Google answers how long it takes to recover from an algorithmic penalty
3 mins read

Google answers how long it takes to recover from an algorithmic penalty

In a recent Google SEO consultation, Google answered a question about how long it takes to recover from an algorithmic penalty caused by content quality issues.

Google’s new office hours format does not allow for follow-up questions, resulting in answers that lack nuance and are less helpful than the old format, which allowed the Google employee to ask clarifying questions.

For example, we have no idea if the “algorithmic penalty‘ referenced in the question means the site has completely disappeared from search results or has just lost a few positions.

There is a difference between the two situations.

This is the question that was asked:

“…if a site is algorithmically penalized for thin content, how much content on the site do you need to update before the penalty is lifted?”

A lot of information is missing from this question.

  • Did Google message the publisher that their content was “algorithmically” penalized?
  • Does the person asking the question assume they will be punished and not really know?

Here is the answer:

“Well, it’s generally a good idea to clean up any low-quality or spam content you may have created in the past.

With algorithmic actions, it can take us several months to re-evaluate your site to determine that it is no longer spammy.”

It takes Google months to rank the quality of the site

Of course, it’s important to stay as close to all low-quality content as possible. After that, however, it may take a few months for them to appear in search results again.

John Mueller said something similar in November 2021 about how long it takes for a website that has lost its ranking to recover.

Mueller said:

“I think it’s a lot more difficult when it comes to things around quality in general, where judging the overall quality and relevance of a site isn’t very easy.

It takes us a long time to understand how a website fits into the rest of the internet.

… And that can easily take, I don’t know, a few months, half a year, sometimes even more than half a year before we see any significant changes in the overall quality of the site.

Because what we essentially pay attention to is how this website fits into the context of the entire web, and that just takes a lot of time.”

Similarly, from minute 5:21 of this Google video, Google employee Aurora Morales refers to what happens to websites that violate Google’s policies, including the thin content policy.

The Googler advises:

“Sites that don’t meet monetization and organic search policies may be removed from the search index and their ads may be disabled.”

Read more here: It takes Google months to rank the quality of sites across the web

Listen to the Google SEO consultation hour starting at minute 24:24.