After a long absence it seems that Google has returned to hammer home some new manual penalties for web spam over the last few weeks.

As a technical SEO consultant that specialises in penalty removals, I’ve had numerous SMEs and well-known businesses knock on the door this month already, inquiring about supporting the removal of manual action penalties.

I’ve learnt over the years that you can often tell when there are fluctuations in SEO trends when people begin requesting specific services such as penalty removals — not to mention the chatter on Twitter amongst our very niche community.

After removing well over 180 of them over the years, whether manual actions, algorithmic Penguin or Panda issues, at SALT, we’ve developed refined processes, and frameworks for managing their removal.

Therefore, if you’ve received a notification in your Google Search Console over recent weeks, then you won’t be the only one, and the sooner you deal with the problem, the sooner you can move on.

The truth is, although Google penalties require a lot of skill and hard work to remove, we are yet to come across one that we are unable to lift as we follow the Google Webmaster guidelines.

On another note, I don’t think there’s a coincidence in this sudden surge in penalties just when Google takes its new Search Console out of beta testing.

In its Webmaster Central Blog, the company states that:

The new Search Console was rebuilt from the ground up by surfacing the most actionable insights and creating an interaction model which guides you through the process of fixing any pending issues.

Why are we seeing an increase in manual actions?

This new console allows people the ability to discover and analyse much more search data than ever before in the Google Search Console, and as the company has stated, the console has been rebuilt from the ‘ground up’.

As this replaced a system which was built on core technology that is over a decade old, it would make sense that the new technology is vastly superior at many things, including highlighting signals to Google which might indicate that a website might be in breach of its rules.

How we can help

If you’ve found that you have a Manual Actions report in your search console, and that your site has been flagged, we are one of the most experienced and qualified teams in the industry to help you get your penalty lifted.

Check out our contact page or call us on 0113 460 567.