What Is Manual Action?
A manual action is when a person who works at Google looks at a website and decides if it should be punished for breaking Google's rules. Google has rules for websites to try to make search results helpful for people.
If the Google reviewer thinks a website is doing things it's not supposed to, like tricking Google to try to get better search rankings, they can manually take action.
This means the website can get pushed lower in the search results as a punishment.
Unlike when Google's algorithm automatically detects and punishes websites, with a manual action a human makes the decision to penalize the site.
They look at the rules Google has for websites and use their judgment to decide if a site should be punished with lower search rankings.
Getting a manual action penalty can hurt a website's visibility and traffic if it gets pushed lower in search results.
Website owners should know Google's guidelines and avoid shady techniques that violate the rules.
To know more about these penalties, you can read our in-depth article on Google penalty.