Date First Published: 7th December 2022
Topic: Web Design & Development
Subtopic: SEO
Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions
Difficulty: MediumDifficulty Level: 5/10
Learn more about what a manual action is in this article.
A manual action is a temporary penalty issued by Google for violating their webmaster guidelines. These happen when a member of Google's team has determined that a page or a website is against their guidelines. The penalty consists of lowering the search rankings of or deindexing the page or website. The manual action can affect a single page, pages matching a pattern, or even the whole website.
Although Google's algorithms are good at detecting spam and automatically removing it from their search results without a manual review, Google is also willing to take manual action to remove spam from its index. When a member of Google's team issues a manual action, the website owner will be notified by email and it will show up on their Google Search Console report, which they can see by logging into their Google account.
Websites get a manual action due to their pages violating Google Webmaster Guidelines. The things that can violate Google Webmaster Guidelines and lead to a manual action are:
Website owners can fix manual actions by taking a look at why they got the manual action and the description and then selecting 'Request Review' in the report. In the reconsideration request, the site owner will describe the steps they have taken to fix the issue, the outcomes of their efforts, and the exact quality issue on their websites. Then, their reconsideration request will be reviewed. Reviews can take several days or weeks, depending on the type of manual action. The website owner will be notified by email when Google receives their request and when they have reviewed it.
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