Fix Your SEO Problems With These 7 Google Penalty Checker Tools

Are You Using Blacklisted Backlinks? Check Now

Got a website penalty? Click here to get help right now…

…Or follow my step by step Google penalty recovery process.

It’s an awful feeling, isn’t it?

One day you close your laptop safe in the knowledge that your site is getting healthy amounts of search traffic.

Then, the next morning, you find out your site has been hit with a Google Penalty.

What was once a solid stream of targeted traffic is now nothing more than a trickle of slightly interested people.

But you can come back from this.

  • The first step is to know which Google Penalty has stung you and why you’ve been penalised.
  • The second step is to know how to monitor for future algorithm changes to make sure it doesn’t happen to you again.

In this article I’m going to share with you seven Google penalty checker tools.

These tools will allow you to see exactly which update is to blame, and how you can future-proof yourself against future penalties.

In fact:

We ran these exact tests (to get case studies) on this site before we boosted search traffic 14x!

Identify The Penalty Before You Make Any Changes

A lot of Webmasters start trying to change parts of their site before they’ve found out what’s caused the problem.

Not only is this a dumb move, it can also go on to make problems worse in the long run.

Instead of making an emotional decision you should take a step back, analyse the problem, and build a rehabilitation strategy that’s going to work for you site.

 Stabbing in the dark and trying to fix something blindly isn’t going to get you anywhere.
 
Accurately diagnosing which penalty is at play is essential to recovering your site, and it can be done in less than five minutes using one of the SEO tools on this list.

If you’ve done any link building recently, I highly suggest you run them through this link building checklist to identify any hidden problems.

7 Google Penalty Checker Tools That Make Life Easy

This list isn’t ranked in any order from best to worst, however it is a little bit split.

Tools number one to four will allow you to see the penalty that hit your site.

And tools number five to seven will help you keep an eye on Google activity and protect your site against possibly upcoming algorithm changes & Google updates.

A change in the Google algorithm can have a negative impact on your site’s performance on Google search results that’s why it is crucial to get tools that help to take manual actions.

#1 – Moz Change History

Moz maintains a very helpful page that lists all of the major algorithm updates (such as Google Panda & Google Penguin), the date they happened and additional information about the update.

You can also use this page to get further reading to help you understand how this problem might affect your site, or what could be coming in the future.

This page is updated immediately after a major change is reported so if you’ve seen a big drop-off in your results, there’s a good chance that it’s been featured here.

If you ever suspect you’ve been hit with a Google Penalty, I’d suggest you start with this tool.

#2 – Panguin Google Penalty Check Tool

The Panguin Tool from Barracuda has been around for a long time. It’s simple, easy to use, and provides a lot of quick information for you with great user experience.

All you have to do is sign in with your Google Analytics accounts and you’ll be able to instantly see a map of your traffic data and the exact moment a Google Update went live:

panguin google sandbox and penalty checker tool

The vertical lines on the graph represent the different major algorithm updates to show you the impact they could have had on your traffic.

If you click on any of the lines it’ll give you a description of the update, why it happened and what it could mean for your site.

What I also like here is that it comes with this little dashboard of icons:

filter options

This allows you to switch on and off all of the different possible causes for your drop in traffic and see through a lot of the more confusing data.

 In my opinion the Panguin Tool is the best Google penalty checker on the planet.
 

#3 – Rank Ranger

Rank Ranger combines elements of Moz’s Change History tool and their MozCast tool to bring you all the information on one screen.

It offers a deeper level of information for you about each individual update:

It’s also a little more black and white about what it considers to be an important change.

If the chart is in the green range you’re okay, once it’s red you’re in danger, and when it’s blue you don’t need to worry about anything at all.

It simplifies the information a little, while giving you a deeper insight into what might be happening.

A really cool alternative.

#4 – Fruition’s Google Penalty Checker Tool

Fruition’s Google Penalty Checker is a little known, but powerful tool for pinpointing exactly what made a difference to your site.

In order to use it you’ll need a free account set up. But once you’re in you can get a wealth of data. The first data you’ll see is a plot graph of updates how they’ve impacted your site:

 Fruition’s Google Penalty Checker Tool

It really comes into it’s own when you scroll below the fold and look at the written data.

In the chart it will show you every recent Google algorithm update, and calculate the probability that it will have changed traffic to your site:

easy to read chart

You’re even able to see the changes in traffic that it could bring you through different devices.

And, if you’d like, you can learn more about each of the changes in further detail.

#5 – SEMRush Sensor

SEMRush Sensor is by far the most comprehensive tool on this whole list.

While Panguin is still arguably my favourite, this comes in a close second.

Taking a slightly more ‘medical’ approach it shows you a pretty precise monitor of what Google has been doing the last few days:

But you can also look at the activity within individual niches too. Which is a truly extraordinary set of results to be giving away for free.

SEMRush Sensor

Drilling down into the tool further you can add your own site for analysis.

Then SEMRush Sensor will look at every page and keyword you rank for and spit back a bunch of data about your personal SERP volatility-

semrush sensor personal site

There are a bunch of other awesome features as well and this is a tool I’d highly recommend you keep an eye on going forward.

Check out my SEMRush review to get more detailed informations about this amazing tool.

#6 – Accuranker’s Google ‘Grump’ Rating

This is one of my favourite tools for monitoring what’s going on with Google’s Algorithms.

The Grump Rating shows you how active the Google Algorithms have been updating lately, and how likely a change is going to come today – or in the next few days – that will impact your SERP rankings.

You can check this out across a range of devices and locations around the world. Giving you location specific insights for wherever you’re located.

The tool grades current Google activity at one of the following four levels:

rank activity

It’s rare to see Google down at the chilled level, but I have known it drop to cautious from time to time.

You’re also able to go back and see what the activity has been like over the past few days, weeks, months or years and look for patterns in Google’s movements.

Or find where you site might have been slightly penalised in the past.

I’d recommend you check in with this tool at least once a week to keep yourself up to date with the current state of affairs and feel free to take a look at my full Accuranker review.

#7 – MozCast

If you prefer your data delivered to you in a more bite sized chunk, a good alternative to Accuranker is MozCast.

MozCast displays the current state of Google’s activity like a weather forecast, showing a daily weather report-

If the forecast is getting warmer and stormier you could be heading towards an algorithm update. And if it’s cool and clear skies, rankings will be staying where they are.

You don’t have the same level of flexibility you do with the Accurank tool, but it’s nice if you want a morning rankings report to see what’s happening on a general level.

What To Do Once You’ve Identified Your Penalty

Once you have isolated the problem with a Google penalty checker tool, you can start to analyse the cause of the issue.

 Always check Google Search Console for error messages/problems first.
 
Remember that correlation of your search traffic dropping with an algorithm update doesn’t necessarily mean it is the update at fault!

increase your search traffic

For example your site may have been hacked and hosting malware.

If you notice that your traffic drop does correlate with an algorithm change, then that should point you in the right direction of what to look at first as a cause.

Usually, issues fall into 2 or 3 categories-

  • Backlink Based – If you have a backlink based penalty that means that you’re having link building issue. To fix it you need to perform a backlink analysis thanks to a backlink audit. Link Building is for many considered as black hat SEO technic – even though, I believe that black hat/white hat SEO are stupid labels – you must be careful about how you build your backlinks to stay out of trouble.You must avoid excessive link schemes & spam links on your web page.
  • Content Based – If you have a content penalty, follow this guide or this guide to perform a content audit. You can get a penalty if the algorithm detects low quality, duplicate content, keyword stuffing, anchor text or thin content.
  • On Site Penalty – If you have an on site penalty that is not caused by thin content issues then use a tool like URLProfiler (see my full URL Profiler review) or Screaming Frog SEO Spider to analyse your site.

Many webmasters set off in the wrong direction from the get go, so make sure you take time to understand why the site dropped on the search results with the Google penalty checker tools before taking any action.

Once you identified the root cause and fixed the issue, submit a ‘reconsideration request‘ to let Google knows.

And remember, penalties can be avoided if you follow Google good practices and follow my 45+ steps SEO checklist.

Pro tip: If you’re not penalised but simply stuck in the Google Sandbox, check this guide to learn how to get out of the Google Sandbox as quickly as possible.

Google Penalty Recovery Services

 The easiest way to fix a Google penalty is to have someone else fix it for you.
 
My agency has a 100% recovery success rate like this site that went from penalty to 114 number 1 rankings.

If you want my personal SEO team to take care of your Google penalty, then use our Google penalty recovery service!

We’ll also make sure that your website respects Google’s Webmaster Guidelines – with a clean link profile and high-quality content – so you don’t get other penalties.

Feeling brave? You can try to remove your penalty by yourself following my Google penalty recovery guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I check my penalty on Google?

To check your website penalty on Google, you can verify if you have been penalized by manual action from Google. If so, the website owner is notified through Google Webmaster Tools and receives a letter explaining the reason for the penalty.

But, if you have been hit by Google updates, another solution is to use a Google penalty checker tool which will give you a lot more visibility of what is happening with your website and accurately diagnose the problem.

With more and more Google updates like Google page experience, Google Penguin 4.0 and Google Panda (released to improve search quality), it’s crucial to keep checking for penalties and to follow best practices of specialists like Matt Cutts to avoid them.

How long does a Google penalty last?

The amount of time a penalty lasts depends on a few variables, including what the penalty is and the extent of the problems you have to fix. But to give you an idea, a manual penalty can last anywhere from 10 to 30 days, depending on how quickly you’re able to fix the issues while an algorithmic penalty can last anywhere from a month to a year.

Why is my website ranking dropping?

If you notice a drop in your website traffic and ranking on Google search results, you need to find the reason for this. Check thanks to a Google penalty checker tool if you have any manual action messages from Google.

If yes you have been hit with a penalty. If not, you need to run a site audit to figure out what the issue is.

But remember, being hit by an algo update would only impact your ranking on Google search engine and not on the other search engines.

Note: To prevent your site to get hit by the next Google update, I suggest you take a look at my Google Page Experience update checklist as well as my how to improve your Core Web Vitals blog post.

Does my site have a penalty?

If you have experienced a sharp or even steady drop in search traffic then chances are you have been hit by a penalty.

This can be either a Google algorithm update or a manual penalty for something specific. If your site does have a penalty you need to act quickly to get it fixed.

How do I get rid of a Google penalty?

To remove a Google penalty, follow these 4 steps:

  1. Use Penalty Checker Tools to find out why you have been given the penalty.
  2. Once you understand why you got penalised, start working on fixing your website to adhere to Google’s guidelines.
  3. Submit a reconsideration request to Google.
  4. Put a plan in place to ensure that they do not reoccur.

If this is too much work for you, you can also use our Google penalty recovery service.

278 Responses

  1. subhajit barik
    6.2.2022

    My site is hit by google product reviews update 2022. What should I do? My site lost its keywords rank very badly. Please advise me.

    • Matthew Woodward
      June 8th, 2022 at 8:04 am

      You should investigate and find out why your site has been penalized. Once you understand what happens, you can fix the problem(s).

  2. GUILHERME MARQUES DE FARIA
    7.14.2021

    espetacular este conteúdos. show de bola MATTHEW.

    VALEU MATTHEW. MUITO OBRIGADO. NAMASTÊ….

  3. J Mazumdar
    4.14.2021

    can you send me the tools so that I can check about the Google penalty?
    regards
    J Mazumdar

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 14th, 2021 at 10:49 am

      Just click on the links to access the tools

  4. jet z
    12.9.2020

    my two sites got penalty by Broad Core Algorithm Update – 03/12/2020, and my traffic dropped most of the keywords dropped a lot, so I am looking what happened and how to recover from google updated

    • Matthew Woodward
      December 9th, 2020 at 9:24 am

      Yes, analyze the situation, understand what happened, and fix the issues. This is what you have to do! Good luck!

  5. Deepak Dhiman
    11.5.2020

    This article is really helpful for a beginner like me. I will use these tips for my website. Thanks for sharing this. Great work.

    • Matthew Woodward
      November 6th, 2020 at 10:13 am

      Thanks, Deepak!
      Keep it up!

  6. Paulo Silva
    10.12.2020

    Good advice.

    Thank You Matthew.

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 12th, 2020 at 9:48 am

      No problem, Paulo!

  7. Shaurya Jain
    9.7.2020

    Very informative article! Thanks for sharing. Let me know which is the best tool for google penalty checking.

    • Matthew Woodward
      September 9th, 2020 at 11:03 am

      In my opinion, the Panguin Tool is the best Google penalty checker.

  8. Premdigit
    5.5.2020

    Nice article.

    • Matthew Woodward
      May 7th, 2020 at 5:25 am

      Thanks a lot.

  9. Sudhir
    10.17.2019

    Thankyou very much sir,

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 18th, 2019 at 10:58 pm

      You’re welcome

  10. Ikanesia
    10.3.2019

    thx. very helpful

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 4th, 2019 at 6:57 am

      No worries – happy to help.

  11. chitra tamu
    8.3.2019

    it is very helpful article Thank you very much matthew

    • Matthew Woodward
      August 6th, 2019 at 12:42 am

      Happy to help Chitra!

  12. Srinivasareddy Chennareddy
    7.31.2019

    Very helpful article. thank you

    • Matthew Woodward
      August 1st, 2019 at 1:23 am

      No problem – happy to help :)

  13. Sandy
    7.19.2019

    Very helpful article for me thank you sir for share this tips

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 20th, 2019 at 2:14 am

      No worries Sandy. All the best.

  14. Matthew Woodward
    6.28.2019

    No problem, glad you liked it

  15. lingaxl.org
    5.28.2019

    I think this site has some very great information for everyone :
    D.

    • Matthew Woodward
      May 29th, 2019 at 5:26 am

      I think so too ;)

  16. rakesh
    5.27.2019

    This article is very nice and helpful for people like me who are new to this field. Thank you for taking out time to write this article

    • Matthew Woodward
      May 27th, 2019 at 5:30 am

      Happy to help Rakesh!

  17. Deepak Kumar
    5.8.2019

    thanks for sharing this tips

    • Matthew Woodward
      May 8th, 2019 at 11:00 am

      Hope you found them useful Deepak.

  18. Nikhil Shastri
    5.7.2019

    This is really informative and beneficial knowledge. I am so glad.
    Thanks for share.

    • Matthew Woodward
      May 8th, 2019 at 11:13 am

      Hope it helps out with your SEO Nikhil.

  19. Alex Noor
    2.17.2019

    Hello matthew, your website discuss 7 Google Penalty Checker Tools Article. Thank for your helpful post for me.

    I have got much information about 7 Google Penalty Checker Tools. Any People can index site for reading. Looking for your site to get information. I will bookmark your site to get next post.

    I am waiting for your next Post

    • Matthew Woodward
      February 18th, 2019 at 2:49 am

      Thanks Alex, I have plenty more posts on their way.

  20. وبسایت هادی احمدی
    1.30.2019

    thank you for your website

    • Matthew Woodward
      February 1st, 2019 at 5:27 am

      No problem, I hope you got what you needed.

  21. Emre Önder
    1.24.2019

    Thank u for your information.Great article

    • Matthew Woodward
      January 25th, 2019 at 3:17 am

      No probs! Thanks very much :)

  22. Jitender Sharma
    10.13.2018

    Thank you for sharing

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 15th, 2018 at 8:50 pm

      No worries, hope it proves helpful.

  23. Jina
    8.31.2018

    Well great! informative post you wrote, happy with your article. Thank you for sharing.

    • Matthew Woodward
      August 31st, 2018 at 10:11 am

      No problem Jina, I hope it helps

  24. Ravi
    8.5.2018

    Nice post i have fix my problem

    • Matthew Woodward
      August 6th, 2018 at 11:20 am

      Great news Ravi!

  25. Md Shadab Alam
    7.31.2018

    All of the techniques you mentioned are supper awesome as always. What I like most is Panguin Tool from Barracuda.

    • Matthew Woodward
      August 1st, 2018 at 9:48 am

      Thanks, hope they work well for you.

  26. gopala Krishna
    6.21.2018

    Thanks for sharing .this tools help for me

    • Matthew Woodward
      June 21st, 2018 at 11:55 am

      Awesome news! You are welcome

  27. Ali Hassan
    6.4.2018

    Thank You Matthew For Sharing Such a Helpful topics of Google Algorithm .

    • Matthew Woodward
      June 4th, 2018 at 12:21 pm

      No problem, glad you enjoyed it

  28. Richard
    5.17.2018

    Thanks for sharing this great amazing tips. People will get many information from it. Thank you so much.

    • Matthew Woodward
      May 18th, 2018 at 10:08 am

      Hey Richard, no problem. I hope so

  29. Shane McDonald
    4.16.2018

    Seems like I was hit by Fred badly – the cause, some blog posts which were less than 200 words. I had quite a few of them …. working on extending my content now!

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 16th, 2018 at 10:29 am

      Hi Shane, glad to have been able to help

  30. Download Lagu
    4.14.2018

    Nice Info :)

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 14th, 2018 at 11:18 am

      Thanks :)

  31. DownloadLagu
    4.7.2018

    This Article Very help full thanks

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 9th, 2018 at 4:00 pm

      No problem, glad you found it helpful

  32. manoj
    4.5.2018

    informativ. use full information

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 9th, 2018 at 4:16 pm

      Thanks again Manoj

  33. Gaucho
    4.2.2018

    good compilation, thks!

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 2nd, 2018 at 7:24 am

      no problem, hope to see you again

  34. Abdullah Jan
    3.14.2018

    I readout this article and found useful interesting.

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 2nd, 2018 at 9:40 am

      Glad to be of use Abdullah

  35. hafez
    3.8.2018

    in my idea , useful content is the best seo of site thank you anyway and these 7 tolls are good.

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 3rd, 2018 at 10:19 am

      Thanks Hafez

  36. Amit shakyawar
    1.4.2018

    Ultimate article for giving me new tips
    It’s very helpful for me

    • Matthew Woodward
      January 5th, 2018 at 4:26 pm

      No problem Amit!

  37. Raghuveer Singh Rao
    12.29.2017

    I like the blog post, It is very good information and I am in Industry from last 4 years and yes this article is still helpful for me with new learning and new tool like “Accuranker’s Google ‘Grump’ Rating”. I love this tool, nice stuff.

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 2nd, 2018 at 11:53 am

      Thanks for the feedback

  38. Naimuddin Saifi
    12.17.2017

    nice article, it is very helpful , please keep doing the good work.

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 2nd, 2018 at 12:09 pm

      Glad to be of help

  39. max kumar
    11.13.2017

    Awesome article thanks for sharing very help ful

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 3rd, 2018 at 11:58 am

      No Problem Max

  40. قالب وردپرس
    10.25.2017

    Thank you very much for your advice and for introducing good sites

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 2nd, 2018 at 2:14 pm

      Pleased to help, now it’s down to you

  41. Deepu
    10.21.2017

    Hi, Matthew this so much useful article thank you .

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 2nd, 2018 at 2:20 pm

      Glad it has been useful to you

  42. John Peter
    8.17.2017

    Many thanks, Matthew Woodward. You helped me to recover my penalized site.

    Great Job

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 3rd, 2018 at 8:46 am

      Thanks John, glad to hear it!

  43. SEO Nagpur
    7.17.2017

    Really the above list of tools will definitely help to track google’s algorithm updates, thanks for sharing such great resource.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 17th, 2017 at 3:49 pm

      No problemo :)

  44. Rod
    7.16.2017

    Great article Matthew. THanks for the tips, it’s very helpful.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 17th, 2017 at 3:50 pm

      No problem Rod!

  45. Subh
    7.15.2017

    Hi Matthew,

    You really did some good research and wrote about this great tools in your blog post, but I feel as a blogger very few guys will be able to spend that much money to use the tools that are listed here! These tools are perfect for digital marketing pros.

    – Subh

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 17th, 2017 at 4:00 pm

      No problem Subh glad to be of service

  46. RACHEL
    7.14.2017

    Recently my site got hit by the recent update and I was feeling down as i wasn’t able to find out the cause of my penalty. After seeing your post I got some inspiration to move forward, Could you please suggest what should we avoid from getting penalties? I have noticed that 2 of websites are in same condition.
    Thanks dear

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 14th, 2017 at 8:17 pm

      Well which penalty do you have?

  47. Emmerey Rose
    7.13.2017

    Thanks for the tips Matthew! :) This is very helpful! I was wondering, how do you make sure to avoid getting any penalty?

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 13th, 2017 at 10:31 am

      Just do regular site audits and monitor your links

      • Emmerey Rose
        July 13th, 2017 at 9:58 pm

        I see. Thanks Matthew for responding! :)

  48. Seo Traning surat
    7.13.2017

    You shared an really useful information for checking website penalty stats.
    your blog post are very nice and useful for me.
    Thank you so much for sharing this post.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 13th, 2017 at 10:31 am

      No problem glad to help!

  49. Vishwajeet Kumar
    7.12.2017

    Hi, Matthew,

    These are some of the best tools to check any penalties that you site have received. Thanks God! I didn’t received any penalty so far. My favorite tool is MOZ change history checker, Its helps me to aware myself with latest algorithm updates., which helps me to take quick decision on my site’s SEO. Thanks for bringing up this useful tools.

    Have a great Day :)
    Vishwajeet

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 12th, 2017 at 1:26 pm

      Yeah and they usually update it pretty quick as well!

  50. Satya
    7.12.2017

    These are very helpful ways that I can call but, I’m just frustrated with these things because they make everyday difficult with updates. Just a quick joke,

    Thanks for the quick share.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 12th, 2017 at 1:29 pm

      Well SEO certainly keeps you on your toes!

  51. SMN Zaman
    7.10.2017

    Hi Matthew,

    You’ve featured some of the exciting tools to check the penalty of a site. In fact, I’ve not used any of them before, but from now on, I’m very much interested in using,,,

    Hope to see more great posts like this one,
    SM

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 11:18 am

      No problem glad to have helped!

  52. Technviral
    7.8.2017

    Hey, thanks for this Article, please tell me a tool which detects the cause of the Google update.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 11:23 am

      Did you read the article?

      • technviral
        January 26th, 2018 at 1:35 pm

        yes

  53. Adeel Sami
    7.5.2017

    Hey, Matt!

    Oh wow! I used to use Fruition back in the time and found it to be the good tool for the task it is designed for!

    It is my luck or what, I don’t know but I did not feel I ever got into the penalty but it is better to confirm how I am doing. :)

    So, thank you for the great list of awesome tools!

    ~ Adeel

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 11:31 am

      No problem Adeel!

  54. vineet k
    7.4.2017

    Thanks a lot for sharing this great article with us. Your article is very informative and useful. With the tools that you discussed above, it would be very easy to recover a penalised site.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 11:36 am

      No problem :)

  55. nishagarg
    7.3.2017

    Now, this is the list you can say very useful. I experimented with all the tools, haha. You probably have them tested too, right Matthew? Though none of my websites were penalized, it seems I need to work a lot on the main ones. The latest update did show approx. 50% effect on few sites.

    Added to my post sticks.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 11:45 am

      Glad it helped you out!

  56. hd wallpaper
    6.30.2017

    Very Good article.! Thanks for sharing nice information. i think not for beginner but nice

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 11:56 am

      Glad to help!

  57. Drill SEO
    6.30.2017

    Thanks for Sharing Google Penalty Checker tools

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 11:59 am

      No problem!

  58. Akki
    6.30.2017

    Thanks @matthew sharing informative post.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 11:59 am

      No problem Akki!

  59. Chinmay Joshi
    6.29.2017

    Apart from typical informative articles on Digital Marketing,this one is quite unique.Thanks for sharing.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 12:30 pm

      Glad you enjoyed it!

  60. Muthukrishnan
    6.29.2017

    Amazing article….thanks for sharing

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 12:30 pm

      No problem!

  61. Dan at MoneyGulp.com
    6.29.2017

    Great article Matthew.
    Should help me solve some problems in the future :)

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 2:01 pm

      I hope so :)

  62. Farhan
    6.29.2017

    I have been using most of these tools and they have been very useful when analyzing sudden web traffic changes.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 2:02 pm

      And most of them are free to use as well :)

  63. Soni Kumari
    6.29.2017

    Thanks Matthew for Providing These 7 Google Penalty information :)
    Regards
    Soni

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 2:03 pm

      Glad to be of servie!

  64. موفقیت
    6.28.2017

    good tools and good informations . thak you mathew !

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 2:05 pm

      No problem!

  65. Susan Velez
    6.28.2017

    Hi Matthew,

    It’s nice to know that you can recover from a Google penalty. One of my past sites got hit from a penalty back in the day.

    I had no clue how to fix it or who to turn to. Before the penalty, my site had a few number one spots and was actually making money.

    After the update, the site fell like a rock. I lost pretty much all my income overnight.

    Instead of trying to fix the site or being bothered with it, I let the site go. (I really didn’t care about the niche anyway).

    With my current site, I am no longer focused 100% on SEO. While I still make sure my posts are properly optimized, I don’t stress it.

    So hopefully, I won’t get hit with another penalty. If I do, you can bet that I’ll be using one of these tools. I may even have to call on your services to take care of it.

    Thanks for taking the time to share these tools with us, I know that they will help so many bloggers out.

    Have a great day :)

    Susan

  66. mughees
    6.28.2017

    Nice job Matthew you’re sharing a very useful article. Thanks for sharing it.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 2:08 pm

      No problem!

  67. Saurabh tiwari
    6.28.2017

    Hi Matthew,
    Yes, Any Google updates whether it’s both Panda and Penguin definitely gives a bad hit for your blog/website. You have highlighted tools for checking the Panda and Penguin Update is just great. I am sure it would definitely help. Thanks for the share!!

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 2:09 pm

      No problem my friend!

  68. Michael Curry
    6.27.2017

    Some handy tools I will definitely have to check out, thanks!

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 2:10 pm

      No problem!

  69. Vikash Kumar
    6.27.2017

    Hi, I am Vikash Kumar from India.

    I love your writing.

    This post is one of the helpful posts for me.

    This post saved my lots of time.

    Thanks.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 2:11 pm

      No worrys!

  70. LANSYSTEMS
    6.27.2017

    Great tips. Your articles are very helpful. Let’s go to the next

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 4:53 pm

      No problem :)

  71. Bennes C
    6.27.2017

    It’s rather useful that some of these tools complement each other to produce a comprehensive overview of the site for the owners, making it easier to pinpoint the cause of the penalty.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 11th, 2017 at 4:53 pm

      Yeah they sure do!

  72. Lò nướng Sanaky
    6.26.2017

    love your blog ! it looks lovely !

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 12th, 2017 at 1:39 pm

      Thanks!

  73. Troy K
    6.26.2017

    Fruitionis super cool, never heard of it thanks Matt! One thing I gotta mention if you go into the SEMrush organic view that superimposes all google updates with rankings and your own notes, it’s incredible, you’d dig it!

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 12th, 2017 at 1:40 pm

      Awesome extra tip thanks!

  74. Usman Ghani
    6.26.2017

    finally i found that my site is hit by Panda in 2103, now its time to work and restore its ranking

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 12th, 2017 at 1:40 pm

      Great to hear, run it through DeepCrawl and fix everything it tells you.

  75. Jagadish Prasad B
    6.26.2017

    Hello Sir, Nice article. After doing all the things what you told I came to a conclusion that my website is affected by panda or penguin effect. Please help me how to solve this problem and get my website back.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 12th, 2017 at 1:41 pm

      Well which one is it?

  76. Fred Franks
    6.26.2017

    Great article, I planning on using a few of those tools you posted thanks for all the great information you provide to us

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 12th, 2017 at 1:41 pm

      No problem Fred!

  77. Jai
    6.26.2017

    Hey! Matthew again a great information read in your site. Thanks men for increasing my knowledge

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 12th, 2017 at 1:41 pm

      No problem Jai!

  78. lagurock
    5.26.2017

    Cool stuff about how to recover and analyze Google algorithm update.

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 13th, 2017 at 7:18 pm

      I hope it helps you one day

  79. Rsi lucky
    5.23.2017

    May I ask for your template?

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 14th, 2017 at 8:20 pm

      For what?

  80. Dipesh rai
    5.11.2017

    Amazing article. I had some issue on one of my site and I you got me out of it. Thanks man

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 17th, 2017 at 6:45 pm

      What problem did you have?

  81. Stafabandy
    5.11.2017

    How to exit from sandbox?

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 17th, 2017 at 6:45 pm

      Patience :)

  82. Calendar UK
    5.3.2017

    Nice article, will definitely check the panguin tool!

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 18th, 2017 at 5:43 pm

      It’s a great tool

  83. Ed Kramer
    4.12.2017

    This is a great article. Thank you.

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 12th, 2017 at 5:13 pm

      No problem Ed!

  84. ashimc
    4.11.2017

    Good articles.! Thanks for sharing nice inforamtion.

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 14th, 2017 at 9:00 am

      No problem Ashimc

  85. kelly grace
    2.25.2017

    I am getting really amazed while read your post. Thanks for sharing this good informations. It surely helpful to prevent my website from scam.

    • Matthew Woodward
      February 25th, 2017 at 7:05 am

      No problem Kelly!

  86. Lagu Baru Terlengkap
    2.24.2017

    Hi! I’m new to your site, thanks for the effort! :D

    • Matthew Woodward
      February 25th, 2017 at 7:07 am

      No problem =D

  87. satta matka
    2.22.2017

    An Amazing Post I seen and very happy to read that nice and usefull content thanks for share.

    • Matthew Woodward
      February 25th, 2017 at 7:18 am

      No problem Satta!

  88. Stafaaband
    2.22.2017

    Ok thanks bro for share this article, your article is nice.

    Bro answer please my ask!
    Google Penalty to site use ads pop up?

    • Matthew Woodward
      February 25th, 2017 at 7:19 am

      No popup ads are ok, but not interstitial on mobile

  89. lagu terbaru
    1.5.2017

    your article just helped me discovered how and when some of my clients lost trafiic. Mantap

    • Matthew Woodward
      January 20th, 2017 at 1:22 pm

      No problem :)

  90. Ronny Djie
    11.6.2016

    Thanks Mr Matthew.. you help beginner like me to learn how to check

    • Matthew Woodward
      November 8th, 2016 at 10:20 am

      Did you find anything in your checks?

  91. Madhushalini
    11.3.2016

    Matthew Woodward thanks for sharing this informative article. After the updating of Panda and Penguin SEO become harder. Now people are using proper ways to do SEO and avoid these updates. These 2 tools are complete packages to conquer Google update

    • Matthew Woodward
      November 3rd, 2016 at 9:41 am

      They certainly help!

  92. sanjeev
    8.25.2016

    Thanks .matthew

    These tools help us a lot to recover a any website of google penalty. I am following your all techniques and read your every article and this is the reason i am deliver good result. Thanks Man again.

    • Matthew Woodward
      September 5th, 2016 at 9:18 am

      No problem Sanjeev, thanks for your continued support!

  93. Musikan
    8.6.2016

    your article just helped me discovered how and when some of my clients lost trafiic.

    • Matthew Woodward
      August 8th, 2016 at 12:46 pm

      Glad to be of service :)

  94. Somil Bhargava
    6.11.2016

    Great tool Penguin. I have a site that is about 5-6 years old and used scraped content plus original work.

  95. electric gate guy
    2.27.2016

    Great post Matthew. Not sure how I missed this first time round.

    Thanks again for sharing

    • Matthew Woodward
      March 1st, 2016 at 2:46 pm

      No problem :)

  96. Emiliano TheElearner
    1.12.2016

    Great tips, I have another one that I learned, a while ago, not sure if you write about, if you search your domain.com in google, should be first, if you search domain com without the . you should be in the first 3 pages of google, if you are not, add the site to webmaster tool, and 99.99% of the time, you will see that you have some kind of penalty.

    I use everyday on 100 of domains that I get submitted, look simple but work.

    • Matthew Woodward
      January 15th, 2016 at 9:59 am

      Sounds like a strange tip haha – how would you do it for a .co.uk domain?

      • Emiliano
        January 16th, 2016 at 9:54 am

        I never used yet on co.uk but I buy expired domains all the times, but just expired on in auction, and I check it all the time, if doent show up for domain com, net etc with space, is penalized. I dont buy them.

        Try buy one put on the google webmaster tool, 99% of the time will tell you that is penalized

  97. MrGambo
    11.12.2015

    Great tool Panguin. I have a site that is about 5-6 years old and used scraped content plus original work. It dipped in the rankings initially so I left it alone and got on with other projects. Using the Panguin tool I can see that over the last 2 years it has been getting more visits after each update. I’m impressed. Maybe I should do a bit of housework on it and liven things up a bit.
    Cheers

    • Matthew Woodward
      November 13th, 2015 at 9:43 am

      I love it when old sites spring back to life =D

  98. Seb @ Express SEO Bournemouth
    10.28.2015

    Thanks Matthew, your article just helped me discovered how and when some of my clients lost trafiic.

    Thanks again for sharing such awesome stuff.

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 29th, 2015 at 7:13 pm

      No problem glad to be of service :)

  99. Professioneseo
    9.23.2015

    Wonderful post Matthew, i use each day panguin tool and it save me a lot of time.

    • Matthew Woodward
      September 23rd, 2015 at 11:07 am

      Awesome tool :)

  100. Suresh Kumar
    7.28.2015

    Am confused, please send me a direct link to check my website status for these updates or penalities by Google.
    Last week when i checked my site domain authority and page authority on moz, that shown me DA 18, and PA 24 with www, and wothout www DA 18, PA 31.
    Spam score without www is Zero. But with www it secured 4/17 .
    So please kindly suggest me and guide me if you have time.

    Regards
    Suresh Kumar

    • Matthew Woodward
      July 29th, 2015 at 1:34 pm

      Or instead of me doing all of the work, you could read the post and do it yourself?

  101. Pete Bournemouth
    7.17.2015

    Just got a couple of clients with penalties so wanted to say thank you for this article as it’s going to prove to be very useful!

  102. Paul
    10.22.2014

    The Chrome plugin seems to have disappeared from the Chrome Web Store. The link in the article shows an error.

    Anyone have any alternatives to Chartelligence? Sounded like a good tool.

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 22nd, 2014 at 4:59 pm

      Just use Panguin instead :)

  103. Ashley
    10.18.2014

    Hi Matt! My site was penalised just recently (Panda 4.1).
    Let’s say if I fixed everything, how long should I wait for my recovery?
    Does Panda/Penguin “refresh” quickly? Thanks in advance.

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 20th, 2014 at 4:42 pm

      It can take a few months up to never =\

  104. I. C. Daniel
    9.11.2014

    Chartelligence link is broken Matthew. :(

    Anyways I had days when traffic was going down and I was worried maybe I was doing something wrong and the recent update cause this but I continued to work on my site and traffic from search engines is up again.

    • Matthew Woodward
      September 11th, 2014 at 3:49 pm

      Yeah they canned it I think =/

      Thats great to hear you managed to push through and build traffic – keep up the good fight!

  105. Indi
    9.9.2014

    Thanks for the handy info Matt. The Panguin tool opened my eyes a bit with my traffic stats.

    FYI Chartelligence is no more.

    • Matthew Woodward
      September 10th, 2014 at 5:50 pm

      Glad to be of service =D

  106. Elinajones
    8.27.2014

    Hi Matthew, You shared an really useful information for checking website penalty stats. This resource will be the very effective piece for checking my site appearance. Many thanks for sharing this post with us.

    • Matthew Woodward
      August 27th, 2014 at 3:36 pm

      No worrys hope it has helped you out!

  107. Sharjeel Malik
    8.17.2014

    My post are indexed by google but visitors on my site has decreased from 800 to 50.What can be problem with site and my site is 20 day old.

    • Matthew Woodward
      August 17th, 2014 at 9:57 pm

      Have you identified the drop in traffic from Google?

  108. Sumit
    7.10.2014

    Hii Matt thanks for the great Info .
    Is there any free tool through which we can get list of all the backlinks of site ?
    I have tried moz open site explorer, seo spy glass tool and alexa pro account but not getting full backlinks list . Even all are showing different backlinks :(

  109. Amit
    3.15.2014

    Well, nice post for sure helping people to make sure if their websites have assigned with a penalty.

    • Matthew Woodward
      March 17th, 2014 at 7:57 am

      Thanks!

  110. Naveen
    2.12.2014

    Hello, thanks for sharing such an awesome post please tell me a tool which detect the cause of the google update .

    • Matthew Woodward
      February 13th, 2014 at 9:06 am

      There is no such thing. Use this post to find possible leads to investigate and take it from there.

  111. Philip Tomlinson
    2.12.2014

    I didn’t know about the Panguin tool by Moz!

    As for the backlink analysis article referred to in this post, it would be nice if you could add update the post with how you can track multiple keywords rather than just one. I know I was able to figure it out and used your template as the basis for a larger backlink monitoring dashboard for a client, but I doubt all SEOs are Excel savvy.

  112. Marc @ Expert SEO Bournemouth
    1.30.2014

    Just picked this article up from an email you sent me… perfect timing as well. Nice information, well laid out, I’ll be referring some of my SEO clients to it for future reference so thanks.

    • Matthew Woodward
      January 30th, 2014 at 7:53 pm

      No worrys :)

  113. Naeem Malik
    1.29.2014

    Really good stuff to grab; that too free. Thanks for sharing.

    • Matthew Woodward
      January 30th, 2014 at 11:16 am

      No worrys :)

  114. Aaron
    12.5.2013

    Hi Matt

    Another good tool for checking the impact of Penguin, Panda etc updates is http://www.sistrix.co.uk/google-updates/

    Cheers
    Aaron

    • Matthew Woodward
      December 6th, 2013 at 10:40 am

      Thats pretty sweeeeet!

    • Mike
      July 9th, 2014 at 1:37 pm

      too bad it’s in German

  115. Daniel
    10.24.2013

    Really nice article. I’v just been hit by a penalty and used some of this info to investigate.

    When it came to researching my link profile I didn’t want to have to pay for a subscription to all the link services but a couple of fiverr gigs came in handy.. e.g. http://fiverr.com/tirondigital/create-full-ahrefs-majesticseo-and-moz-seo-report

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 25th, 2013 at 7:59 am

      Nice resource :)

  116. Vukasin
    10.23.2013

    Very nice post Matt. However, not useful for me. I never got penalised with any of my sites and I developed over 500 websites in 10 years.

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 23rd, 2013 at 1:45 pm

      Then your missing a huge part of an important skillset!

  117. Jake@agnelswellness
    9.11.2013

    Hey Matthew,

    Thanks for recommending this. I was searching for a piece of software that would do just that for quite some time now. I’ve just started with this entire Internet marketing thing and I’m getting my hands dirty.

    Well timed article!

    Jake

    • Matthew Woodward
      September 11th, 2013 at 10:56 am

      Kudos – getting your hands dirty is the best way to learn =D

  118. Diego
    6.5.2013

    It would be great to have a full tutorial full of details of how to recover from Penguin , It would be a killer one.

    ; )

  119. Tyronne Ratcliff
    5.20.2013

    Great content Matthew, I’ve been using the ChartIntelligence extension for chrome, it definitely comes in handy. Thanks for the informative post!

    • Matthew Woodward
      May 21st, 2013 at 7:18 am

      Took me a while to figure out how to use it first tine round ^^

  120. Arup Ghosh
    5.11.2013

    Nice plug in decreased my head ache a lot.

    • Matthew Woodward
      May 11th, 2013 at 10:05 am

      no worrys :)

  121. Cory Habner
    4.24.2013

    Matt, loving your info bro!

    A quick question about architecting sites in a similar way since you mention Panda related to site structure in your last sentence.

    If I copy the files of a site and take its structure, and basically mimic its design on another domain, but provide 100% new and unique content, titles, meta desc., but keep all of the same pictures, is that a safe or unsafe method in your opinion?

    • Matthew Woodward
      April 25th, 2013 at 8:46 am

      Hi Cory,

      Cheers man :)

      Yeah that would be fine – heck you could even use the same content but that does introduce an element of risk.

  122. Fred @ OnlineProfitsFactory.com
    3.21.2013

    Great post Matthew,

    I actually use both of those tools along with a rank tracking software called Serp Alert Pro. If any of my sites rise or drop more then 5 positions in the search rankings, I get a little pop up message in red or green in the bottom right hand corner of my screen.

    It runs on autopilot so I never have to actively check my rankings. If I do lose more than 5 positions, I then use Chartelligence and Panguin tool to confirm if it is Panda or Penguin related. All of these tools together help me to keep a very watchful eye on my rankings and the algorithm updates.

    Unfortunately, Serp Alert Pro is currently not available but the developers are supposed to be releasing it again sometime in the future. Keep your eye open for it. I think that you will really like it.

    • Matthew Woodward
      March 27th, 2013 at 11:32 am

      Hi Fred,

      Thanks for the heads up.

      I’m actually not that anal about rank checking and although I have daily checks in place I only ever look at them if there is a drop in traffic. I believe checking rankings is counterproductive and when drops (and increases) occur it is tempting to stray from your game plan so to speak.

      Sounds like you have a pretty good system in place!

  123. Rob
    3.13.2013

    Thanks for this post Matthew – perfect timing! Have just been doing some analysis on the back of this.

    I have a question which is related to Google’s updates – I have 2 sites ranking for virtually the same keywords in the same niche – site 1 has dropped a couple of places due to the updates which I have now rectified. Site 2 I don’t need any more and it has less links but a dmoz entry. Do you think a permanent 301 from site 2 to site 1 will help the ranking for site 1 or are 301 redirects no longer a good seo idea?

    Cheers
    Rob

    • Matthew Woodward
      March 14th, 2013 at 9:27 am

      Hi,

      Yes go ahead and do that you shouldn’t have any problem, and if you do – just remove the 301 and put it back to how it is now :)

  124. Peter
    3.13.2013

    Excellently done Matthew ! All of your shares are of true value . You are a true professional my friend ! Thank you.

    • Matthew Woodward
      March 14th, 2013 at 9:26 am

      Thanks Peter (=

  125. Vic Limbo
    3.6.2013

    Awesome post! I been wondering how to detect the cause of the Google update and it easily as doing these…

    Thanks Matt!

    • Matthew Woodward
      March 6th, 2013 at 12:34 pm

      Hi Vic,

      Correlation doesn’t mean causation. These tools do not 100% confirm that is the issue, but it does give you a path to begin investigating properly.

  126. Martin
    2.7.2013

    Great info Matthew, thanks for the heads up on this.
    Nice to see such open sharing of tips, much appreciated.

    • Matthew Woodward
      February 7th, 2013 at 9:02 am

      No worrys – come back for more :)

  127. Shivani Gehlot
    11.30.2012

    Hi, Thanks for sharing such valuable information but could you please tell how to create & apply a list of Holidays in India?

    • Matthew Woodward
      November 30th, 2012 at 11:18 am

      Hi,

      Just create an account at Chartelligence and then you can create your own 'data layer' which you can share with others or keep private.

      Then add each holiday in India as a new 'event' on the 'data layer' you have created

  128. Micheal Morris
    10.16.2012

    AWEOSME post, amazing blog.Thanks for all of these great guides.

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 17th, 2012 at 2:54 pm

      Glad you enjoyed it :)

  129. Tomyches Martínez
    10.16.2012

    Cool post man, thanks for share such useful info, best :)

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 17th, 2012 at 2:56 pm

      Hope it helps you out mate!!

  130. James Smith
    10.16.2012

    Cool stuff about how to recover and analyze Google algorithm update.

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 17th, 2012 at 2:56 pm

      I'm going to be covering the actual recovery process in more detail soon :)

      • Iain
        August 11th, 2013 at 1:14 pm

        I look forward to reading that when it comes out.

        And if it is out, not sure how I managed to miss it.

        • Matthew Woodward
          August 13th, 2013 at 3:51 pm

          It will be coming :) Its hard to put together because of so many variables but is a topic that needs covering (after the mega series at the start of Oct)

  131. Rijo Abraham
    10.16.2012

    After searching thoroughly with daily traffic in panguin tool. Looks like site penalized by panda or parked domain bug. Penguin isn't the culprit , all I was doing was fixing spam links and anchors. What do you think about this report matt? Image http://i.imgur.com/JmmN5.png

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 17th, 2012 at 2:57 pm

      You got hit with a Panda update, a slight hit with Penguin (keyword specific drops perhaps) and then again on the next revision of Panda.

      • Mike
        January 22nd, 2014 at 7:30 pm

        Looks like one of my sites got hit by Panda and Penguin. Oddly enough, I saw a recovery that coincided with Hummingbird – but the latest Penguin update in October erased my gains.

        The site is going on seven years old and needs a significant facelift I admit. The content is original and I didn’t aggressively backlink at all…

        Where would you start when hit with Panda and Penguin? Panda because it’s more on site and thus within my control to fix?

        Thanks!

        • Matthew Woodward
          January 23rd, 2014 at 10:11 am

          Hi,

          I would resolve onsite problems first as this is often the most pain in the arse task.

          Once resolved I would start working through the backlink profile and making a spreadsheet to track to all/work through it removing links where possible.

          Do you have any penalty messages in WMT?

  132. Rijo Abraham
    10.16.2012

    Chartelligence doesn't seem to show old updates , its only showing updates after October. But this plugin is very useful while planing a link building strategy. The Panguin tool is truly amazing. I just realized one of my site is not hit by penguin or panda. What is this "Other" Mentioned in panguin tool? The description says a parked domain bug. WTH was that on April update? http://i.imgur.com/J67o0.png

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 17th, 2012 at 3:00 pm

      You can create a custom layer with the old updates if you need to.

      I would have a search around for more data on the parked domain bug although I would expect that to totally wipe a site traffics if caught with it.

  133. MrMonetize
    10.15.2012

    That's a cool extension, I hope they add support for Piwik. I stopped using Google Analytics on most of my projects as I don't want Google knowing everything about them, if you know what I mean! Thanks for another interesting article Matt anyway, superb stuff. :)

    • Matthew Woodward
      October 17th, 2012 at 3:00 pm

      Drop them a mail – they have only just launched so should be open to adding new features!

      • Dhruv Bhagat
        January 29th, 2014 at 7:12 am

        You must check this tool : http://www.barracuda-digital.co.uk/panguin-tool/

        This is another effective way for checking the Google Algorithm update..

        P.S. This is not a spam link :P

        • Matthew Woodward
          January 29th, 2014 at 9:26 am

          You definitely read the article then.

          • Richard
            July 25th, 2014 at 2:45 pm

            Haha – burn ;-)

    • MrMonetize
      October 18th, 2012 at 12:50 pm

      They will be adding support for Piwik in the future, I sent them an email and got a swift reply.

    • reg
      September 17th, 2014 at 1:42 am

      yea I use statcounter.com its free web stats. starting to really hate how much control google has got on information flow

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