Google may be issuing additional manual act penalties complete the former few weeks than it has complete the weeks before that. The addition in manual actions seems to have started multiple weeks ago, but additional so recently, according to several SEOs.
It is benevolent of funny; a decade or additional ago, manual act complaints were excellent common. But afterward these manual actions benevolent of died down, and it seemed to me that Google's algorithms were doing most of the dense lifting. But several are saying we are seeing a lift in the complaints about manual actions recently, not akin it was years ago, but additional so than it was months ago.
Marie Haynes archetypal posted concerning this on X. Marie did a ton of manual act consulting for a brace of decades now and she said, "Have had a big addition in requests for assistance alongside manual actions lately."
She explained the types of manual actions she has been seeing, they contain "thin content, clean spam, and scaled content," she wrote. "Most of these sites are lawful lengthy position businesses," she added. I asked Marie concerning the addition and she said, "Went from basically no requests to multiple per week. It's not nearly as elevated as the pre-Penguin manual act era, but engaging considering I don't actively conversation concerning or advertise consulting about manual actions anymore."
@rustybrick Went from basically no requests to multiple per week.
It's not nearly as elevated as the pre-Penguin manual act era, but engaging considering I don't actively conversation concerning or advertise consulting about manual actions anymore. https://t.co/1IM8P0GlnD
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) October 7, 2026
Daniel Foley Carter additionally posted he is seeing an influx of these manual actions:
Google Manual Actions are appearing in so many places - the final few months I've been seeing additional and additional popping up.
And it's no surprise, so much of the SEO industry has turned to short-cuts and scaled satisfied abuse for the abbreviated term gains without considering the longer-term pains.
Do you recall the old adage, pay cheap pay twice?
That's what's happening now.
Businesses cheaped out on SEO or cut expend since AI could do it
SEOs at the lesser end or spammy end turned to it for scale
and now group akin me are part of the spotless up and improvement solution.
Manual actions can be devastating - frequently bringing complete sites downward alongside several losing 90%+ of their traffic overnight.
Here are several of the average manual actions businesses perchance facing now or could be expected to visage as Google ramps up on scaled satisfied abuse and spam / nexus spam.
❌ Back clasp hijacking
The location interferes alongside browser former so visitors can’t use the Back clasp to come back as expected.
❌ Site abused alongside third-party spam
A important part of the location is being used to publish spam, frequently through forums, uploads, liberated hosting or another interactive areas.
❌ User-generated spam
Visitors have posted spam, commonly in forums, comments or person profiles.
❌ Spammy liberated host
A important portion of the sites or pages on a liberated hosting assistance are spammy.
❌ Structured data issue
Markup violates Google’s organized data guidelines, for example by describing hidden, irrelevant or misleading content.
❌ Unnatural links to your site
Google has established a form of synthetic or manipulative links pointing to the site.
❌ Unnatural links from your site
Google has established a form of synthetic or manipulative outbound links on the site.
❌ Thin satisfied alongside small or no added value
Pages provision small distinctive value, specified as lean affiliate pages, scraped satisfied or entrance pages.
❌ Cloaking and/or sneaky redirects
Google is shown distinct satisfied from visitors, or visitors are redirected location unexpected.
❌ Major spam problems
The location uses assured spam strategies or has repeated or egregious spam-policy violations.
❌ Cloaked images
Images shown to Google differ from, or are obscured compared with, what visitors see.
❌ Hidden content and/or keyword stuffing
Pages conceal content from visitors or reiterate keywords excessively.
❌ AMP satisfied mismatch
AMP satisfied differs materially from its canonical page.
❌ Sneaky mobile redirects
Mobile visitors are secretly redirected to satisfied that Google’s crawlers don’t see.
❌ Site position policy
Some third-party satisfied on the location is inconsistent alongside Google’s location position policy.
These are fair SOME of the manual actions you can see in Google Search Console whenever a norm rater has visited the location and made a determination.
Googles automated spam algorithms emblem doubtful patterns, or the location is highlighted through user-submitted spam reports and regular norm sweeps.
#seo #seotips
— Daniel Foley Carter (@foley_seo) October 7, 2026
I manually started to go through the Google Webmaster Help Forums and picked out a bunch of latest threads:
- Major Spam Manual Action issue on my location is in ERROR. What to do?
- So i got the manual panalty on my website and i desire to comprehend the reason
- Help alongside Manual Action: “Thin satisfied alongside small or no added value”, notwithstanding removing 4,000 URLs
- Need clarification on Manual Action – Major spam problems affecting /blog/
- Need feedback: Cleaned up Scaled Content Abuse manual act for legaldev.in
- My website git hit by manual penalty by Google final month
- 3 reconsideration rejections notwithstanding 6K+ URL cleanup. Need expert direction on remaining gaps.
- Entire Blog Section Disappeared from Google because of Manual Action Received for Spam Content
- Title: Major Spam Problems Manual Action on /blog/ – Need Help
- news.ks.ua: Transparency manual action, no outcomes for repeated reconsideration requests
- Subject: Pure Spam Manual Action – Reconsideration Rejected Again – Need Guidance
- Manual act "Major spam problems" on /blog/
So I asked the two ChatGPT and Gemini to appearance through the forums and inform me if they think there is a spike in complaints. Both stated yes, there are additional complaints in the forums but not a excellent big spike.
I asked the two to create charts and current is the Gemini one:
Here is what ChatGPT drew:
But the data looks distinct from all - so go AI!
In any event, are you seeing a spike in complaints concerning manual actions?
Forum conversation at Google Webmaster Help Forums.
