Manual Action
01 Definition
Manual Action meaning: A penalty a human Google reviewer applies when a site breaks Google's guidelines.
A manual action is a demotion or removal applied by a human reviewer at Google after a site is found to violate spam policies. Affected pages can drop in rankings or leave the index entirely. Google reports manual actions inside Search Console, and you must fix the issue and request review.
Also called
Why it matters
How Manual Action fits the work
Manual actions are one of the few penalties Google confirms directly, so checking for them is an early step when traffic drops sharply.
In context
After buying links, a site received a manual action for unnatural links, lost most rankings, and had to remove the links before requesting reconsideration.
Practical note
A manual action differs from a normal ranking decline. Only issues listed in the Search Console Manual Actions report count here; a drop with no notice is usually algorithmic, not a manual action.