A manual action is a penalty Google applies to a site after a human reviewer determines that pages do not comply with Google’s spam policies. Affected sites are notified in Search Console. In everyday SEO language this is often called a Google penalty.
At a glance
- Type
- Penalty applied by a Google reviewer for violating the spam policies
- Affects
- individual pages, sections or the whole site
- Shown in
- Search Console, Manual Actions report and Message Center
- Completed
- until lifted after a successful reconsideration
- Confirmed by
- yes, Google documents manual actions and the reconsideration request
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How do manual actions work?
Google states that some or all of the site will not be shown in search results when a manual action applies. Most issues reported in the Manual Actions report result in pages or sites being ranked lower or omitted from results, without any visual indication for users.
The report in Search Console lists the issue and the affected pages. After fixing the problem, the site owner submits a reconsideration request that explains the exact quality issue, the steps taken to fix it, and the outcome. Google says reviews can take several days or weeks, and longer in some cases, such as link-related requests.
How does it differ from an algorithmic drop?
Algorithmic changes come from automated systems. A site with a ranking drop and no entry in the Manual Actions report has not received a manual action (see algorithmische-abwertung).
Example
A reviewer finds that a site sells links on thousands of pages. Google sends a notice in Search Console. The owner removes the links and submits a reconsideration request.
Sources
- Manual Actions report – Search Console Helpsupport.google.com
- Spam policies for Google web search – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Update to the Site Reputation Policy – Google Search Central Blog, 2026-08-28developers.google.com
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