I think I have partial penalty on a site

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Michael Martinez: Algorithms don`t always downgrade your site. Sometimes they just reward other sites more than yours. Of course, we`re talking about a per-page scoring system (for the most part - a couple of algorithms have sitewide effects).Penalties are different from quality and relevance scoring. Penalties are manual overrides of the algorithms.While that may seem unnecessarily pedantic, it helps to look at what is happening from both your side and the search engine`s side of the equation.The search engine is responding to both what YOU are doing with your site and what EVERYONE ELSE is doing with their sites.Things that might explain search referral traffic losses include (in no specific order):__1 You lost some links that were once helping__2 Other sites gained some links that help__3 Other sites improved their content__4 The algorithms changed how they assess content quality or relevance__5 New sites have appeared in the SERPs that interest you, and they`re just doing better (through content, links, or both)__6 You were (wittingly or unwittingly) breaking the rules and either the algorithms caught up with you or you`ve earned a manual action (penalty)If you are convinced your site is being punished, either algorithmically or manually, then you need to review Google`s spam policies and determine which is most likely to be the one you`re violating.https://developers.google.com/.../essentials/spam-policies