It’s every webmaster’s nightmare – a human review from Google.

While Google does not completely disclose the logic it uses to determine which sites it will assess, Aaron Wall of SEOBook says that there are certain tactics you can use to keep your site from being flagged for review in the first place. He doesn’t mention anything we don’t already do for our clients, but I thought I would enumerate them here anyway for the benefit of readers who are new to the SEO community.

But first: How does Google determine which sites to review?

Google uses algorithms to flag websites for review, specifically:

a. Websites that have seen rapid spikes in traffic from Google;

b. Websites that users tend to quickly exit from (and do not return to); and

c. Websites that get considerable traffic from Google but get only a few navigational queries.

These red flags can cause a website to be queued for human review by any of Google’s 10,000 reviewers.

Don’t get flagged

If you don’t want to be reviewed, you have to satisfy the algorithms. The key to looking like a relevant website in their eyes is to make your website look like an authority – and that means reviewing everything from your domain name to your content formatting. Thin affiliate websites are at a bigger risk of getting reviewed largely because their domain names are low-quality, and their content is sparse (sometimes even badly written).

Here are a few simple rules to remember if you want to avoid being reviewed:

1. Build only quality content. Do you still use 10% keyword density? Then you’re setting yourself up for failure. The new acceptable standard is about 2%, which means that you should never mention a keyword more than 8 times in a 400-word page. Remember – Google’s algorithms are now very good at detecting spammy content. Unless you are an authority site by default (such as a non-profit organization, an education institution, or an official Google partner), then you should seriously consider revising your content if you don’t want to get flagged for human review.
2. Make people come back to you. Introduce a membership functionality, come up with an attention-grabbing serial article, or just be plain interesting. Only when regular readers come back to your site will Google’s algorithms think that it’s authoritative.
3. Avoid making radical changes, unless you are willing to risk being reviewed. “Radical” here means suddenly adding thousands of pages or gaining hundreds of inbound links in a very short span of time. Google’s algorithms may interpret the abrupt changes as indications of spammy activity, and you may be flagged for a review.

Here at Blackwood Productions, we make sure that our clients’ websites avoid getting reviewed. We supply them with relevant links from related websites, quality content written for actual people (not just search engines), and of course, analytic reporting that enables us to nip any problems in the bud before they get worse. We don’t have any trade secrets – we certainly stay away from gimmicks that can get our clients banned. Our only formula is QUALITY, and Google seems to appreciate that.

Robert Bibb
CEO Blackwood Productions

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