The search engine giant Google is now much strict on spammy websites which use to game the internet system using abusing tricks. Websites or blogs which are involved in abusing the Search Engine Ranking system by artificial ranking methods are considered spam. One must know that the general ranking of a webpage in any search engine depends on following set of variables:

• Links from authority websites/blogs.
• Proper use of keywords.
• Good SEO including usage of H1,H2,H3 tags along with Bold, Italics and Underline formatting of a text.
• Image SEO by Title and ALT tags.
• Proper use of 301 Redirections and NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW META Tags wherever necessary.
• A well designed navigation for the website.
• There are many other reasons which affects the rankings of a Page on SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).

If you follow some basic SEO tips you will get best rankings for your page but when you try to manipulate the things for improving your rankings using fraud tricks you fall into trap of spam. If found spam your site/blog could get a penalty or filter applied on it while search engine serves results to any query.

How to find if your blog/website is filtered or penalized? Certainely there are many signs of a Penalty or Filters if applied on your website. You can check these out to find it.

• Firstly check your Google Analytics/ Histats/ Awstats or any other site traffic analysis program to find if there is sudden drop in your traffic. If yes check out for Organic Search traffic from Google/Yahoo.
• If there is drop in your Organic Traffic, try checking for keywords for which your site was ranking good. Enter that keyword in Google Search box (Logout to your account to avoid personalized SERPs) and hit enter. Check if your site ranks at that page/position only.
• If not try checking various keywords on Google and if you find a keyword for which your site was ranking 1^st is now on 31^st position (1^st Page to 3^rd Page) your site is facing a -30 penalty. If your site is on 51^st position (5^th Page), that means you site is facing -50 penalty.
• If you don’t see your website there, try checking for site operator by google. Enter site:yoursite.com in search box and hit enter. If no results are found, this means you are removed from Google’s Search Results and your site is violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.  There might be one more case, if your site is bieng filtered. Try checking your domain name with Safesearch off.

That’s all to do for checking a penalty or filter, you can find how to remove a penalty or filter if it is applied on your website in my next article.