Search Engine Filters and Penalties¶

Complete reference of Yandex and Google filters, their triggers, symptoms, diagnostics, and recovery procedures.

Traffic Drop Diagnostics¶

When analytics show traffic drop: 1. Check if page is in index: url:site.ru/the-dropped-document/ 2. Check validity of saved copy in search engine 3. Check nesting level 4. Analyze drop character: - Host dropped -> check sanctions - Page dropped -> check: relevant page change, document sanctions, text issues, link issues

What Search Engines Penalize For¶

1. Text quality issues (spam, thin content)
2. User deception on site
3. Behavioral factor manipulation
4. Affiliation: multiple commercial sites from one owner
5. Link manipulation
6. Search engine deception
7. Porn content, intrusive advertising
8. Piracy, content theft

Where to Check Filter Status¶

• Yandex Webmaster -> "Violations" section
• Google Search Console -> "Manual Actions"

Filter Scope Types¶

• Query-document, document, domain, page/section removal, domain removal
• By type: automatic or manual

Yandex Filters¶

Baden-Baden¶

Date: March 2017 | Type: automatic | Scope: query-document and domain

Triggers: keyword density spam, excessive text volume, hidden text, low text quality.

Symptoms: - Query-level: sharp drop of a query group (not all) by 5-40 positions; document still ranks for other queries - Host-level: sharp drop of ALL queries by 20+ positions; only branded queries remain; Webmaster notification

Diagnosis: arsenkin.ru/tools/filter/; mass drop of 10+ positions = likely Baden-Baden.

Removal: - Query-level: first add <noindex> tag, then rewrite; reduce keyword occurrences and text volume; if nothing works -> delete text - Host-level: ONLY DELETE TEXT - nothing else works

Minusinsk¶

Date: May 2015 | Type: automatic | Scope: domain

Triggers: link manipulation to promote site.

What counts as SEO links: almost all anchor links to commercial site; 95% of links from known exchanges; even non-anchor links from exchanges.

Removal: 1. Remove ALL SEO links at once 2. Wait for donor page re-indexation 3. Filter lifts in 1-8 months 4. Traffic fully restores if site is high quality 5. Yandex support can show examples of detected links

Behavioral Factor Manipulation¶

Date: July 2011 | Scope: domain | Type: manual or automatic

Symptoms: - Automatic: -30-40 positions across whole site except brand (no notification) - Manual: notification in Webmaster -> Diagnostics -> Security and Violations

Characteristics: - Harshest sanctions in Yandex - Ban lifted 6-8 months AFTER admitting manipulation - Quick exit: 301 redirect to another domain - Never give Webmaster/Metrika access to third parties

Clickjacking¶

Date: December 2015 | Scope: domain | Type: automatic

Trigger: invisible elements collecting user data without consent.

Removal: stop using exploiting services; click "I fixed everything" in Webmaster; lifts within 30 days.

Reputation Filter¶

Date: October 2021 | Scope: domain | Type: automatic

Trigger: negative reviews, scam phone calls via SIP telephony. Drop of 15-30 positions.

Affiliate Filter¶

Type: manual

Trigger: 2+ commercial sites from one company for identical products/services.

How to avoid with multiple sites: - Different hosting/registrars - Register under different person - Different assortment and prices - Different product naming conventions - Webmaster/Metrika on different accounts (different computer or VM) - Different contacts - Advertising from different accounts

Other Yandex Filters¶

• Intrusive Subscription Notifications (Jan 2019)
• Aggressive Advertising (Apr 2019) - mainly Adsense monetization; ad blocks disguised as navigation

Google Filters¶

Google Panda¶

Date: February 2011 | Scope: document and domain | Type: automatic

Triggers: low quality content, stolen/duplicate content, internal duplication.

Recovery: find non-traffic pages via GSC/GA; rewrite (remove copy-paste, spam); add quality content, images, video; add moderated UGC.

Google Fred¶

Date: March 2017 | Scope: domain | Type: automatic

Triggers: low content quality, low quality links, excessive advertising, no added value.

Recovery: reduce ad blocks; improve link profile; add value-added services (calculators, tests).

YMYL (Your Money or Your Life)¶

Date: August 2018 | Scope: domain | Type: automatic

YMYL niches: finance, medical, legal, child safety, driving safety.

Recovery via E-A-T: certificates, proof/evidence, authoritative links, content quality, grammar, assortment, purchase/delivery info.

Google Penguin¶

Date: April 2012 | Scope: query-document | Type: automatic

Triggers: - Large number of commercial anchors - Unnatural anchor distribution (no branded anchors) - Links only to homepage or small set of pages - High share of purchased/low quality links

Recovery: - Remove bad links, change link profile - Distribute links across host - Increase non-anchor share to >20% - Dilute anchor spam with non-anchor links - Close bad links in Google Disavow Links

Micromarkup Spam¶

Date: 2016 | Scope: document | Type: automatic

Trigger: micromarkup abuse to manipulate snippets. Check all types, remove inappropriate markup.

DMCA (Piracy)¶

Date: 2012 | Scope: document

Trigger: copying content from other sites. Delete non-unique content, request filter removal.

Exact Match Domain (EMD)¶

Date: 2012 | Scope: domain | Type: automatic

Trigger: commercial keyword phrase in domain name. Fix: change domain with 301 redirect. Prevention: don't use more than one keyword in domain.

Filter Reference Table¶

Gotchas¶

• Baden-Baden host-level: ONLY delete text - rewriting doesn't work, only complete removal
• Minusinsk calculates by hosts, not pages - one bad link per domain counts the same as 100
• Behavioral manipulation is the harshest penalty - 6-8 month ban with no workaround except domain change
• Affiliate filter requires extreme separation - even analytics on the same account can trigger detection
• Penguin is query-document scope - individual pages can recover while others stay penalized
• EMD still matters - avoid putting more than one commercial keyword in domain name

See Also¶

• link building strategy - Link strategies that avoid penalties
• text optimization - Text optimization within safe limits
• behavioral factors ctr - Behavioral factor best practices
• commercial ranking factors - E-A-T for YMYL recovery