Google’s manual penalties are repressive actions taken by the search engine against certain websites, generally resulting in a significant drop in their search engine rankings. These penalties have a major impact on the visibility and SEO traffic of the affected sites. The term “manual penalties” refers to the fact that these sanctions are usually decided by humans within Google’s quality assurance teams, following the automated detection of practices that violate established guidelines.

It’s worth noting that despite their name, some of these penalties, considered manual, may actually be decided automatically. Google typically informs website owners of manual penalties through its dedicated interface, thus distinguishing them from automated sanctions. Once the practices deemed non-compliant with Google’s guidelines have been corrected, the penalty may be lifted after a review period.

The most common manual penalties are often related to the presence of artificial or fraudulent backlinks. In 2018, Google reported sending approximately 6 million messages to webmasters informing them of manual penalties, a decrease from the 9 million messages sent in 2016. Numerous examples exist of these penalty notifications via Search Console.

Presentations and testimonials from agencies and SEO specialists shed light on the reality of Google’s manual penalties, their various causes, and methods for preventing and resolving them. These expert discussions and debates underscore the importance of remaining compliant with Google’s guidelines to avoid such penalties and maintain a good ranking in search results.