Checking the domain for sanctions. The fastest way to check a domain for search engine sanctions. Reasons for falling under the filter

Yandex filters are tools developed by the search engine to identify low-quality and irrelevant resources and exclude them from the search. This improves the quality of results for users. The restrictions most often include pages promoted by “black” methods using traffic boosting, spam, and other types of “deception” of search engines. But it happens that a site ends up under the Yandex filter for reasons far from malicious intent.

How do you know if a site is under a filter?

The first sign of possible problems is a sharp decrease in the number of visitors from the search for no apparent reason (disabling contextual advertising, seasonal factors, etc.) In this case, you need to look at the traffic statistics and check which type of traffic has dropped. If user transitions from and Yandex have decreased significantly, it means that you urgently need to check the site for the use of search engine filters.

We will not dwell on the specifics of the Google search engine here; we will only note that the reasons for sanctions for all search engines are approximately the same. And the methods for getting out of a “ban” are also similar - the main thing is to identify and correct the mistakes made.

Checking for Yandex filters begins with identifying “symptoms”:

1. Is the URL present in search results or is it completely excluded? In the latter case, try adding the domain for indexing again. If restrictions are imposed on it, information about the prohibition of indexing will be displayed in an information message.
2. Check positions for various queries. Is there a sharp “subsidence” of 10, 20 or more positions? Write down these requests - sections related to them are under sanctions.
3. The site “sank” for all requests and very noticeably? Remember, have you been into anything lately? Very similar to the “symptoms” of the sensational Minusinsk algorithm.
4. The resource is indexed, but it is not in the search? There may be different reasons for this - “adult” content with a customized family search results, the presence of an affiliate, i.e. another domain that completely or almost completely duplicates the information from yours (common options in the commercial sphere), etc.
5. Have your positions in search results been significantly lowered or have some pages disappeared from it altogether? We need to look for the reason in possible duplication of content and snippets (SEO data), overspam and other problems with content in problem sections.
6. The imposition of sanctions is evidenced by the sharp reset of the TIC(thematic citation index, numerical parameter of “weight” and usefulness).

It is important to understand that young domains (up to 6 months old) may have a TIC of 0, and some sections may not be in the index for reasons unrelated to rule violations. It's just that indexing may not be complete yet. But if all the indicators were at their best, and then some or all of them suddenly dropped, your site fell under the Yandex filter. To understand what the problem is, it’s worth understanding the most well-known algorithms.

Overspam

One of the most common problems faced by webmasters. The first “bell” - the resource for a certain request “sags” by 10-15 points or more. Try formulating your request a little differently. If positions immediately increase, and any other results are returned as expected, the problem has been confirmed.

Treatment : Reduce the number of occurrences of the key phrase in the text and wait for indexing.

Re-optimization

A phenomenon that is becoming less and less common, but still relevant. There are too many bold or italics in the text, too many anchors (links) in the text, there are often inconsistent sentences (“key queries” are poorly written into the text), etc.

• Sudden loss of positions (by 20-30 points) for one or a group of requests.
• A sharp decrease in search traffic.

Analysis of the site for Yandex filters is as follows. Compare your project with a competitor who is somewhere 5-10 positions higher.

To do this you will need a search query structure:< запрос>(site: your-site.ru | site: syte-konkurent.ru)

If your competitor ranks higher for every query you select for testing, you most likely have over-optimized content.

Treatment : Rewrite the text in human language so that it is easy to read. Remove highlights except in cases where they are needed for people, not search engines.

“New” algorithm or “Untitled”

For unknown reasons, this version of the search bot never received its own name and remained “new”. In essence, it is practically no different from over-optimization, but it works with resources where a similar problem is typical for all content.

• Kicks you right out of the TOP 100.
• In the search, the project is very much lower (50-100 or more positions).

You can check whether the “new” algorithm is under filters using exactly the same method as for re-optimization. Only the difference in results will be much greater. And requests that are not included in the filtering algorithm may not appear at all.

Treatment: change all content to readable content. We get rid of excess key phrases, highlights, etc. After indexing, the resource will gradually return closer to the TOP. This is a long process - almost like for a new domain.

Link explosion

This link filter is dangerous only for fans of buying links and people involved in “black SEO”. When a significant increase in link mass is detected in a short period of time, link ranking factors cease to be taken into account and influence the position of the resource.

To avoid this problem, you need to very carefully build up your external link mass, do it gradually, in small parts, imitating naturalness.

Treatment : Time will help here. And refusal to purchase reference mass in large quantities.

Minusinsk

This algorithm, which was sensational in its time, appeared after Yandex returned a significant part of the “weight” to external links (who doesn’t know, there was a period when they tried to build search results without taking this parameter into account). But to improve the quality of external citations, they added.

The following are subject to punishment:

• Projects with a very large percentage of purchased link mass (40% or more);
• Resources with a very large number of similar links (more than 500 pieces).

How to check a site for the Minusinsk filter from Yandex:

• For almost all queries (except for some low-frequency ones), the search results drop by 15-20 points or more;
• A sharp decrease in traffic;
• The problem is present on all pages and subdomains.

If you have such symptoms, it makes sense to remember which ones were purchased at what time, check the link mass (by searching or through aggregators where you bought links). If you have any doubts, you can try writing to the search engine technical support.

Treatment : Complete refusal to purchase external links. We remove everything that we managed to buy earlier and write a letter to Yandex technical support stating that the errors have been recognized and corrected. We ask you to speed up indexing if possible. If it doesn’t help, check again, remove even more backlinks, write again.

Time frame for getting rid of the problem: from 1 to 3 months, sometimes longer.

Cheating behavioral factors

In this case, to find out whether a site has fallen under Yandex filters, it is enough to see that the domain is outside the index and search results in general. Think about whether it’s worth doing cheating.

Most often, “black” optimizers get banned if they are not careful enough, as well as newbie webmasters who use “traffic aggregators.” A search ban is punishable by:

• for artificially increasing attendance;
• for cheating behavioral factors;
• boosting traffic from search engines using SEO links.

As a result, the resource is completely excluded from the search. If in doubt, he will give a clear answer.

The period for removal from sanctions is very long (from 9 months) and without a guarantee of results. A long correspondence with search engine support is required. In most cases it is easier to make a new project.

Affiliation

Affiliate is a Yandex website filter that is applied when web resources with very similar content are identified. Most often this happens when a company creates two or more resources to displace competitors, that is, one is, as it were, a “branch” of the other. In this case, one of the domains is excluded from search results.

To accurately determine the Affiliate, try writing the following construction in a search engine: lang:ru ~~ domain: ua<< (url:www.vash-site1.ru | url: vash-site2.ru).

Check the results - with an affiliate you will only be able to find one of the domains.

What to do:

• place projects on different ;
• change the structure and content (let them be less similar to each other);
• use different promotion strategies.

The optimal solution is to create affiliates with a different semantic core. Then they complement each other perfectly.

Aggressive advertising

Yandex also tries to remove intrusive pop-up banners and “supposedly message” windows, animated large or overly bright banners and other “horrors” that irritate everyone from the search. If you agreed to this type of advertising, you are at high risk.

How to find out that a site has fallen under Yandex filters due to advertising? Look at the pages that “dropped out” from the search, see there. Everything is obvious here.

Treatment : Remove all “flickering” and pop-up banners and wait for indexing.

Adult content

In this case, the project drops out of the results only when setting up the “family delivery option”. Check for a link to your resource with and without a “tick” on the family search option.

Sometimes this algorithm includes sites that do not actually have “adult” content. Check the “anchor” links: most likely, some of them lead to “adult” content. If not, write to technical support.

Identical snippets

The “disease” of many online stores is search snippets, i.e. sets of information in SEO tags () turn out to be almost identical.

Checking the site for Yandex snippets:

• positions dropped for one or more queries;
• In online stores, product cards are the first to suffer, followed by categories.

Enter the following construction into the search bar:<запрос> &rd=0

Or use the "show all" button. In any case, the search results will show you which pages the search engine considers the same.

Treatment : change the text in description and wait for indexing.

Famous AGS

And finally, let's discuss the well-known Yandex AGS filter. It is recommended to check for it from article resources, as well as online stores and any other web services where it is possible to fill it with non-unique content and other tricks used by the owners for maximum savings.

The abbreviation stands for somewhat brutally - “anti-shit site”. The reason is that the colloquial name under the abbreviation GS has firmly entered into everyday life and has become a familiar term.

GS refers to projects with low-quality content designed to sell links. The texts on such resources are often illiterate; rewriting (unique retelling) of other people’s articles or even copy-paste, i.e., non-unique texts, is almost always used. There are a lot of external links, often anchors do not even correspond to the topic of the article, etc.

How to check the AGS:

• TIC = 0, although the domain is already more than 6 months old;
• a significant drop in search traffic.

The most common victims of AGS are the so-called article resources.

There is only one treatment here: rewrite the content, make it high quality and useful. Get rid of external links. If a resource was created for the purpose of selling links, it’s easier to forget about it and create a new one. Getting out from under the AGS will take the same amount of time and effort.

How to avoid falling under the Yandex filter

For high-quality, interesting and useful web projects, they are not scary. If you follow exclusively “white hat” methods when promoting, pay close attention to the quality of content, work competently with the SEO core, regularly update content, add articles, news and useful information, Yandex search filters are guaranteed to bypass you.

But if you find yourself a victim of your own inexperience or unscrupulous promotion specialists, and you suspect that Yandex filters have been imposed on you, you already know the signs of different types of sanctions, and you can and should fight most of them. Correct your mistakes and don't repeat them again.

If your resource finds itself in a difficult situation and regular error correction does not help, you should contact specialists. We are ready to assist in determining whether a site is under filters in Yandex, removing it from sanctions, or simply deciding whether it’s worth doing this or whether it’s better to start all over again.

Search engines “clean” the Internet space from low-quality websites that use “black” SEO techniques. To this end, new search engine algorithms are introduced from time to time, each of which is aimed at a specific violation. Further, sanctions are applied to the site that limit its operation.

Timely diagnosis and removal from under the filter will help maintain the functionality of the site and the profit of its owner.

How to find out if a site has been filtered

Signs that a site falls under the filter are:

How to check search engine filters

There are special web analytics tools that can help you confirm your guesses about the application of a filter:

• the number of pages in the search engine index can be checked through Yandex.Webmaster or Google Search Console;
• You can see changes in traffic after updates to the Yandex and Google algorithms using the SEOLib Sanctions Diagnostics tool; Google uses the Fruition tool;
• The likelihood of filters being applied to a website that do not use analytics systems can be found out by using the FEInternational service.

Types of filters

There are several classifications of filters:

1. According to the search engine to which they belong, Yandex and Google filters are distinguished.

2. Due to the application of the filter, they are distinguished:

• filters for technical inconsistency of the resource: unadapted resources, lack of useful content, duplication of content, fraud, slow page loading, poor-quality design, low level of functionality;
• filters imposed for manipulation of search results: cheating of behavioral factors, spamming of keywords in the text, large reference mass.

3. By switching method:

• manual—turned on by a search engine employee after a violation has been detected by a robot; this option is possible if a violation is suspected; the verdict on applying a filter is made by a human;
• algorithmic - activated by machines when there is a clear violation recorded by search engine robots.

Yandex filters

Since a certain time, Yandex does not take into account external links when “distributing” search results. But he has other methods for identifying dishonest optimizers. Now he focused his attention on trying to cheat behavioral factors.

• AGS is the most famous Yandex filter. Used to combat low-quality sites.

Poor quality of the site determined by the following criteria:

• non-unique texts;
• problems with functionality, design;
• availability of outgoing links;
• aggressive advertising, duplicate pages, cloaking;
• non-unique page descriptions.

The application of this filter to a website can be determined by the following criteria:

• New pages are not indexed;
• the number of visitors is decreasing;
• Most of the pages fall out of the index.

To restore a site after exposure to an AGS filter, the following measures must be taken:

• bring the site into compliance with the requirements;
• remove all SEO links;
• start regularly posting only unique texts on the site;
• review navigation;
• remove aggressive advertising.

Removing a site from the AGS can take up to several months.

Filter for over-optimization

This filter includes sites that post texts with keyword spamming.

What you need to do to avoid Yandex “punishment”:

• texts should be created for people, not for robots;
• no need to tag keys.

Filter for cheating behavioral metrics

The filter for cheating behavioral metrics identifies sites that use services to emulate the actions of resource visitors.

Typically, the application of this filter appears as follows:

• traffic decreases;
• The site’s position in search results decreases;
• New pages are indexed very slowly by the system.

To remove this filter, you need to stop manipulating search results.

"Minusinsk"

This filter is applied by the Yandex search engine for exceeding the link mass.

The effect of a filter can be identified by several criteria:

• drop in traffic;
• absence of the site on the first page of the search when requesting a domain name;
• "moving" down several positions in the search results.

To remove this filter from the site, you will have to remove all incoming links of a manipulative nature.

Affiliate filter

By applying an affiliate filter, Yandex “marks” sites that have three or more sites that attract customers to the same organization. Yandex does not approve of this. Places are taken up in search results that could have been taken by other organizations.

The only sign by which you can determine the effect of this filter is the presence in the Yandex search results of only one site out of all created ones. At the same time, Yandex does not ask which of these resources brings the most profit, and it will not be possible to choose the most valuable one and leave it in the search results.

You can avoid enforcement if you create sites that have contacts from the same company and offer different products, then visitors will go to these sites based on different search queries, and the search engine will be quite happy with this.

Nepot filter

The search engine does not recognize that this type of filter exists. But among site owners there are speculations about the presence of an algorithm that blocks the transfer of links and suspends the operation of the site.

There are 2 ways to protect yourself from the nepot filter:

• do not trade links;
• When inserting a link to a dubious source, hide the link under the nofollow attribute.

Filter for adult content

If Yandex detects the presence of “adult” materials on the site, it will impose a taboo on site traffic for queries other than “adults”.

Here the method is as old and simple as the hills - you don’t need to use adult content on your website.

Filter for doorways

The presence of doorways usually leads to the exclusion of the site from the search engine results.

The best way to protect your site from being filtered is not to use doorways.

Google filters

Google filters are also aimed at improving the quality of sites, the ability of young “good” sites to occupy top positions in search results, and the fight against violators.

"Panda"

This type of filter reduces the number of visitors low quality resources in order for them to visit quality sites.

Resources that meet several criteria are accepted as high-quality:

• Quality of site content.
• Attitude towards site visitors, manifested in the level of functional convenience, usability, design.
• Absence of foreign and duplicate content.

You can determine that a site has fallen under the Panda filter by the following criteria:

• drop in traffic;
• decrease in positions in the search results, the positions of all or several pages of the resource may change, some pages may be dropped into an additional index;
• slow page indexing.

Changing your marketing strategy will help overcome the barriers created by the filter. Particular attention should be paid to:

• Content. It must be useful to an audience of sufficient volume. It needs to be updated regularly. The site should not contain pages without text or duplicate pages.
• Adjustment of technical characteristics of the site.

"Penguin"

The Penguin algorithm was introduced to combat excess link mass:

• spam;
• publishing links that are not visible to the site visitor;
• links to third-party resources;
• purchasing backlinks.

You can “identify” this filter by the following characteristics:

• slow indexing of new pages;
• dropout of some pages into an additional index;
• reduction of the site in search engine results positions;
• a sharp decrease in the number of site visitors.

Google displays a message about measures taken by system specialists related to a large number of links.

Remove resource from under Penguin filter Removing and/or rejecting low-quality links to the site and publishing informative unique content will help. To reset the weight of links, you can use a special disavow tool.

Sandbox and Domain Age

Rather, these are parts of the algorithm that impose restrictions on indexing speed on newly created sites. You can not pay much attention to them, you can develop the site in terms of its quality, convenience and information content for the user. Gradually, the site will be removed from these filters.

-5, -30, -950

Reducing the search position by 5, 30 points, reducing the position to 9 hundreds of search results are called filters by optimizers -5, -30 and -950, respectively, although there is still no official confirmation of the existence of such algorithms from Google.

The search engine imposes such filters on sites that violate technical regulations. requirements, and using manipulative techniques to attract visitors:

• spam by posting links on blogs and forums;
• promotion methods through doorways and cloaking;
• uninteresting text, oversaturated with keywords.

Removing filters and returning to previous positions in the search results is possible after eliminating violations of Google requirements and re-indexing the site.

Additional results

"Search engine" can place site pages in an additional index:

• if “considers” the pages uninteresting, non-unique, similar to many others on this topic;
• if they have errors in technical execution or the issuance is manipulated;
• if the site is completely “young”.

There is only one sign here, it is obvious - the ranking of pages is not in the main index, but in the additional index.

To remove a site from the additional index, it is necessary to bring the site to the level of technical requirements of the search engine, start publishing informative, relevant content, and not manipulate the results.

"Co-citation"

If such a problem occurs, you need to remove or reset the weight of such links to the site. If it becomes obvious that this is “the machinations of competitors,” you can report the situation to Google technical support.

"Too many links and pages"

Too many links to the site on third-party resources or laying out a large number of pages can cause consequences such as a decrease in position in the search results and, as a result, a decrease in site traffic.

To prevent such developments, you need to abandon external links and upload pages gradually.

Filter for broken links

In order to prevent search engine interference, it is necessary to regularly check the site with the Link Checker tool and correct detected broken links.

Sites that consider it possible to copy content from other resources may be subject to the filter, which will entail the exclusion of the entire site or part of its pages from search results.

After removing other people's texts from the site or providing links to the source, you need to start filling the site with unique materials.

Filter for over-optimization

The system imposes a filter for over-optimization if the site manipulates the search results:

• there are an excessive number of keywords in the texts;
• Key phrases are highlighted in bold or colored font.

A sign that a system limitation is in effect is a decrease in the site’s position in the search results.

To remove the filter, you need to stop manipulating and start creating materials for the site for people, not for search engines.

Filter for slow page loading

If your site's pages load slowly, your site visitors will not be satisfied. Google usually deprives such resources of traffic. This happens by lowering the site’s position in the general search results or in the mobile search results.

Increasing the site loading speed will correct the current situation.

Filter for lack of optimization for mobile traffic

The lack of adaptive layout also does not have the best effect on website promotion. A sign of the application of this filter will be a drop in the site’s position in mobile search results, while positions in general search results will remain at the same level.

To prevent such a problem from arising, experts recommend initially creating a website with adaptive design.

Checklist for filters

Filters are actually not only not scary, but also useful, especially if you focus on them as the result of a free site audit by search engines. The best course of action is to identify, fix and continue to perform even better!

Sincerely, Nastya Chekhova

This article will be useful to anyone who wants to make sure that the domain is normal before searching for website promotion and that there will be no problems with it in the future.

The main verification method is:

— Upload domain to hosting

— Put text on it + basic meta tags

- See how he reacts

But the previous article did not indicate the most basic nuance, which with the highest probability shows whether everything is fine with the domain.

To make it as clear as possible, let’s look at a step-by-step example of how we do this.

Step-by-step instruction

1. Create a Brand query group

Typically these are keywords such as:

• website
• seoprofy
• seo professional
• website

The most important thing on this list when checking for filters is: website.

That is:

• domain name
• remove the point
• put a space
• add as keyword
• look at the results

Including the main key for checking “domain name, without a dot, with a space.”

Example of a filtered domain:

It is immediately obvious that something is wrong with the domain.

2. We get the answer

Main criterion: the site is not in the TOP 1.

In most cases, if a domain is not in the top 1 for such a request, then there are either penalties for backlinks or something else.

Important: but in the Google console, in the “Manual measures” section there may be nothing (the filter may be automatic).

But, in 99% of cases when this request fails, the domain has gone under the filter. The same thing happens when a stub domain is just launched.

3. Who is it useful for?

• Those who register drop domains for traffic satellites
• Those who buy websites or domains for projects

Essentially, if a site is in the index, we check it in a couple of minutes, and in the end it’s immediately clear whether everything is fine with it or not.

Finally

There is nothing complicated in this method. You can check it manually directly in Google, or through verification services.

The method is as simple as crowbar construction. But in fact, it’s quick and immediately shows whether the domain needs to be analyzed in detail for sanctions.

To consolidate, visually:

Use this simple method and immediately decide whether such a domain is worth spending time on or not.

What do you think about this? Let's discuss in the comments!

There is not a single website that is immune from search engine filters (with some exceptions like Wikipedia). Even a large, white and fluffy site can fall under filters; this may be a consequence of algorithm errors or for other reasons (hacking, viruses), but no one is immune. For a good site, the likelihood of falling under the filter is extremely small, and if they are subject to erroneous sanctions, they are usually removed quite quickly upon a request to the support service.

Filters were invented for a reason; they perform a number of tasks that can be divided into two groups:

• Punishment of sites for non-compliance with search engine recommendations and attempts to manipulate search results;
• Freeing up search engine computing resources. This happens when the site is so bad that it is not even worth indexing.

The vast majority of filters belong to the first group, the second group includes the Yandex AGS filter, Google has additional search results (details below), and it may also not index sites or individual pages that it considers too bad.

Signs and consequences of filters

The symptoms of search engine filters are as follows:

• Reducing search traffic;
• Reduction of all or a large group of positions in search results (one-time);
• Removal of the site from the index or individual pages;
• New pages are no longer indexed;
• The site is not in first place in search results for vital queries;
• A number of other signs, which I will talk about in the description of the filters.

Accordingly, for any reason, you will experience a partial or complete loss of natural search traffic. This is a major consequence for commercial sites. Any negative changes may be a sign of a search engine filter and should be cause to check for possible penalties.

Should you be afraid of search engine filters?

If you are making a good website where everything is correct, then in this case you should not be afraid. You won't be subject to filters for minor mistakes, and if you do get sanctioned, it can usually be easily corrected, although in some cases it can take a long time. If the algorithms made a mistake and you were punished incorrectly, then here everything can be corrected much faster.

Also think about the fact that filters protect you from those who are not ready for a fair and competitive fight for positions in search engines, but are trying to get away with trying to manipulate factors that affect positions in search results. By the way, search engines have their own logic here. They are completely satisfied with the situation when website promotion becomes more and more difficult and expensive, because they are waiting for you in Yandex Direct or Google AdWords.

Yandex filters

The most famous and one of the oldest filters of the domestic search engine. The first version was called AGS-17, the latest - AGS-2015 (an unofficial name; Yandex itself did not assign a number to it).

The main task of this filter is to remove bad sites from the search results. A sign of the first versions of the AGS was the complete loss of the site from the index; sometimes only a few pages could remain. AGS is imposed for:

• Non-unique and low-quality content;
• A large number of outgoing SEO links;
• Technical problems (duplicates, cloaking);
• Lots of advertising, poor design.

The result is an almost complete loss of traffic from Yandex search. For some factors individually, Yandex may not impose AGS, but if there are several of them, then the risk is very high. For example, a site has a lot of SEO links, but it has good behavioral factors, the content is good, and there are no technical or other problems. In this case, the site may not fall under the filter. This was the case until 2015.

In 2015, Yandex updated the AGS and now it can punish even a very good site for trading SEO links. Here, a sign will be the TIC being reset, the pages will remain in the search results, but the site may lose some traffic. That is, this is an alternative version of the AGS, softer. Here is an example of traffic on a site that briefly fell under the AGS in the fall of 2015:

The dip in the number of visitors is very clearly visible. After some of the links were taken down, traffic returned, although to a slightly lesser extent.

If your site fell under the AGS 2015 and your TIC was reset to zero, then the only solution is to remove SEO links (at least some of them). A site must accumulate a certain critical mass of links, after which it is punished. The calculation algorithm is unknown, but it is obvious that for each site the number of SEO links is determined individually.

When pages on your site fall out of the index, you can no longer limit yourself to just links. Pay attention to all the factors that could lead to AHS. Eliminate all problems; if you cannot find them, contact specialists to conduct an audit. To speed up the exit from the AGS, you can write to the Yandex support service, but you need to write when you are absolutely sure that everything is fine with the site.

Minusinsk

Introduced in 2015, it penalizes sites for external SEO links. The signs are as follows:

• A sharp decrease in rankings in search results and a drop in traffic;
• The site is not on the first page of search results for vital queries.

The main reason for getting caught in Minusinsk are links from bad sites and spam anchors. No one knows exactly how many such links are needed; there are known cases when sites with tens of thousands fell under this filter, and there were also those who were punished for several hundred.

The only way to remove Minusinsk is to reduce the number or completely remove external links. At a minimum, you need to remove the worst ones, from sites under AGS and with spam anchors. Unfortunately, Yandex does not provide any tools (as Google does), so if you bought permanent links, you will have to negotiate with the site owners to remove them. After the release of Minusinsk, the GoGetLinks and Miralinks exchanges made it possible to send requests to remove links.

Cheating behavioral

As soon as optimizers reliably learned that behavioral factors can greatly influence positions, services appeared that provided their promotion. Yandex did not look at such manipulations, improved the filter that already existed, and also tightened the punishment. The signs are:

• A sharp drop in positions and traffic;
• New pages are slowly entering the index.

You can get out of the filter for cheating behavioral factors in Yandex only by completely stopping these manipulations. Yandex itself will release you from under this filter, but you can wait several months. I recommend giving up attempts to cheat behavioral factors, otherwise punishment from Yandex will be inevitable.

Affiliates

The filter was created to combat companies that create several websites and try to grab all the first places in search results. There is only one sign of this filter and it is very clear: only one site will remain in the search results. Yandex identifies affiliates by the same contact information, similar topics (content) and data in WHOIS (if they are not hidden). It also takes into account the structure of sites, the IP on which they are located, CMS and other little things that may indicate the same owner of different sites.

You can get out of this filter only if you change all the data by which Yandex can identify affiliates and write to the support service.

Adult content

If Yandex decides that your site contains adult content, it will completely exclude it from search results for queries that are not related to this topic. Most often, the reason is a banal hack of the site, after which pages with similar content are uploaded to it. As soon as you see that your site is being visited by 18+ queries, you need to urgently find and eliminate the reason, without waiting for the filter.

Nepot filter

Yandex never recognized the existence of this filter, but almost all optimizers are inclined to believe that it exists. It is imposed on sites that trade links too actively. After applying a nepot filter, links from such sites are no longer taken into account. It is quite possible that today it was replaced by AGS-2015, which resets the TIC, which clearly signals that the site is punished specifically for link trading.

Filter for over-optimization

Yandex will punish you for trying to manipulate search results with too many keywords. Unlike the AGS, this filter will leave the site’s pages in the index, but they will not receive high positions, and therefore there will be no traffic. It is impossible to name the exact percentage of keywords in the text for which Yandex can punish you; this is determined individually, but you should avoid too many keywords, especially unnatural ones. Don't overuse keywords in headings.

Filter for shock advertising

Sites that use teaser networks for monetization, which often contain ads with so-called shock content, are at risk. Such sites are lowered in search results; you can get rid of this filter if you remove bad advertising.

In the beta version of Yandex Webmaster, a section has appeared where you can view the imposed sanctions:

Google filters

Penguin

Penguin from Google is a filter for manipulating external link mass, Minusinsk from Yandex is just an analogue of Penguin. Punishment follows a large number of links from low-quality resources, invisible links and spammy structures in anchors. The signs are as follows:

• Decrease in positions and traffic;
• New pages are indexed slowly;
• Some pages may be included in an additional index;
• Information about manual actions taken in Google Search Console.

Google announces the release of the next version of Penguin, usually writes about it on Twitter this employee companies, information can also be found on SEO forums. If traffic to your site began to sharply decrease just during the Penguin update, then you can be one hundred percent sure that you fell under this filter.

The principle of getting out of this filter is exactly the same as in the case of Yandex Minusinsk, you need to remove bad links. But Google has a handy tool that allows you to disavow unwanted links, you can find it at this link. In some cases, this tool will not be enough and you will still have to remove unwanted links. You will be informed about this in the response to your request to review the site.

Panda

This filter penalizes on-page optimization, meaning it evaluates the site as a whole. The reasons may be as follows:

• The content is of very low quality or stolen;
• Presence of duplicate pages;
• Poor behavioral factors;
• A large amount of advertising;
• Problems with design, usability.

There may be several signs:

• Drop in traffic from Google search;
• A drop in positions, it is important to know that this filter can be applied to part of the site, or to the entire site;
• New pages are indexed slowly.

By analogy with Penguin, Google employees announce the release of each new version of Panda.

There is only one recommendation for getting out of Panda. It is necessary to conduct a serious review of the site and eliminate all problems that could cause the filter. Pay attention to the quality of the content, make sure there is no spam with key phrases, grammatical errors, analyze behavioral factors. Bad PFs usually signal the poor quality of the resource.

Additional results

Google has supplementaly results - additional results, which in optimizer jargon are called “snot”. This includes pages that Google doesn't consider valuable, but indexed them anyway. Additional results will be available to the user only if he clicks on “Show hidden results” at the very bottom of the page. Of course, you shouldn’t wait for traffic to pages that are included in supplementaly results.

To avoid pages getting included in additional results, post only good and interesting content, do not overuse keyword density and avoid spammy structures.

Young sites can be automatically submitted to additional results and will eventually appear in Google's main results. If the content on them is of interest to users.

-5, -30 and -950

Google hasn’t officially said anything about this filter, but it exists. A characteristic sign is a drop in positions in the search results by an equal number of positions (5, 30 or 950). They are punished for non-compliance with Google’s recommendations for creating and promoting websites, for using cloaking and doorways, JavaScript redirects and abusing non-recommended SEO methods, which include spamming articles with keywords, link spam, etc.

Obviously, the severity of the punishment depends on the degree of violation. If they are insignificant, then the site will receive -5, if everything is very bad, then it will be -950. In fact, this filter is an analogue of Panda, the only difference is that Panda can omit only part of the pages, and the drop in queries in the search results will be by a different number of positions.

The method of escaping from under this filter is similar. Find and fix the problem, after which you can write a request to Google to revise the site. If all violations are eliminated, the positions will be returned.

In fact, this is not a filter, but only a component of the search algorithm that underestimates in mobile search results resources that do not have a mobile version or adaptive layout. The corresponding warning can be seen in Google Search Console:

If you don’t need mobile traffic, Google’s recommendations can be ignored, but in fact, the share of mobile device users is very large and it is growing steadily, so today any website needs to at least have adaptive layout.

What else can Google be punished for?

There are factors that are difficult to attribute to any filter, but there is a penalty for them. For example, it is known that there may be a penalty for having too many pages or too many incoming links. If a site with only 500 pages has 10,000 pages, Google will find it very suspicious. The situation is similar with links, although now it is part of Penguin. Growth should be natural and gradual.

A resource can be punished for a large number of broken links; positions in search results can be lowered or pages can be removed from the index. Check for broken links using services, do this regularly. You can use the Link Checker service or its analogues.

About Sandboxes

A sandbox is a filter (or part of an algorithm) that operates on young sites. There is no official data, but there is no doubt that young sites cannot outrun older competitors right away.

Google can give a young site high rankings, but then take them away by placing it in a sandbox. Next, he will look at the dynamics of development; if everything is good, the site will begin to grow in search results.

In Yandex, a young site almost never can immediately get high positions for competitive queries. With low-frequency queries, for which there is little competition, the time frame is shorter, but even here it may take several months until the positions reach the top. The sandbox in Yandex lasts from 2-3 months to a year; the situation when, after the next update of the search database, traffic to the site increases significantly is typical for Yandex.

Nothing can be done about search engine sandboxes; you can only speed up the time it takes to get out of this conditional filter. The progressive development of the site, the regular addition of new and good content, and the natural increase in the link mass can significantly reduce the time it takes to leave the sandbox.