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Manual Action

A Manual Action is a penalty imposed by Google when a human reviewer at Google determines that pages on your site are not compliant with Google’s webmaster quality guidelines. These actions can significantly impact your website’s visibility in Google search results, leading to a drop in rankings or even complete removal from the index.

Types of Manual Actions

Manual actions can be applied for various reasons, including but not limited to:

1. Unnatural Links to Your Site: This includes buying links or participating in link schemes intended to manipulate PageRank.
2. Unnatural Links from Your Site: Linking out to low-quality or spammy sites in an attempt to manipulate search rankings.
3. Thin Content with Little or No Added Value: Pages that are low-quality, duplicate, or scraped from other sites.
4. Cloaking and/or Sneaky Redirects: Showing different content to users than to search engines or redirecting users to different pages than they initially requested.
5. Pure Spam: Engaging in aggressive spam techniques, such as automatically generated gibberish, cloaking, scraping content from other sites, and more.
6. User-Generated Spam: Spammy content posted by users on forums, guestbooks, or user profiles.
7. Hidden Text and/or Keyword Stuffing: Using hidden text or excessively repeating keywords in an attempt to manipulate search rankings.
8. AMP Content Mismatch: AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) content that doesn’t match the canonical version of the page.
9. Structured Data Issues: Using structured data markup in a way that violates Google’s guidelines.

How to Identify a Manual Action

To find out if your site has been hit with a manual action, follow these steps:

1. Google Search Console: Log into your Google Search Console account.
2. Security & Manual Actions: Navigate to the “Security & Manual Actions” section.
3. Manual Actions Report: Check the “Manual Actions” report to see if any actions have been taken against your site.

If a manual action has been applied, you will see a notification detailing the reason for the penalty.

How to Fix a Manual Action

1. Identify the Issue

• Review the details provided in the manual action notification.
• Use tools like Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and third-party SEO tools to analyze your site and pinpoint the problematic areas.

2. Fix the Issue

• Remove or update the problematic content.
• Disavow unnatural links if necessary.
• Clean up user-generated spam.
• Ensure your site complies with Google’s webmaster guidelines.

3. Submit a Reconsideration Request

• Once you’ve addressed all the issues, submit a reconsideration request via Google Search Console.
• Provide a detailed explanation of the steps you took to fix the problem.
• Be honest and thorough in your explanation.

4. Monitor Your Site

• Regularly monitor your site for any further issues.
• Use Google Search Console and other SEO tools to stay updated on your site’s health.

Preventing Manual Actions

1. Follow Google’s Guidelines

• Adhere to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines to ensure your site remains compliant.

2. Regular Audits

• Conduct regular SEO audits to identify and fix potential issues before they escalate.

3. Quality Content

• Focus on creating high-quality, valuable content that meets user intent.

4. Ethical Link Building

• Engage in white-hat link-building strategies and avoid link schemes.

5. Monitor User-Generated Content

• Keep an eye on forums, comment sections, and other areas where users can post content to prevent spam.

Conclusion

Manual actions can severely impact your website’s visibility and traffic. Understanding what they are, how to identify them, and how to fix and prevent them is crucial for maintaining a healthy and compliant website. By following Google’s guidelines and regularly monitoring your site, you can minimize the risk of manual actions and ensure long-term SEO success.