Google Manual Actions or Penalties are sent to webmasters via the Manual Action section in a websites Search Console, formerly Google Webmaster Tools.
If your website or parts of your website is no longer appearing in search results or you notice that your website has dropped significantly in positions within search results, it is recommended that you check the manual action section in the websites search console. Once you have corrected the issues you can reply directly via the manual actions report.
Types of Google Manual Actions:
- Manual Action : user-generated spam
- Manual Action: pure spam
- Manual Action: thin content with little or no added value
- Manual Action: unnatural links to your site
- Manual Action: unnatural links from your site
- Manual Action: hidden text and/or keyword stuffing
- Manual Action: unnatural links to site – impact links
- Manual Action: spammy structured markup
Manual Spam Action : user-generated spam |
Google notifies website owners through the Message Center in Google Search Console when a site’s search results ranking have been negatively impacted by user-generated spam. This problem is typically the result of website, blog or forum comments being abused by spammers with posts or profiles that look like advertisements, often containing commercial names with hidden text or keyword-stuffed unnatural links from your site.
Google’s Manual Actions page lists whether the problem involves site-wide matches affecting the entire site or partial matches impacting individual sections.
Google recommends include:
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After you have taken corrective action, you can ask Google to reconsider your site by clicking “Request a review” and detailing the steps you have taken to eliminate user-generated spam.
https://support.google.com/webmasters
Manual Spam Action: pure spam |
A website’s search results ranking can be negatively affected when its pages use techniques that fall outside of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Some of the most common violations of Google’s quality guidelines include automatically generated (also called “auto-generated”) content, scraped content or cloaking. Hidden text or links, sneaky redirects and loading pages with irrelevant keywords are also techniques that violate guidelines. In its video, Google’s Matt Cutts claims these types of websites make up a “vast majority” of the domains that the search giant takes action on.
Matt notes that it is “more of a difficult task” to come back from that and approach Google with a reconsideration request.
Google recommends include:
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If you believe that you have updated your site to meet Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, you can submit a reconsideration request.
https://support.google.com/webmasters
Manual Spam Action: thin content with little or no added value |
Low-quality or shallow pages can negatively impact a website’s Google search results ranking. These pages can be “doorways” that are pages optimised for a certain keyword or phrase but all direct visitors to the same site. They can also be pages that contain virtually the same content with the only differences being a different geolocation keyword.
Thin affiliate sites that fail to provide additional value and websites made up of thin content such as syndicated articles that appear on thousands of other sites can also be in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Google recommends include:
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It can be difficult to create content that is compelling enough to capture the attention of a large audience, but the key to avoid being penalized for thin content is constantly updating your website with material that contains insights and thoughts that cannot be found elsewhere.
https://support.google.com/webmasters
Manual Spam Action: unnatural links to your site |
Google notifies website owners through a message on the Manual Actions page when a site’s search results ranking have been negatively impacted by so-called “link spam.” This message is usually the result of a pattern of artificial, deceptive or manipulative links that Google has detected going to your site. Many sites buy links or participate in link schemes that come from unnatural sources, and these links can negatively impact Google’s ranking of the website being linked to.
It can take some effort to fix this problem after Google has notified you, but here are a few steps you can take to get back in the search engine’s good graces.
Google recommends include:
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As Google’s Alex says in the video, it is important to “reinstate trust.” After making legitimate attempts to remove or disavow unnatural links, you can help your reconsideration request by documenting the steps you have taken to prove you attempted to address the problem.
https://support.google.com/webmasters
Manual Spam Action: unnatural links from your site |
If your website is linking to low-quality or spam-type sites, Google will deem the links as unnatural and send you a message notifying you that the links do not pass PageRank. This negatively affects your search results ranking because Google often believes that you may be selling links or participating in a link scheme. Either way, the links violate Google’s guidelines and you will need to remove them in order to revoke the search engine’s manual action.
The good news is that unlike unnatural links to your website, it can be much easier to remove unnatural links from your site. After you identify the links that violate Google’s linking guidelines.
Google recommends include:
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After removing unnatural links from your site, you can submit a reconsideration request to Google showing that you have taken steps to correct the problem.
https://support.google.com/webmasters
Manual Spam Action: hidden text and/or keyword stuffing |
Two techniques that can cause Google to send you a message on the Manual Actions page are hidden text or keyword stuffing. Hidden text involves computer text that is invisible or disguised from the average website visitor. As Nelson notes in the Google Webmaster video, it may involve white text on a white background, for instance. The idea is that this can help keywords factor into Google searches without being used for the actual content of the website.
Keyword stuffing is the practice of using large amounts of terms and phrases that are commonly searched for, also in hopes of helping search result rankings. This used to be a fairly common SEO practice, and many websites still use auto-generated content that publishes low-quality material which relies heavily on keywords.
If you have been flagged by Google for wither of these techniques, you should immediately correct the problem by removing the hidden text and pages of posts that are guilty of keyword stuffing.
Google recommends include:
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You can submit a reconsideration request once you believe you have updated your site to meet Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
https://support.google.com/webmasters
Manual Spam Action: unnatural links to site – impact links |
If Google thinks that you overall have a good website but you have some bad links, it will notify you through a message on the Manual Actions page that the offending links are negatively impacting your search result ranking. Google’s Matt Cutts notes in the Webmaster YouTube video that less than 10 sites a day receive this message, so the problem represents one of the less common problems. Whereas there are certainly websites that are paying for or knowingly became involved with unnatural backlinks, these cases of impact links involve only a few troublesome links and are generally the result of certain scenarios that were beyond the webmaster’s control.
A few of the reasons why your site may be targeted include widget links, paid links or reputation management companies trying to get your pages to rank lower in an effort to bump up pages that serve their interests. Much like websites that have been penalized for knowingly taking part in having unnatural links directed at their sites, webmasters will need to evaluate the links to their sites in order determine which ones are violating Google’s guidelines.
Google recommends include:
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Include evidence of your attempts in your reconsideration request.
https://support.google.com/webmasters
Read More: Unnatural Links: Audit, Removal and Recovery
Manual Spam Action: spammy structured markup |
If you have received this message, then some parts of your structured data / rich snippets are outside of Google’s guidelines.
This could be marking up content that is not visible to the user on page. Incorrectly marking up pages site-wide, when it should only be applicable to a specific page and marking up irrelevant or misleading content.
Google recommends include:
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Once you have completed the necessary changes, then submit a reconsideration request.
https://support.google.com/webmasters
What’s Done is Done !
Don’t make any hasty moves. Analyse your site properly or have a competent SEO consultant audit your site for you, before undertaking any remedial steps.