How to Check if a Website is Banned in Search Engines
The English word “to ban” has long become part of everyone’s vocabulary. But what specific meaning does it have in the context of SEO?
A complete removal of all pages of a site from the search engine results is referred to as a site ban. Naturally, in such a case, your web page will not be displayed in search engine results. Therefore, if you find yourself facing this issue, do your best to understand it and find a solution as quickly as possible.
What is the difference between a ban and a sanction?
Sanctions are a partial penalty. When they are applied, the position of your site in search results will worsen. A ban, on the other hand, is a total penalty, meaning the site will not appear at all in search results.
How to check a domain for a ban in Google search system?
If you want to immediately check a web page for the presence of a ban before starting work, there are several methods to do this.
Using search results
To check a site for a ban using search results, all you need to do is enter the search string combination site:myexample.com (where myexample.com is the name of the site you want to check). It is also important to remember that you must enter the main mirror. If your web page was added to the search system but is not shown in the results, you can talk about a ban.
Brand check in search results
If your client is sufficiently popular, they can be checked using this method. You simply need to enter the name of the client’s site in the search bar, for example, www.adidas.com. If the site is not blocked, it will show up in the results.
Check in Google Search Console
In this service, you simply need to go to the “Manual Actions” section. There you will see notifications about sanctions or blocks. If there are no blocks or restrictions, the message will be like this:
Traffic analysis
You can view the graph of incoming traffic. If the last indicator has significantly decreased, then most likely the site is under a ban.
When checking for the presence of a ban, do not forget to find out or check whether all technical work has been performed properly, whether the site was accessible to users, and whether it was hidden from indexing.
Reasons for site blocking
The reasons for a site falling onto the blacklist become violations of search engine requirements. Below you will see a list of actions that can lead to a ban in Google:
- hidden text;
- hidden links;
- masking;
- copied content;
- pages with viruses and other harmful programs;
- participation in partner programs using someone else’s content;
- irrelevant keywords;
- doorways;
- participation in schemes for exchanging links;
- improper use of microformats;
- automatically generated content.
What to do if the site is blocked?
If you are sure that your site has fallen under blocking, then first of all you need to understand the reasons for the ban. In the case when you cannot understand why a restriction has been imposed on the web page, write to Google support (or another search engine) and find out what actions caused the site blocking.
You can also resolve this problem by filing an appeal. For this, you need to write a formal polite request, in which you should strive to convey your thoughts as constructively as possible. After receiving a response to your email, eliminate all specified reasons for the ban and wait for the unblocking; this process may take a relatively significant amount of time.
Also do not forget the fact that even after lifting a ban, the site’s position in the results will deteriorate. Because of this, many companies make decisions to move to another domain after blocking.
In conclusion
A ban is a complete removal of the site from search output. Many confuse this restriction with sanctions, but the latter is characterized by a decrease in the page’s positions in the results.
You can check the site for blocking in search output, monitor traffic, and in Google Search Console.
To remove a ban, you need to write to the support of the search system or submit an appeal with a request to help regarding the handling. Even with a favorable response, the process of unblocking could take a considerable length of time.
