SEO, Google Manual Penalty Recovery

GOOGLE MANUAL PENALTY RECOVERY

It used to be that you had no way to know if a site was hit with a manual penalty from Google, aside from using the power of elimination. But several years ago that changed. Google began sending notifications to webmasters alerting them to the presence of a manual action on their website. A manual action can be a site-wide or only affect a certain portion(s) of your website as identified by the term "partial-match" in the manual action notification. A manual action is also referred to as a manual penalty.

Why do sites receive a manual action?

Manual actions can be handed down for multiple "infractions" including, but probably not limited to:

	If the manual action is for user-generated spam, you simply need to remove all the comments and user-generated content on your site that contain spammy links.
	If you received a manual action for unnatural links from your site, remove links to any sites that are low quality in nature.
	If your structured markup is spammy, redo it sans manipulation.
	If your site received an action for being on a spammy free host, move it to a more reputable one.
	If your site is using cloaking, stop using it.
	If your site has hidden text, remove it.
	If your site is hacked, get it fixed.

Manual actions are separate from algorithmic penalties and filtering (such as Penguin). Manual actions require that you submit a reconsideration request once the issue(s) for the manual action have been addressed.

How hard is it to recover from a manual action?

Recovery from manual actions that didn’t result from intended malice or manipulation - like a site being hacked or hosted on a spammy free host is fairly easy. Once you clean up the site or change hosts, you can submit a reconsideration request and will likely recover any ranking loss in full.
Penalties where the webmaster is assumed to have purposely manipulated the algorithm are a bit trickier, especially regarding the link-related manual actions. In a manual action, a human will be reviewing whether or not your site is no longer attempting to game the algorithm.
Because of the heavy scrutiny in a human review, recovering from a manual action for links means you’ll have to remove or disavow a lot of links that were helping you rank pre-manual action. While getting the manual action lifted is fairly simple, recovering your original rankings will take time and effort due to the link loss. But without first getting the manual action lifted, you won’t be able to begin the road to recovery.

How do you fix what’s causing the manual action and get it removed?

Fixing the source of your manual action is fairly straightforward in most cases

	If the manual action is for user-generated spam, you simply need to remove all the comments and user-generated content on your site that contain spammy links.
	If you received a manual action for unnatural links from your site, remove links to any sites that are low quality in nature.
	If your structured markup is spammy, redo it sans manipulation.
	If your site received an action for being on a spammy free host, move it to a more reputable one.
	If your site is using cloaking, stop using it.
	If your site has hidden text, remove it.
	If your site is hacked, get it fixed.

Fix the issue, submit a reconsideration request explaining that you have fixed the issue, repent for any manipulation, and you should be good to go. We can help you with the above if needed, but most webmasters can handle the above manual actions on their own.
Fixing thin content, pure spam and link-related manual actions can be harder to execute. Recovering from a thin content action typically requires a large overhaul of your entire website and content strategy. It’s rare to see a site recover from a “pure spam” designation.
Link-based manual actions require you to acknowledge and accept that you can’t skirt your way out of them, and quite a bit of link loss. Recovering from link-based actions also relies on the ability to identify and properly deal with the links causing the issues.

Link-based manual actions require using a machete instead of a scalpel

Several years ago, this was the advice given by a senior engineer at Google regarding recovering from link-based penalties. Too many webmasters attempt to shave off as few links as possible when attempting to recover from a manual action for links. The scalpel approach results in having reconsideration requests denied because there are still unnatural links in your backlink profile. The more reconsideration requests you submit without fixing the problem, the more annoyed Google is going to get.
You cannot remove the black and leave the gray. It doesn’t matter what your competitors are getting away with, or how old the links are. Whether you like it or not, a link-based manual action requires a fire sale. Everything unnatural must go.

Need help recovering from a manual penalty?

We manual penalty recovery services focus on link-based manual actions. We’ll do a complete audit of your backlink profile and make recommendations as to what links we believe are causing the issues. We’ll provide advice for attempting to have any unwanted links removed and help you compile an organized and annotated disavow file to submit to Google disavowing the rest. We’ll then draft and submit your reconsideration request to Google. Contact us to get a quote.

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