, internal 404s, and keyword-stuffed content are some of the reasons why Google can penalize your website. Make sure you are not guilty of any of these.