Definition

A manual action is a penalty issued by a human reviewer at Google when a site is judged to violate the search spam policies, leading to specific URLs or the entire site being demoted or removed from search results.

Manual actions are reported in the Google Search Console "Manual actions" report, with the reason — for example, unnatural inbound links, thin content, user-generated spam, or cloaking — and the affected scope (site-wide or partial) listed. Once the underlying issue is fixed, the site owner submits a reconsideration request through Search Console; Google reviewers then re-examine the site and lift the action if appropriate. Manual actions are distinct from algorithmic ranking changes, which are not surfaced as alerts in Search Console.

Examples

• Unnatural links manual action

  A travel blog buys a paid-link package; weeks later Search Console shows a manual action for "unnatural links to your site" affecting the entire domain. The owner removes the paid links, files a disavow for any that couldn't be removed, and submits a reconsideration request. The action is lifted ten days later.

Sources

• Google Search Central — Manual Actions report

Related terms

• Disavow Links
  A Search Console tool that asks Google to ignore specific inbound links when assessing a site, intended for cases where unnatural links may cause harm.
• Backlink
  A hyperlink on one website that points at another. Search engines treat backlinks as one signal of how the wider web vouches for a page.

Where QueryCatch uses this

• SEO Audit