Can the Alternate/hreflang tags harm SEO?

[Kung_fu_Panda]

Hello,

Recently one of my regional websites, targeted for Denmark (xxxx.dk (TLD)), received a manual penalty from Google, specified as “pure spam”.

The reason for this (as I suspect) can be the fact that the Danish site’s content, is fully translated from English, on the main site (.com).

To fix that problem with Google, I want to use the “alternate/hreflang” tags on both sites
URL’s (the main and the regional), before submitting it for a second review on WMT.

Following this, I would like to ask you few questions:

1. Is there any RISK in using alternate tags between two sites (a “healthy” site to the one that got the penalty), Can it harm the SEO of the main site (.com)?
2. Once done, Will it resolve my problem with Google? Will they remove the manual penalty?
3. Based on your experience, would you recommend me to rewrite all the content on the Danish site, instead of just translating it (the current status)?

Would love to hear your opinion on those issues.

Thanks a lot!

[DmitriiK]

Hello,

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2604777?hl=en That would be your main guidelines. Now, here are my questions/suggestions. How did you translate that website? Is it automatically generated through google translate? Have you done any other spammy stuff? Is your backlink profile clean?

According to Matt explainations in video above, it would have to be very good reason to mark your website as pure spam. So, if you just translated (properly) english website, then it shouldn't be the reason for taking manual action on your website. So, check everything else.

Now, as to your questions.

1. I think that would depend on is your "healthy" website really healthy. Because if it's actually as spammy (at least in the eyes of google), then you'll basically tell google "Hey, look at my another spammy website". But, I believe, if english website is all good and has no spam attached to it, then it shouldn't be a problem.
2. According to Matt, it will be pretty difficult to unmark your website and you'll have to spend a lot of time and effort on proving it. So, roll up your sleeves and get ready to work.
3. If you're translating it, you're pretty much rewriting it. I used to work as a translator and there is no way to translate word to word, the proper way of translation is when you translate the idea/thought/intent, not words itself.

Hope this helps.