A manual action is a penalty that is imposed on a website by a search engine as a result of manual review by a search engine quality team. The manual action is taken when the search engine determines that the website is in violation of the search engine’s guidelines for webmasters, such as using unethical SEO techniques, spamming the search results, or providing low-quality content.
When a manual action is taken, the website’s search engine ranking can drop significantly, causing it to appear lower in search results and reducing its visibility and traffic. The website owner must address the issue that led to the manual action and request a review from the search engine in order to have the penalty lifted. If the website owner does not take action to resolve the issue, the manual action may remain in place indefinitely, causing ongoing harm to the website’s search engine visibility.
It is important for website owners to follow the search engine’s guidelines for webmasters and to avoid engaging in any unethical SEO practices in order to maintain good standing with the search engine and avoid manual actions.