Google Penalties & New March Spam Update 2024 - Manual Actions vs Algorithmic Updates

For every business, it is crucial to get higher ranking in the Google search results. To achieve this, businesses often use certain spam practices and unapproved techniques. But not anymore, with Google penalties such websites will be penalized owing to the new March spam update 2024. Furthermore, you can also read about the backlink strategies 2024 for avoiding spam backlinking and Google penalties. 

Yes, you read it right, with its new search spam policies Google spam policies, Google can now penalize websites using spam practices for getting higher ranking in the search results. Moving forward, if you are also worried about Google penalties, here are the details. 

What is a Manual Action?  

Google issues a manual action against all the websites which are found non-compliant with Google’s spam policies. These sites are to be determined by human reviewers at Google as well before issuing a manual action. 

In most cases manual actions take actions on websites that attempt to influence the search indexing. In addition to this the websites that are reported will further result in low website ranking in the search results or at times, omission of the websites from the search results without any indication to the user. 

If your website is affected by Manual action, Google will notify you in the manual actions reports and in the Search console message center as well. 

Google Penalties and New Core Update 2024

Since Google released the new March spam update 2024 last week, it has also started the process of penalizing websites for any spam practices and techniques being used for achieving higher ranking. 

Following the process of penalties, Google partially or completely de-listed certain websites that were using spam practices while also removing their search traffic from the search engines. Furthermore, there are different forms of Google penalties that can be applicable on websites following spam activities. Here are two major penalties where you can understand manual actions vs algorithmic updates. 

Algorithmic Penalties

It is common knowledge that Google consists and runs on certain algorithms of its own and keeps them updated from time to time for better functionality. The algorithmic penalties are not actual penalties but changes or modifications in the algorithms of Google for offering better search results.

These modifications or updates can however cause certain changes or fluctuations in the rankings and is not a permanent alteration. The changes due to the updates in the algorithms return back to the original state if there are no spam activities and practices involved in the website.

In majority of cases when an algorithm change is made, it enables the algorithmic penalties to strike the websites but the affected websites can further recover from the impact as well in a certain amount of time. 

Manual Actions

As discussed above, manual actions can result in de-listing of the websites involved in any spam activities if identified by a human reviewer at Google. If your website is affected or penalized by Manual actions, the same would be communicated to you by Google using different channels such as Manual Action Report or Search Console Message Center. 

After the penalty affects your website, and you have resolved the issues which caused the penalty you can file back for reconsideration and get your website back live. Once you have applied for reconsideration, it can take from a week to two for approval of reconsideration requests. 

Fixing Website After Manual Action
Although we have discussed in brief the further process of manual action and how to get your website reconsidered. Here are detailed steps for you to follow: 

Get the detailed information from the Manual Action report regarding the issues in the website. 
Identify the affected pages. 
Read the description of the issue written and click on ‘learn more’ for a detailed understanding of what can be changed or modified. 

Fix the issues on all the affected pages as partial fixing won’t get your site back. 
Test the accessibility of the affected pages for the search engine crawling and user as well. For this you can implement a URL inspection tool and ensure all the pages are accessible and not blocked by any robots.txt or any other non-index directive.  

Once done with the fixing of all the issues, go on Request Review for a detailed analysis of the issues, the actions you have taken and the outcomes of the actions taken for resolving the issues. 

Apply for reconsideration, this process however might take from a day to even a week. During this process, the website or affected pages would be analyzed thoroughly for any other issues. The progress will be communicated via email to you. 

Following the above mentioned steps you can get your website live back. However, it is recommended not to use any spam practices and unapproved techniques for higher ranking in the search engines. 

Furthermore, there are various other Google penalties that you need to know about such as: 

• Keyword stuffing
• Expired jobs
• Unnatural backlinking 
• Duplicate content
• Spammy schema markup
• Spammy free host
• Pure spam
• Hacked website
• Cloaked images 
• Sneaky redirecting 

Final Thoughts

From the above discussion it is evident and clear that integrating any spam activities and unapproved techniques for getting higher ranking in the search results is not going to be of any benefit to your website. Instead with the new March spam update 2024, the risk of getting Google penalties for your website is higher. 

Google Penalties can further partially or completely get your website de-listed from the search results and remove any search traffic from your web pages. With new search spam policies Google spam policies if you wish to get a better ranking for your website, you are required to refrain from any spammy activities. 

MadHawks being a digital marketing agency has always ensured to follow approved and ethical practices for getting higher ranking for the websites. For this, our expert SEO and content creation team ensure that no spam activities such as keyword stuffing or duplicate content are integrated into the website. 

Moreover, if you wish to know more about the new core update 2024 you can read our previous blogs. For SEO services assistance get in touch with our expert team today. 

FAQ

1. How do I check my Google Search Console penalties?
The simplest and easiest way to check Google search console penalties is to log into your account and go to the Manual action report for any communication from Google team. 

2. What kind of Google penalties can you get?
Based on the spam activities integrated you can get Manual action, algorithm update as Google penalties. 

3. How do I fix Google penalties?
To fix Google penalties, resolve all the issues highlighted in the manual action report for the spam activities. Solving all these point will further enable you to get your web pages reconsidered for ranking.