How nicely does Google detect rank manipulation?

Google provides an excellent service to the world that allows us to search the web for information, products, and anything else we are looking for. It is even difficult to determine which results best match our queries, only gives us context-relevant entries and ranks them according to their trustworthiness or authority. The higher the rank of a website, the more trustworthy Google keeps it – which is good because we are probably only interested in clicking on the first entry in the SERPs.

However, this presents a secondary problem: Rank manipulation. Motivated webmasters can engage in schemes and nefarious habits that are solely used to manipulate their rank – and appear more trustworthy than they actually are.

Related: 3 Growth Strategies Small Businesses Can Learn From Google

In response, Google has developed countermeasures to detect cases of rank manipulation and to punish or remove them accordingly. But how good is Google at detecting rank manipulation?

The problem with defining rank manipulation

Before delving too deeply into this discussion, it is important to identify the problems with the definition of “rank manipulation”.

Some examples of rank manipulation are egregious. In the early days of search engine optimization (SEO), it was common for users to spam keywords across their entire website in order to rank higher for that keyword term. For example, you might find a website that consists of only the phrase “best pizza NYC” over and over again. This is clearly for no other purpose than keyword optimization, is bad for the user experience, and has a clear purpose.

Other examples are harder to define. For example, buying a link on another website to improve your rank is considered rank manipulation; The same applies if you spam your link on another site, such as through a forum comment. Having a publisher voluntarily linking to your site is perfectly acceptable. But what if you pay to have an article published on a high profile publisher site and your article happens to be one. contains? natural link back to your site? Is that rank manipulation or not?

Related: Changes to Google’s Keyword Tools and How to Maximize Success Using Them

It is difficult for human experts to define exactly what rank manipulation is, so it is only natural that Google’s ranking algorithm should also have problems.

Google’s fight against rank manipulation

If you are found to be practicing rank manipulation, Google currently offers two main tools to punish you:

1. Natural ranking effects. If you use techniques that violate Google’s quality standards, or if the quality of your work is deemed inadequate, your website may inherently decline in the rankings. This usually happens immediately after a new algorithm update and your rankings won’t change too much. You can often attribute it to the natural volatility of search rankings after such an update.
2. Manual actions. If it is found that you are practicing serious violations of the Google Terms of Service, you might be contacting one “Manual action” by Google itself. If so, you may be blacklisted from Google search results altogether. Don’t worry, if manual action has been taken on your website, you will know about it. Google will do everything possible to inform you of the penalty and to show you a possible solution. You can also review your current manual actions in the Google Search Console.

So what is “rank manipulation” in Google’s eyes?

Usually this is one or more of the following:

• User deception / manipulation. If you deceive or mislead your users in any way, Google will get you. Misleading redirects, masked links, and other forms of tampering are good ways to face a penalty.
• Keyword spam. Since semantic search functions became part of the equation, exact match keywords became less valuable. Even so, millions of webmasters still practice keyword spamming to keep moving up the rankings – and almost all of them end up being penalized.
• Link Schemes. Link schemes include shady link building practices such as: B. buying links or participating in link circles. Any link scheme can earn you a penalty.
• Very poor quality work. Spam links, poorly written content, and other poor quality works are likely to be penalized.

In other words, if you avoid these top priority violations, Google likely won’t be able to flag you for rank manipulation, even if the actions you are taking are aimed at improving your ranking.

The bottom line

How well does Google detect rank manipulation? It’s good, but it’s not that good. You won’t get away with gross violations of Google’s webmaster guidelines. However, if you are really trying to produce high quality work and have a good user experience, then Google is not smart enough to know your “real” underlying intentions.

The best SEO strategies today are the ones that result in really good content and overall good user experiences. So is it at all fair to qualify these actions as “rank manipulation” at all?