If a Google employee has given your site a penalty manually and you already have a Google Search Console account, you will get an email from Google to inform you that you have received the penalty. This is called a manual action. You will also be able to see details of the manual action in Google Search Console by clicking on Security & Manual actions in the menu and then on
If you haven’t set up Google Search Console and you fear your site may have received a penalty from Google, then you should set it up immediately. You can do this using SEOPress. We also recommend going back to the first chapter, because there are many other reasons to explain why you can’t find your site on Google. Manual penalties are relatively rare.
What a manual action from Google will do to your SEO
A manual action is applied to one, some or all pages of a website. It will cause pages to be either demoted in search results (for example drop 20 places in ranking) or be removed entirely. If you have received a manual action from Google, visibility and traffic are likely to drop considerably. For most, a manual action will mean that a site disappears completely from Google and that traffic from Google drops to zero. This obviously very bad for SEO. It is also an emergency when it happens to you, but it may be a long and frustrating process to get a manual action lifted.
Manual action report in Google Search Console
The Manual action report in Google will detail which issues were found on your website and whether they are applied to some or all pages. If you are new to this website or Google Search Console, you may find it useful to consult the historic messages from Google (click on the bell icon at the top of the page). The dates and the content of different messages sent by Google in the past may give you a clue as to when and why problems started.
When there is no manual action currently applied to a website, the Manual action report shows just the message “No issues detected”. When there is a manual action, the report will show the number of issues and then list the types of issues one by one. In the first block showing the number of issues, you will see a button “REQUEST REVIEW”. However much you disagree with the action taken by Google, do not request a review without carefully studying the issues detailed in this report and applying corrective actions. Each review that you request will be performed manually by a human employee at Google and will take time. Requesting a review without having made any changes to the site will waste someone’s time and result in a longer review cycle.
By clicking on each type of issue, you can get a brief description of the problem and whether the issue will affect all or only some of your pages.
The complete list of manual action issue types and recommended actions are listed on the Manual actions report help page but here are some examples of issues you may see.
Site abused with third party spam
This issue can occur in WordPress sites when post comments are spammed by readers or bots. It can also happen to sites with forums (which can also be added to WordPress sites using a dedicated plugin). It is usually only applied to pages with a significant amount of spam and should not affect a whole site.
To solve this problem, first review the example URLs provided in the Manual action report. Usually, the spam is easy to spot and remove on the pages included in the report. Also check to see if similar content is visible on other pages by searching on Google with the site: operator. For example, if you find spam about viagra on your website example.com, you can search Google with the query “site:example.com viagra” to see if many more pages contain similar content that needs removing.
Structured data issue
This issue means that Google has found structured data on your website that does not correspond to your actual content. For example, you have used the SEOPress PRO feature to add Recipe Schema to a publication in WordPress, but this page does not actually contain the recipe.
Using the examples given by Google, you should be able to correct this problem and request a review.
Unnatural links to your site
Google has detected that your site receives unnatural, artificial, deceptive or manipulative links from other websites. This type of manual action is usually related to buying links or participating in link schemes. If you have bought links, you may need to ask for these links to be removed or disavow them. See full instructions from Google.
Removing a manual action – asking for a review
Once you have reviewed the issues reported by Google and you believe you have corrected them, you can file a review request by clicking on REQUEST REVIEW at the top of the Manual action report.
Prepare the text for the “What was done” section in advance and repeat what issues were found on your site, what you have done to correct the issues and document the outcome of your efforts. If you believe that previous owners or third parties were responsible for the issues corrected, then you should say so in the request. Don’t be afraid to write too much, more the better.
You need to wait a few days or weeks for the request to be processed. Your request will be denied or accepted by a message sent to Google Search Console that you will also receive by email. When the request is accepted, the Manual action report will return to showing “No issues detected” and the penalty applied that was applied to some or all pages on your website will be lifted. This does not mean that you will return to your previous positions, but you are back in the race.
Getting professional help
Receiving a manual action from Google can be disastrous for a company that relies on their web presence for revenues. To get the problem solved quickly, you may need expert help. Most SEO consultants are not experienced in removing manual actions. You should look for a specialist. Marie Haynes for example is often cited as the foremost experts in removing manual actions.
