Google release a new tool to check if they have penalised your site

Until recently this has always been very difficult to tell. Google can penalise your site for various reasons including:

• Buying links
• Using hidden text ie with CSS positioning or Javascript,
• Keyword Stuffing (that’s the process of inserting far too many keywords into your text in an effort to rank better)
• Spam

If detected then your site would be penalised and drop in the rankings.

Now you can quickly and easily tell using Google Webmaster Tools which we assume you are using right?

To use this tool, sign into your Google Webmaster Tools account, go to the website you would like to check, click on ‘Search Traffic,’ then ‘Manual Actions.’ There you will either see nothing (meaning your website wasn’t manually penalised), or you will see a message telling you why your website was manually penalised.

For example:

Although this is very useful, Google don’t then go on to tell us how to reverse the penalty.