A manual action
Disclosed to you in Search Console. Names its reason and its scope. Lifted by fixing the cause and asking a human to look again. Usually the result of something specific somebody did, often years ago and often not by you.
Google penalty recovery
Start by finding out whether you have one, because most people searching this do not. Then fix the right thing. Both halves are written out below, free.
30
seconds
to check, in Search Console, under Security and Manual Actions.
Most people searching this do not have a penalty
A penalty is a manual action: a person at Google has reviewed your site and applied a suppression, and it is listed in Search Console. If Search Console says no issues detected, you do not have one. What you have is an algorithmic decline, which is a different problem with a different fix and no appeal, and selling penalty recovery for it is one of the most common things done to businesses in trouble.
Which of the two you have
An algorithmic decline
Never announced and nowhere in Search Console. Nobody to appeal to. Recovered by making the pages genuinely better than the ones now above them, which takes a reassessment rather than an approval and has no timetable.
The manual actions, and what each one means
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Unnatural links to your site
The most common by a distance. Links you paid for, traded, or bought in a package, usually years ago and often by somebody else. The fix is removal or disavowal of what you can identify, and an honest account of how it happened.
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Unnatural links from your site
Selling links, or an affiliate section passing authority it should not. Usually fixed by adding the right rel attribute rather than by removing anything.
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Thin content with little or no added value
Doorway pages, scraped content, generated pages, a page per town with the name swapped. The fix is removing them, not improving them: a hundred thin pages rewritten is still a hundred pages nobody searched for.
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Pure spam
Cloaking, scraped content at scale, automatically generated gibberish. Usually a compromised site rather than the owner, and in that case the security problem comes first.
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User-generated spam
A forum, a comments section or a profile page being used by somebody else. Fixed by closing the hole and removing what came through it.
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Structured data problem
Markup describing something the page does not show: review stars on a page with no reviews, an FAQ nobody can read. The fix is making the markup and the page agree, in either direction.
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Cloaking or sneaky redirects
Serving Google something different from the visitor. Almost always a compromise or a plugin, rarely deliberate, and usually accompanied by traffic going somewhere it should not.
What to do, in order
- 1
Check whether you actually have one
Search Console, Security and Manual Actions. If it says "No issues detected", you do not have a penalty and nothing below applies to you. This one step separates the two situations and most people never take it.
- 2
If there is no manual action, date the drop instead
Find the exact day traffic fell in Search Console, then compare it against what you changed and against the confirmed update dates. A fall on the day of a redesign is a redesign problem. A fall spread over two weeks is usually an update. A fall on one page is usually that page.
- 3
Read what the action actually says
Manual actions name their reason and their scope: site-wide or partial. A partial action affects some URLs, which is why traffic can fall without disappearing. Fixing the wrong scope wastes the attempt.
- 4
Fix the cause, completely, before you ask
A reconsideration request is read by a person who can see what you have done. Removing half the bought links and asking is worse than not asking, because the refusal makes the next attempt harder and slower.
- 5
Document it
Which links, who was contacted, what was removed, what was disavowed, what changed on the site. The request is judged on evidence of work rather than on the apology.
- 6
Write the request plainly
What happened, how it happened, what you have done, and what you have changed so it does not happen again. Do not argue that the action was unfair even if you believe it. The reviewer is deciding whether the problem is gone.
- 7
Then wait, and do not resubmit
Days to a few weeks depending on the type. Repeat submissions do not speed it up. A refusal usually names what remains, and that is the next thing to fix rather than an invitation to argue.
- 8
Expect recovery to be partial
Revoking an action removes the suppression; it does not restore rankings that were being held up by the thing that caused it. If the traffic came from bought links, some of it is not coming back, and anybody telling you otherwise is selling something.
If you want it done for you
The first thing we do is tell you which of the two you have, and if it is the second one we say so rather than selling you a recovery for a problem that does not exist. Nobody can guarantee a manual action is revoked, and anybody who does is describing something they do not control.
How the engagement works
There is no package to pick from. What the site needs is decided on a call and written down before any work starts, because a business with one location and a clean site needs a different month to an agency reselling to twelve clients.
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01
A call, before anything is quoted
Thirty minutes on what you sell, where you sell it, and what the site looks like today. No scope is written before that conversation, because the right work depends on all three.
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02
A written scope and quote
What will be done, in what order, and what it costs, in writing. Nothing starts until you have agreed to it.
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03
Month to month from there
The work runs monthly and the scope changes as the site does. Cancel with 30 days’ notice.
True of every engagement
- Search Console and Analytics set up in your name, so the data is yours
- No lock-in: month to month, cancel with 30 days’ notice
- One person you can email, in your working hours
- Every change listed in the monthly report
Questions about penalties
What is a Google penalty?
Strictly, a manual action: a human reviewer at Google has looked at your site, decided it breaks a specific guideline, and applied a suppression that is listed in Search Console under Security and Manual Actions. Everything else people call a penalty is an algorithmic decline, which is not a penalty and is not lifted by asking.
How do I know if I have one?
Search Console, Security and Manual Actions. If it says no issues detected, you do not have one. That takes thirty seconds and it is the difference between two completely different problems with two completely different fixes.
What is the difference between a manual action and an algorithmic drop?
A manual action is a decision by a person, it is disclosed to you, and it is lifted by fixing the cause and requesting reconsideration. An algorithmic drop is your pages being ranked lower than they were, it is never announced, there is nobody to appeal to, and it is recovered by making the pages genuinely better than what now outranks them.
How long does recovery take?
Once the cause is genuinely fixed, a reconsideration request usually takes days to a few weeks. Recovery from an algorithmic decline has no timetable at all, because there is nothing to approve; it moves when the next assessment finds the site better than it was.
Can you guarantee the penalty will be lifted?
No. A human at Google decides, and requests do fail. What can be done is identifying the right cause, fixing it completely, and making the request once with the evidence attached, which is what most failed attempts are missing.
We think a previous agency caused it. Does that matter?
Not to Google, and yes to the work. The action attaches to the site whoever caused it, so ownership of the mistake is irrelevant to the fix. It matters for the work because you need to know what was done, and a previous supplier rarely volunteers it, so the link profile has to be read rather than asked about.
Is this the same as a suspended Google Business Profile?
No, and the two get confused constantly. A suspension removes your listing from the map and has its own appeal process. A manual action affects your website in the ordinary search results. A business can have either, or both, and they are fixed separately.
Book a call with us
A 30-minute call in your working hours. Tell us what you sell and where, and we will tell you what we would do first and what it involves. Prefer email? Send your website through the form and the Passieon Team will reply within two working days.