An algorithmic penalty is an informal SEO term for a drop in rankings caused by Google’s automated systems rather than by a human reviewer. Google’s documentation does not use the term, so it is industry language and not an official category.
At a glance
- Type
- Industry term for a drop caused by automated systems
- Affects
- Ranking of single pages or whole sites
- Confirmed by
- Term no (Google speaks of ranking systems and spam updates), systems yes
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What does Google say?
Google writes that sites violating its spam policies may rank lower in results or not appear at all. Automated systems detect many violations. Improvements to these systems are announced as spam updates, for example when Google improves SpamBrain.
For recovery, Google advises reviewing the spam policies and making changes. Systems may need a period of months to recognize that a site now complies. A link spam update is an exception: when the effects of spammy links are removed, the ranking benefit those links gave is lost and cannot be regained by fixing the links.
How can you tell it from a manual action?
A manual action appears in the Manual Actions report in Search Console, together with a reconsideration option. A ranking drop with no entry there is not a manual action. Rankings also change for other reasons, such as competitors or technical problems, so the missing entry alone says nothing about the cause.
FAQ
Is there a way to request a review? Reconsideration requests exist for manual actions. For automated changes, Google points to changing the site and waiting.
Sources
- Spam policies for Google web search – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Google Search spam updates – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Manual Actions report – Search Console Helpsupport.google.com
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