YOU are at risk of being hit with a manual action if your website breaches Google’s policies and guidelines.

A manual action can lead to your website being removed completely from Google’s search results.

What is a manual action?

A manual action is imposed when a human reviewer at Google decides that the pages on a website do not comply with the spam policies.

Google uses manual actions to improve the quality of search results.

Google have stated: “Ever since there have been search engines, there have been people dedicated to tricking their way to the top of the results page.

“This is bad for searchers because more relevant pages get buried under irrelevant results, and it’s bad for legitimate websites because these sites become harder to find.

“For these reasons, we’ve been working since the earliest days of Google to fight spammers, helping people find the answers they’re looking for, and helping legitimate websites get traffic from search.”

Google’s March 2024 core update and the 2024 spam update were rolled out at the start of March.

The core update came to end after 45 days.

These updates are being used to improve the quality of search results and improve the spam policies.

Google revealed three new spam policies against bad practices.

• Expired domain abuse
• Scaled content abuse
• Site reputation abuse

What will happen if my website gets a manual action?

If you get hit by a manual action, you can expect to see:

• A drop in your site’s organic search traffic
• A drop off in organic search rankings
• Losing traffic on Google platforms e.g. Google Discover / Google News

Can you appeal against a Google manual action?

You can appeal against your manual action from Google.

Google have clearly stated how to do this on their website:

• Expand the manual action description panel on the report for more information.
• See which pages are affected.
• See the type and short description of the issue, and follow the “Learn more” link to see detailed information and steps to fix the issue. (You can find the detailed information for each action below on this page).
• Fix the issue on all affected pages. Fixing the issue on just some pages will not earn you a partial return to search results. If you have multiple manual actions on your site, read about and fix all of them.
• Be sure that Google can reach your pages; affected pages should not require a login, be behind a paywall, or be blocked by robots.txt or a noindex directive. You can test accessibility by using the URL Inspection tool.
• When all issues listed in the report are fixed in all pages, select Request Review in this report. In your reconsideration request, describe your fixes. A good request does three things:
• Explains the exact quality issue on your site.
• Describes the steps you’ve taken to fix the issue.
• Documents the outcome of your efforts.
• Reconsideration reviews can take some time (see below). You will be informed of progress by email. You will get a review confirmation message when you send your request, to inform you that the review is in progress; don’t resubmit your request before you get a final decision on your outstanding request.

How long will my manual action appeal take?

Google do not have an exact timeframe on when your manual action review will be answered.

It can be several days or weeks – depending on the case being reviewed.

You should receive a confirmation email when Google have received your request.

You will also receive a confirmation email when Google have completed the review.

There is no need to resubmit your request if you have not heard back.

How do I know if the manual action is against my whole site?

A manual action can impact an entire website – or just a part of it.

If you have received a manual action, you will be notified in the Manual Actions report and in the Search Console message centre.

This is where you can find out which part of your website has breached the spam policies.

A count of manual actions against your site can be seen at the top of the report.

If you expand this manual action description, you will see a list of patterns of affected pages.

This is where you can see which sections of your site have been impacted – or if it is a sitewide issue.

However, not every page that matches the pattern are directly affected.

Full list of manual actions that can be applied by Google

• Site abused with third-party spam
• User-generated spam
• Spammy free host
• Structured data issue
• Unnatural links to your site
• Unnatural links from your site
• Thin content with little or no added value
• Cloak and/or sneaky redirects
• Pure spam
• Cloaked images
• Hidden text and/or keyword stuffing
• AMP content mismatch
• Sneaky mobile redirects
• News and Discover policy violations
• Site reputation abuse

If your site has been hit with a manual action, or you think you are at risk, contact TRAFCK for help today.