Has Google actually issued a manual action?

Open the Google Search Console Manual actions report first. A manual action means a human reviewer at Google has found a violation of its spam policies. The report and Search Console message center carry the notification. Google explains the diagnosis here.

Search Console is Google's service for checking your site's search presence. If the report shows no manual actions, record that finding. Avoid presenting a traffic decline as proof of a penalty.

Separate the evidence from the label

Google uses automated systems as well as human review to detect spam. That distinction matters when discussing a Google algorithmic penalty vs manual action. An empty manual actions report does not establish why traffic fell. Google's spam policies describe both detection methods.

Treat this table as a starting checklist. If your concern is a site removed from Google Search, ask which pages are missing and what evidence supports that description. Begin a broader SEO audit when the cause remains uncertain.

What should your repair brief contain?

Write a brief that another person can follow without guessing. Copy the violation name, affected area and required checks into one shared document. Assign someone to approve completion before anything is submitted.

The report can describe a section of your website or the whole site. Its examples and address patterns should not be treated as a complete inventory of individual affected pages. Google's scope explanation is the reference for this step.

Ask your supplier for specific answers

• Which practice caused the reported problem?
• Where else on the site was that practice used?
• What will be removed, rewritten or changed?
• How will someone check the finished work?
• What will prevent the practice from continuing?

Request a change record with page address, issue, action and completion status. Keep unresolved items visible. Do not accept “SEO cleanup complete” as the entire handover.

Hypothetical example: an online furniture shop

Imagine a shop receives a notice concerning content in its buying guides. Ask the content manager to examine the relevant guide collection and explain each proposed change. Keep product photography and checkout redesign outside that brief unless there is a separate reason to include them. This example illustrates scope control, not an observed recovery outcome.

How do you fix the problem thoroughly?

Fix the underlying practice across every affected page. Google says repairing only some pages does not earn a partial return, and all listed manual actions need attention. Use its repair instructions as your acceptance checklist.

Repair the process as well as the page

If the notice concerns visitor spam, remove the offending material and improve how new submissions are handled. Google recommends both cleanup and prevention for user-generated spam, meaning spam posted by visitors. The relevant manual action section explains this approach.

For your own workflow, name the person who checks new submissions. Give that person examples of acceptable and unacceptable material. Set a review routine your team can actually maintain.

Make the repairs inspectable

Google asks you to make affected pages accessible for review and recommends URL Inspection, its tool for examining a particular page. Check access restrictions, robots.txt blocks and noindex instructions. Google lists these checks before submission.

Robots.txt controls crawler access; noindex tells search engines not to index content. Give your developer the exact page address and the instruction that needs checking. For background, use the guides to robots.txt and noindex.

Before signing off, ask someone other than the person making the edits to inspect representative repaired pages. Then return to the full affected inventory. Treat this independent check as your team's quality control, not a substitute for completing every required repair.

What changes when the notice concerns link spam?

Link spam means creating links mainly to manipulate search rankings. Buying ranking links and using automated link creation are examples. A backlink is simply a link from another website to yours. Google's link spam policy defines the prohibited practices.

First determine whether the notice concerns links pointing to your site or links placed on your own pages. Google provides separate instructions for these situations. Follow the matching section in its manual action guide.

Keep a record of each decision

For incoming artificial links, make genuine removal efforts first. Disavow asks Google to disregard links you cannot get removed; it is not a reason to reject every backlink. Google warns against including natural links in this process. Its link cleanup instructions explain the distinction.

Record the source page, why the link is problematic, removal attempts and final treatment. Use the backlink cleanup guide for that separate workstream. Ask whoever prepares the list to explain doubtful entries before submitting it.

Paid advertising links can comply when marked with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow", labels that explain their relationship to search engines. Check existing sponsorship arrangements against Google's paid-link rules.

How do you write a useful reconsideration request?

Use Request Review in the Manual actions report after completing the repairs. Google asks for the exact issue, the steps taken and documentation of the outcome. Build your message around those elements in its reconsideration instructions.

A template to adapt

Our website received a manual action for [exact violation]. We investigated [affected areas] and identified [confirmed cause].

We completed [specific repairs]. The supporting record shows [changed pages, removed material or relevant link cleanup]. We checked the affected areas again after making those changes.

We introduced [specific prevention measure]. Please review the website following these repairs.

Replace every bracket with verifiable information. Remove any sentence that describes work you have not done. The goal is to make your changes easy to understand and inspect.

Check the evidence before sending

• Open every supporting document using the access settings intended for the reviewer.
• Match each claimed repair to an entry in your change record.
• Explain any relevant unresolved link removal attempts.
• Confirm that the old practice has stopped.

If you recently bought the website, say so after fixing its existing violations. Google's guidance for new owners still requires those repairs.

How long should you wait, and what should you track?

Plan around an uncertain review period. Google says reviews can take several days or weeks, and link-related requests may take longer. It sends receipt and completion messages by email and asks you not to resubmit while awaiting a decision. Use its current timing guidance.

Give this week's work a clear finish line

1. Confirm the notice and assign ownership.
2. Complete the repair inventory and document changes.
3. Check access and inspect the finished work.
4. Submit only when the required repairs are complete.
5. Record the response and decide the next action from it.

Keep “manual action removed” separate from “business performance recovered” in your reporting. Meeting Google's requirements does not guarantee crawling, indexing or appearance in results. Search Essentials makes that limit explicit.

Choose business measures before judging recovery. For a service company, track relevant enquiries alongside search visibility. For a shop, record orders and the pages customers used. Treat these as your reporting choices, not promised recovery outcomes.

After cleanup, review whether key pages answer real customer questions. Use the search intent guide to plan those improvements. Keep that work distinct in your change record so you can explain what was repaired and what was subsequently improved.