Manual action

Google's action against a site when one of its reviewers finds pages that break Google's spam policies. Affected pages can rank lower or drop out of results.

Google issues a manual action “when a human reviewer at Google has determined that pages on the site are not compliant with Google’s spam policies”. Google says most manual actions address attempts to manipulate its search index, and that most result in pages or sites being ranked lower or left out of search results, with nothing visible to searchers (Google Search Console Help).

How you find out

Search Console’s Manual actions report shows any manual actions against your site, the patterns of pages they affect, and your site’s manual action history. Google also sends a message to Search Console’s message center.

Fixing one

Google’s steps are to read the description in the report, fix the issue on every affected page, make sure Google can reach those pages (they shouldn’t need a login, sit behind a paywall, or be blocked by robots.txt or a noindex rule), and then select Request Review with an explanation of what you fixed. Fixing only some pages “will not earn you a partial return to search results”.

Google says most reviews take several days or weeks, and link-related ones can take longer. It asks you not to send another request before you get a decision on the first. If you bought a site that already had a manual action, Google suggests saying so in your request.

Related terms

• Link spam
• Disavowing links
• Google Search Console

Tools for it

• Link building and backlink tools
• Technical SEO, audits and speed

Sources

• https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9044175 (Oct 8, 2026)

Updated Oct 8, 2026.