Any SEO expert knows you need to stay in the good graces of Google in order to maintain positive page ranking and a good reputation. The last thing you need to do is incur a Google penalty, whether it’s by your own gray or black hat doings or a relationship with someone else who uses shady tactics.

When Google does decide to punish it can be something as minor as a temporary drop in rankings or a major hit like an all-out ban. It should be obvious that any type of penalty is bad for business, both for the SEO company and its customers.

Google Penalty

Assuming a webmaster only uses white hat practices there should be no penalty problems as long as he or she pays attention to those they do business with. The following are some signs to look for that may indicate a Google penalty:

The Duplicate Content Issue

With its latest round of updates, Google has really focused heavily on the quality of content. Meeting requirements for this new update starts with avoiding duplicate content. This is not good news for content farms that love to take an article and spin it a million times, but it is good for webmasters and SEO companies interested in quality over quantity.

Along those same lines, it is also important to remember relevance. Google is being very particular about filtering out content that has been put together with no thought of relevance or usefulness. Relevant supplies to both subject matter and links.

Webmasters that want to succeed would do well to not look at Google as the enemy, but rather a friend trying to ensure only worthwhile websites get the high-ranking they deserve. If you learn what makes Google tick, it is a lot easier to maintain high page rankings without penalties.