How to Recover from a Google Manual Action
On this page
- Confirm that a manual action is what you have
- Read the action: scope, type and the pages behind it
- Fix the violation everywhere, not where it was spotted
- What thin content looks like when it is fixed
- Write a reconsideration request a reviewer can verify
- How long the review takes, and what happens after
- Keep it from happening again
- Frequently asked questions
- Related posts:
Open Search Console and go to Security and Manual Actions before you change anything. If a manual action is listed, a Google reviewer found a violation of Google’s spam policies for web search, and the way back is a fixed sequence: read the action, fix it on every affected page, file a reconsideration request that documents the fix, and wait for the decision. If nothing is listed, you are dealing with something else, and a reconsideration request cannot help.
Confirm that a manual action is what you have
Google’s Manual Actions report help page explains that the report shows a count of manual actions at the top, and a green check mark with a message when there are none. That single screen separates two very different problems.
With a listed action, a person at Google has judged part or all of the site to be in violation, and the way to have it lifted is to fix the problem and have the action revoked on review. With no listed action, a drop in traffic has another cause, such as a ranking update, a technical fault, a competitor, or a change in demand. Google’s own help page frames manual actions as the exception. Its automated systems detect and remove most spam, and manual action is an additional step it is willing to take. Google’s page on reconsideration requests defines one as a request to have Google review your site after you fix problems identified in a manual action or a security issues notification. With nothing flagged, there is nothing to review.
If you bought the site recently, the action may predate you. Google asks new owners to fix the listed issues and say in the reconsideration request that the site was recently acquired and no longer violates the policies. Put that sentence in the request; it tells the reviewer why the history and the current owner differ.
Read the action: scope, type and the pages behind it
Expand the action in the report. It shows two things you need before you touch the site.
The scope. An action marked “Affects all pages” covers the entire site. Otherwise the report lists patterns of affected pages, such as a directory. Google notes that not every page matching the pattern is necessarily affected. For planning, that cuts both ways. The pattern is where the violation was found, and a violation left on any page in it can sink the request. It is not a promise that every page in the pattern was the problem, so do not delete a whole directory of legitimate pages to clear a narrower issue.
The type. The action names the violation, and the name decides both the fix and the evidence the reviewer will expect. The help page lists the current action types. Older names still circulate in SEO articles: the action for aggressive or repeated spam techniques is listed as “Major spam problems”, and markup problems appear as “Structured data issue”. Use the name in your report, not the one in an old guide.
| Action in the report | What Google wants fixed | What your request should show |
|---|---|---|
| Unnatural links to your site | Ask site owners to remove paid or manipulative links, or to stop them passing PageRank with <!–INLINECODE0–> or a more specific attribute. Disavow only the links you could not get removed | Your outreach record, what was removed, and the disavow file for the remainder |
| Unnatural links from your site | Remove paid or exchanged links, or stop them passing PageRank (<!–INLINECODE1–> or a more specific attribute, or routing them through a page blocked by robots.txt) | The outbound links you changed, before and after |
| Thin content with little or no added value | Thin affiliate pages, content copied from other sources and doorway pages, improved so the site provides significant added value for users | Examples of weak content you removed and strong content you added |
| User-generated spam | Remove spam posts and spam profiles in forums, comments and user profiles, and add measures that stop new spam | What you removed and the moderation controls now in place |
| Site abused with third-party spam | Remove spam that visitors or other third parties placed on parts of the site, and close the hole they used | The cleaned sections and how submissions are now controlled |
| Structured data issue | Markup that describes content users cannot see, or that is irrelevant or misleading, corrected to match the page | The corrected markup and the pages it now describes |
| Hidden text and/or keyword stuffing | Text visible to Google but not to users, and repeated words without context, removed or re-styled so users and crawlers see the same thing | Pages cleaned and how you checked them |
| Cloaking and/or sneaky redirects | Serve users and Googlebot the same content. Remove redirects that send users somewhere unexpected, including conditional ones that fire only for visitors from Google Search or from certain IP ranges. Google points to JavaScript, the <!–INLINECODE2–> file, the CMS and plugins as places to look | The pages and redirects you changed |
| Major spam problems | Aggressive techniques such as scaled content abuse or cloaking, removed across the site | The scale of what was removed and what the site is now |
The help page also covers narrower types, including spammy free hosts, cloaked images, AMP content mismatch, sneaky mobile redirects, back button hijacking and News and Discover policy violations. The same rule applies to each: read the linked explanation in the report and fix what that type describes, since the fixes differ.
Two notes in the help page change how you read your own action. Under cloaking, Google tells publishers with paywalled content to mark it up with structured data so Google can tell a paywall apart from cloaking. A subscription site that shows Googlebot the full article should have that markup in place. And for “Site abused with third-party spam”, Google says it generally believes the site is of sufficient quality that it did not need to act against the whole site, and the action affects only the pages carrying the spam. The problem is contained to the spammed sections, and so is the work.
Fix the violation everywhere, not where it was spotted
Google’s instruction is to fix the issue on all affected pages, and it warns that fixing only some of them “will not earn you a partial return to search results.” If the site has more than one action, each has to be fixed. A reviewer who finds the same violation on a page you skipped has grounds to keep the action.
Two practical checks make the fix hold:
- Search for the pattern, not the examples. The URLs the report shows are a starting map. For user-generated spam, Google suggests searching your own site with the
site:operator plus spammy terms unrelated to your topic to find what the report did not list. - Make sure Google can see the fixed pages. The help page asks that the pages not be blocked by robots.txt or a noindex directive, and suggests the URL Inspection tool to test access. A fix the reviewer cannot load is a fix the reviewer cannot confirm.
For link actions, the order matters. Google’s disavow guidance calls the tool an advanced feature that most sites will not need and that can harm performance in Search if used incorrectly. The manual action page is specific about link cleanups: make a good-faith effort to have links removed first, use the domain: operator for multiple links from one domain, and do not disavow organic links. It also warns that adding every backlink to the disavow file is not a good-faith effort and can get the request rejected. The disavow links help page covers the file format; it has no role in fixing a thin-content, cloaking or structured data action.
What thin content looks like when it is fixed
Affiliate sites show the pattern clearly. A review page built by summarizing other reviews and adding an affiliate link offers nothing the searcher could not find elsewhere, which is what the thin-content action describes. More words do not change that. The page needs content that shows the site used, tested or knows the product first-hand. Pages that cannot be brought to that standard are better removed than padded. Google’s own tip for this action is to ask people who are not affiliated with the site to use it and critique it, because an outsider sees quickly whether a page adds anything.
Write a reconsideration request a reviewer can verify
When every listed issue is fixed on every affected page, select Request Review in the report. Google says a good request does three things: it explains the exact quality issue on your site, describes the steps taken to fix it, and documents the outcome. A request built to be checked follows from that:
- Name the violation in the report’s own terms. A request that is vague about what was wrong suggests the owner may not have found it.
- Describe the change concretely. Give counts, URLs or directories, and before and after, instead of “we improved quality”. For example, imagine a line such as “Removed 212 affiliate pages that summarized third-party reviews; rewrote 40 with test results and original photos.” A reviewer can check that. “We cleaned up our content” gives them nothing to check.
- Attach the evidence. A list of removed or changed URLs, the outreach log for a link action, or examples of weak content removed and strong content added for a thin-content action, which is what Google asks for in that case.
- State the control that keeps it from coming back. Name a policy: only products the team has tested get reviewed, user posts are moderated on a stated schedule, outbound links are checked before publishing. A standing control shows the violation was fixed at its source.
Write it as a record of facts. The reviewer is deciding whether the violation still exists, and specific, checkable statements are what let them decide.
How long the review takes, and what happens after
Google says most reconsideration reviews take several days or weeks, and some, such as link-related requests, can take longer. You get an email when the request is received and another when the review is complete. Google asks owners not to resubmit a request before a decision on the previous one; a second request does not speed up the first.
If the request is rejected, the action stays, and the useful reading is that the fix was incomplete. Look past the URLs you already fixed to the rest of the pattern, fix what remains, and resubmit with the new work described. Sending the same request again adds another wait.
Google describes the outcome of a successful review as revoking the manual action; it makes no promise about rankings. Once the action is gone, your pages compete on their merits. A site that removed a large share of thin pages to clear the action is a smaller site, and its traffic may settle below where it was before the problems started. That is the result of removing pages that were not earning their place.
Keep it from happening again
The fix clears the action; the control keeps it cleared. Match the control to the type you had:
- Links: a rule against buying, selling or exchanging links, and a check on outbound links before pages go live.
- Thin affiliate content: a standard that every review shows first-hand use, and a removal routine for pages that no longer meet it.
- User-generated content: moderation on a fixed schedule, and limits on who can post links.
- Structured data: a check that every marked-up item is visible on the page it describes.
These are the same controls you named in the request, and keeping them is what lets that request stay true.
Frequently asked questions
How do I know whether I have a manual action?
Open Security and Manual Actions in Search Console. The report shows the number of manual actions at the top, or a green check mark if there are none. No listed action means a reconsideration request has nothing to review.
Can a reconsideration request fix a drop from a core update?
No. Ranking updates do not create manual actions, so there is nothing for a reviewer to revoke. A reconsideration request applies to problems flagged in a manual action or a security issues notification.
Should I disavow links to clear a manual action?
Only for an unnatural-links-to-your-site action, and only for links you tried and failed to get removed. Google warns that disavowing every backlink without removal attempts is not a good-faith effort and can lead to rejection. For other action types, disavowing links does not address the violation.
Why was my request rejected after I fixed the listed pages?
Two causes to check first: the same violation remains on pages that match the affected pattern but were not among the examples, or the request did not document the fix clearly. Fix the rest of the pattern, describe exactly what changed, and resubmit only after you receive the decision on the previous request.