SEO Penalty Recovery Consultant

If your traffic has dropped and your rankings have tanked — seemingly overnight — you’re likely dealing with an SEO penalty.

Whether it’s a silent algorithmic suppression or an overt manual action from Google, I help businesses identify, clean up, and recover from ranking penalties caused by poor link building, over-optimization, or technical red flags.

I’m Michael McDougald, an SEO consultant with over 15 years of experience navigating algorithm updates, removing toxic backlinks, and restoring visibility for businesses that have been hit hard.

I’ve seen it all: unnatural link patterns, expired PBNs, exact-match anchor spam, doorway pages, AI content misuse — and I’ve helped recover sites across every niche, from local service businesses to 7-figure e-commerce brands.

What Are SEO Penalties — and Why Do They Happen?

There are two primary types of SEO penalties:

✅ Algorithmic Penalties (Unconfirmed or Core Update Drops)

These occur when Google’s algorithm devalues your site based on its evaluation of quality, trustworthiness, link profile, or content relevance. They’re not labeled or explained — just felt through sudden ranking drops.

Common causes include:

• Low-quality backlink patterns

• Thin or AI-generated content

• Exact-match anchor text spam

• Keyword stuffing

• Over-optimized internal linking

• Sitewide low engagement signals

🚨 Manual Penalties (Google Search Console Notice)

These happen when a human reviewer at Google flags your site for violating Webmaster Guidelines.

Some of the most common manual actions:

• Unnatural links to/from your site

• Spammy structured data

• Cloaking or sneaky redirects

• Pure spam

• Thin content with little or no added value

Whether your penalty is algorithmic or manual — the fix starts with a forensic investigation. That’s where I come in.

My SEO Penalty Recovery Services Start at $5,000 — Because This Isn’t a Patch Job

Penalty recovery isn’t about a few disavow files or deleting blog posts. It’s a process of detective work, cleanup, restoration, and then rebuilding authority the right way.

When you hire me, you’re getting a senior SEO consultant with real experience recovering rankings — not a generic agency following a checklist. My process is tailored, technical, and aggressive in both diagnosis and execution.

Here’s What’s Included in My Penalty Recovery Process:

🔎 1. Penalty Detection & Cause Analysis

We begin with identifying the true cause of your ranking drop. I’ll:

• Compare your traffic and keyword footprint across the last 12-24 months

• Overlay known Google updates (core, spam, helpful content, link spam)

• Investigate if a manual action exists in Search Console

• Cross-reference GSC, GA4, Ahrefs, and server logs to confirm behavior patterns

• Check for crawling/indexing anomalies or crawl budget issues

• Assess page-level vs. sitewide impact

You’ll know if the issue is algorithmic suppression, technical misconfiguration, content quality, or link-related — and what to fix first.

🔗 2. Backlink Profile Audit

I conduct a deep forensic audit of your backlink profile using multiple tools (Ahrefs, Majestic, Google Search Console, and proprietary methods). This audit evaluates:

• Anchor text ratio — is your backlink profile over-optimized with keyword-rich anchors?

• Toxic domains — links from spammy, low-quality, or PBN-style sites

• Link velocity — sudden spikes or suspicious acquisition patterns

• Paid/sponsored patterns — guest post farms, link insertions, or sidebar spam

• Relevance & authority — are your links contextually aligned and earning real traffic?

We segment links by risk level and prepare for:

• Disavow file creation (if appropriate)

• Outreach for link removals

• Internal linking adjustments

• Anchor text dilution and trust rebuilding

This is not about nuking your entire link profile. It’s about surgically removing the rot and preserving the equityyou’ve built.

🛠️ 3. Content & On-Page Review

Google penalties often coincide with content problems. I’ll evaluate:

• Pages with thin or duplicate content

• Keyword stuffing or unnatural optimization

• AI-written or templated blog spam

• Internal keyword cannibalization

• Search intent mismatch and bounce rates

• Core Web Vitals issues that reduce page trust

From there, we’ll build a plan to improve or consolidate content — or remove it where necessary.

🔄 4. Technical SEO Cleanup

Penalties aren’t always content-related. Technical issues can tank trust and crawlability. I’ll assess:

• Crawl errors and bloated sitemaps

• Canonical conflicts or duplicate paths

• Soft 404s, redirect chains, and cloaking issues

• Schema violations or spammy markup

• Over-indexing of low-quality pages

You’ll receive a prioritized list of fixes — many of which can be implemented in days.

📤 5. Disavow & Reconsideration (If Manual)

For manual link penalties, I prepare and submit a complete reconsideration request — with documentation:

• Link audit summary

• Removal outreach logs

• Disavow file (.txt)

• Description of corrective actions

• Future strategy explanation

While results are never guaranteed, my reconsideration requests have a strong track record of success — often within 2-4 weeks.

🔗 6. Authority Rebuilding (Post-Recovery)

Once penalties are lifted or suppressed, we can’t stop there. Your site needs fresh, clean, high-authority links from real websites to rebuild trust.

I manage:

• Manual outreach campaigns

• Strategic digital PR and brand mentions

• Guest contributions to sites with real traffic

• Branded anchor text usage to rebuild natural ratios

• Topical relevance through carefully selected placements

Every link we build is reviewed manually. Every site is vetted. We only pursue links from websites with real audiences, not just high DR.

Why Work With Me on Penalty Recovery?

✅ 15+ Years of SEO and Algorithm Tracking

I’ve seen the rise and fall of every SEO fad — from EMDs to PBNs to parasite hosting. I know what causes penalties because I’ve cleaned up after hundreds of them.

✅ Deep Experience With Complex Link Profiles

My background includes link building, outreach, disavows, and recovery campaigns across thousands of domains — in niches like legal, e-commerce, healthcare, SaaS, and B2B.

✅ Advanced Diagnostics

I use multi-source data (GA4, GSC, Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, SEMrush, and more) to spot issues others miss. No guesswork. No canned audits.

✅ Personalized Strategy

No two penalties are the same. My approach is built around your specific situation, not a generic plan.

✅ Transparent Reporting

You’ll always know what’s happening, what’s being fixed, and what comes next.

Who This Is For

• Websites hit after a Google Core Update

• Businesses who received a manual penalty in Search Console

• Sites that previously hired link-building vendors or bought links

• Agencies that need white-label penalty help

• Owners who aren’t sure what went wrong — just that rankings dropped

Pricing & Timeline

Penalty Recovery Campaigns Start at $5,000
(includes 4–6 weeks of investigation, cleanup, and reporting)

✅ Full backlink audit
✅ Anchor text profile analysis
✅ Manual link removal outreach
✅ Disavow creation and upload
✅ Technical SEO fixes
✅ Content cleanup recommendations
✅ Reconsideration request (if needed)
✅ Post-cleanup link building roadmap

If your site is large or the link profile is extremely complex, pricing and timeline may be adjusted.

📞 Book a discovery call and let’s investigate your drop before it gets worse.

What Past Clients Say

“We lost 60% of our traffic in the March update. Michael did a full analysis, cleaned up our links, fixed our content issues, and within 90 days we were back stronger than before.”
— Founder, National Health Brand

“Our previous SEO agency built links that triggered a manual penalty. Michael walked us through the recovery and helped rebuild our rankings organically. Total pro.”
— Marketing Director, Law Firm

“Nobody else found the issue — until we hired Michael. He spotted the anchor text imbalance, removed 70+ spammy links, and got our organic leads flowing again.”
— Owner, E-commerce Business

Don’t Wait to Fix It — Penalties Compound Over Time

The longer you delay fixing a penalty, the harder it becomes to recover. Traffic loss turns into lead loss. Link equity continues to decay. Competitors take your place.

Let’s fix the problem — fast, surgically, and permanently.

✅ Book your strategy call today
✅ Get clarity on what’s wrong — and how to fix it
✅ Start your recovery with someone who’s done it before

Let me know if you’d like a downloadable checklist version, or want to create a “Link Audit Service” variant for pre-penalty prevention!