Has my website been banned on Google?

Banning a website by Google is the most severe penalty a website can receive. As a result of being banned by Google, the site disappears from the search engine index. This means that the website, its subpages, and subdomains do not appear in search results.

As a result, organic traffic to the website declines. What can cause a browser to ban a site? Below, we present the most common cases.

Causes of Website Ban

Website banning usually results from violating Google’s webmaster guidelines and various errors. The most frequent mistakes made by webmasters include blocking robots in the robots.txt file, incorrect CMS configuration, and incorrect HTTP headers on the site. Since Google’s algorithms highly value original, unique, and useful content, a ban will be imposed on sites containing duplicate content, plagiarism, and hidden content — for example, text written in white font on a white background or stuffing the site with as many keywords as possible. Attempts to deceive algorithms — such as showing different content to users than to the search engine — are also penalized. Links obtained through exchange systems are negatively rated as well, as they result in low-quality links and spam replication.

How to Remove a Google Ban?

If you suspect that your site has been penalized with a ban, use a simple method to check. In the search engine, enter the command: site:yourdomain.com. If no results appear, it means your site has been penalized. Receiving a penalty is not the end of the world or your website. You need to find and eliminate the cause. A thorough SEO audit will be necessary. In this case, we advise against conducting a basic self-audit — it’s better to seek help from a professional equipped with the necessary analytical tools. The longer the ban lasts, the worse it is for your site’s positioning, so you should make every effort to quickly locate and fix the cause. The bad news is that corrective actions and ban removal are not tasks for a few hours; they may take from 3 to 6 months.

Once the errors are corrected, you should add the site to Google Search Console and submit a request to lift the ban. Use the “Request for Reconsideration” form for this purpose. After the ban is lifted, make every effort to provide good content for your site and improve its search engine ranking. Avoid black hat SEO tactics and other prohibited techniques. If you lack experience in online marketing, seek help from experienced specialists. This way, you can be confident that your site will earn high ratings from Google bots and gain new organic traffic.