SEO
Are Manual Actions a Google Ranking Factor?
A manual action can have a profound impact on a website’s appearance in Google.
It’s capable of demoting a website’s content in search results and removing content from the search index altogether.
Does that make manual actions a ranking factor?
No, not exactly.
A ranking factor is a signal Google uses to assess where and how a webpage should rank in search results.
These signals are picked up on through Google’s regular crawling of the web.
A manual action doesn’t fit that definition, because it’s something Google implements on its own.
It may be fair to say a manual action overrides all other ranking factors, as it can drop a website off the face of Google in an instant.
Google’s algorithms automatically filter out content that could cause problems in search results.
Every now and then, Google encounters an issue where it has to manually step in and take urgent action.
Here’s more about manual actions and how they impact search rankings.
The Claim: Manual Actions Are A Ranking Factor
Manual actions get lumped into the ranking factors category because the action refers to adjusting a website’s visibility in search results.
To be more specific, the action involves demoting or removing a site or specific pages from Google Search.
Calling a manual action a “ranking factor” is misleading as it creates the impression that it’s part of or at least considered by the algorithm, which it absolutely isn’t.
In fact, it’s the most serious penalty Google is able to issue to websites.
The next section has more details on the types of offenses that would cause Google to manually take action, which can help you avoid getting one of your own.
Manual Actions Are A Penalty, Not A Ranking Factor
Google has clear documentation on what manual actions are, how to know if your site has been impacted by one, and how to recover after one has been issued.
From the document:
“Google issues a manual action against a site when a human reviewer at Google has determined that pages on the site are not compliant with Google’s webmaster quality guidelines. Most manual actions address attempts to manipulate our search index.”
In addition to taking action against sites for manipulative SEO tactics, Google reserves the right to remove content if required to by law.
This is all explained in detail in a video with former Googler Matt Cutts which is as relevant today as it was when first published in 2012.
Types Of Manual Actions
Here’s a list of violations that will result in Google applying a manual action.
- Third-party spam: Site contains a significant amount of spam generated by third parties.
- User-generated spam: Site contains spam submitted by visitors.
- Structured data: Site is using structured data in a manipulative way.
- Unnatural inbound links: There’s a pattern of artificially placed links pointing to a site.
- Unnatural external links: There’s a pattern of artificially placed links pointing outward from a site.
- Thin content: Site contains low-quality pages with little or no added value.
- Cloaking & sneaky redirects: Site is showing different pages to users than are shown to Google, or redirecting users to a different page than Google saw.
- Pure spam: Site is using aggressive spam techniques and/or other repeated or egregious violations of Google’s quality guidelines.
- Cloaked images: Some of a site’s images may display differently in Google’s search results than when viewed on the site.
- Hidden text & keyword stuffing: Some of a site’s pages may contain hidden text or keyword stuffing, which are techniques not allowed by Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
- AMP content mismatch: There is a difference in content between the AMP version and its canonical web page.
- Sneaky mobile redirect: Some pages on a site redirect mobile device users to content not available to search engine crawlers.
- News and Discover policies: Site has violated content policies for Google News and/or Discover.
How To Know If Your Site Is Impacted By A Manual Action
Unlike adjustments to search rankings that happen algorithmically, Google provides clear communication to websites when they’ve been hit with a manual action.
You may be notified in advance of the manual action getting implemented, as Google will sometimes offer an opportunity to correct the problem before issuing a penalty.
All this communication happens through Google Search Console, making it an essential SEO tool.
If and when a site is impacted by a manual action, Google will send a direct message via Search Console.
The message will have information about why the action was taken, which pages are impacted to what extent, and how to get back into Google’s good graces.
You can find more information about any manual actions against your site in the Search Console Manual Action report.
How To Recover From A Manual Action
It’s possible to recover from all manual actions, as long as the necessary steps are taken.
Google will never permanently deindex a site from its search results. Some penalties may be harder to recover from than others, but it can always be done.
Recovering from a manual action requires fixing all problems identified by Google on all offending pages. When problems are fixed, site owners have to submit a reconsideration request.
A reconsideration request is exactly what it sounds like – a request for Google to reconsider the penalty it issued against a site.
Google will review the request and reverse the manual action if it finds the issues have been resolved.
Note that a site’s rankings may not immediately go back to what they were, but nothing is holding the site back from moving up the SERPs again.
For more information about this process, see the chapter on reconsideration requests.
Manual Actions As A Ranking Factor: Our Verdict
Although a manual action results in pages or sites being ranked lower or omitted from search results, it is not technically a ranking factor.
A manual action is a Google penalty, it’s the most severe of penalties, and should be avoided at all costs.
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
SEO
HARO Has Been Dead for a While
I know nothing about the new tool. I haven’t tried it. But after trying to use HARO recently, I can’t say I’m surprised or saddened by its death. It’s been a walking corpse for a while.
I used HARO way back in the day to build links. It worked. But a couple of months ago, I experienced the platform from the other side when I decided to try to source some “expert” insights for our posts.
After just a few minutes of work, I got hundreds of pitches:
So, I grabbed a cup of coffee and began to work through them. It didn’t take long before I lost the will to live. Every other pitch seemed like nothing more than lazy AI-generated nonsense from someone who definitely wasn’t an expert.
Here’s one of them:
Seriously. Who writes like that? I’m a self-confessed dullard (any fellow Dull Men’s Club members here?), and even I’m not that dull…
I don’t think I looked through more than 30-40 of the responses. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It felt like having a conversation with ChatGPT… and not a very good one!
Despite only reviewing a few dozen of the many pitches I received, one stood out to me:
Believe it or not, this response came from a past client of mine who runs an SEO agency in the UK. Given how knowledgeable and experienced he is (he actually taught me a lot about SEO back in the day when I used to hassle him with questions on Skype), this pitch rang alarm bells for two reasons:
- I truly doubt he spends his time replying to HARO queries
- I know for a fact he’s no fan of Neil Patel (sorry, Neil, but I’m sure you’re aware of your reputation at this point!)
So… I decided to confront him 😉
Here’s what he said:
Shocker.
I pressed him for more details:
I’m getting a really good deal and paying per link rather than the typical £xxxx per month for X number of pitches. […] The responses as you’ve seen are not ideal but that’s a risk I’m prepared to take as realistically I dont have the time to do it myself. He’s not native english, but I have had to have a word with him a few times about clearly using AI. On the low cost ones I don’t care but on authority sites it needs to be more refined.
I think this pretty much sums up the state of HARO before its death. Most “pitches” were just AI answers from SEOs trying to build links for their clients.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not throwing shade here. I know that good links are hard to come by, so you have to do what works. And the reality is that HARO did work. Just look at the example below. You can tell from the anchor and surrounding text in Ahrefs that these links were almost certainly built with HARO:
But this was the problem. HARO worked so well back in the day that it was only a matter of time before spammers and the #scale crew ruined it for everyone. That’s what happened, and now HARO is no more. So…
If you’re a link builder, I think it’s time to admit that HARO link building is dead and move on.
No tactic works well forever. It’s the law of sh**ty clickthroughs. This is why you don’t see SEOs having huge success with tactics like broken link building anymore. They’ve moved on to more innovative tactics or, dare I say it, are just buying links.
Sidenote.
Talking of buying links, here’s something to ponder: if Connectively charges for pitches, are links built through those pitches technically paid? If so, do they violate Google’s spam policies? It’s a murky old world this SEO lark, eh?
If you’re a journalist, Connectively might be worth a shot. But with experts being charged for pitches, you probably won’t get as many responses. That might be a good thing. You might get less spam. Or you might just get spammed by SEOs with deep pockets. The jury’s out for now.
My advice? Look for alternative methods like finding and reaching out to experts directly. You can easily use tools like Content Explorer to find folks who’ve written lots of content about the topic and are likely to be experts.
For example, if you look for content with “backlinks” in the title and go to the Authors tab, you might see a familiar name. 😉
I don’t know if I’d call myself an expert, but I’d be happy to give you a quote if you reached out on social media or emailed me (here’s how to find my email address).
Alternatively, you can bait your audience into giving you their insights on social media. I did this recently with a poll on X and included many of the responses in my guide to toxic backlinks.
Either of these options is quicker than using HARO because you don’t have to sift through hundreds of responses looking for a needle in a haystack. If you disagree with me and still love HARO, feel free to tell me why on X 😉
SEO
Google Clarifies Vacation Rental Structured Data
Google’s structured data documentation for vacation rentals was recently updated to require more specific data in a change that is more of a clarification than it is a change in requirements. This change was made without any formal announcement or notation in the developer pages changelog.
Vacation Rentals Structured Data
These specific structured data types makes vacation rental information eligible for rich results that are specific to these kinds of rentals. However it’s not available to all websites. Vacation rental owners are required to be connected to a Google Technical Account Manager and have access to the Google Hotel Center platform.
VacationRental Structured Data Type Definitions
The primary changes were made to the structured data property type definitions where Google defines what the required and recommended property types are.
The changes to the documentation is in the section governing the Recommended properties and represents a clarification of the recommendations rather than a change in what Google requires.
The primary changes were made to the structured data type definitions where Google defines what the required and recommended property types are.
The changes to the documentation is in the section governing the Recommended properties and represents a clarification of the recommendations rather than a change in what Google requires.
Address Schema.org property
This is a subtle change but it’s important because it now represents a recommendation that requires more precise data.
This is what was recommended before:
“streetAddress”: “1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy.”
This is what it now recommends:
“streetAddress”: “1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Unit 6E”
Address Property Change Description
The most substantial change is to the description of what the “address” property is, becoming more descriptive and precise about what is recommended.
The description before the change:
PostalAddress
Information about the street address of the listing. Include all properties that apply to your country.
The description after the change:
PostalAddress
The full, physical location of the vacation rental.
Provide the street address, city, state or region, and postal code for the vacation rental. If applicable, provide the unit or apartment number.
Note that P.O. boxes or other mailing-only addresses are not considered full, physical addresses.
This is repeated in the section for address.streetAddress property
This is what it recommended before:
address.streetAddress Text
The full street address of your vacation listing.
And this is what it recommends now:
address.streetAddress Text
The full street address of your vacation listing, including the unit or apartment number if applicable.
Clarification And Not A Change
Although these updates don’t represent a change in Google’s guidance they are nonetheless important because they offer clearer guidance with less ambiguity as to what is recommended.
Read the updated structured data guidance:
Vacation rental (VacationRental) structured data
Featured Image by Shutterstock/New Africa
SEO
Google On Hyphens In Domain Names
Google’s John Mueller answered a question on Reddit about why people don’t use hyphens with domains and if there was something to be concerned about that they were missing.
Domain Names With Hyphens For SEO
I’ve been working online for 25 years and I remember when using hyphens in domains was something that affiliates did for SEO when Google was still influenced by keywords in the domain, URL, and basically keywords anywhere on the webpage. It wasn’t something that everyone did, it was mainly something that was popular with some affiliate marketers.
Another reason for choosing domain names with keywords in them was that site visitors tended to convert at a higher rate because the keywords essentially prequalified the site visitor. I know from experience how useful two-keyword domains (and one word domain names) are for conversions, as long as they didn’t have hyphens in them.
A consideration that caused hyphenated domain names to fall out of favor is that they have an untrustworthy appearance and that can work against conversion rates because trustworthiness is an important factor for conversions.
Lastly, hyphenated domain names look tacky. Why go with tacky when a brandable domain is easier for building trust and conversions?
Domain Name Question Asked On Reddit
This is the question asked on Reddit:
“Why don’t people use a lot of domains with hyphens? Is there something concerning about it? I understand when you tell it out loud people make miss hyphen in search.”
And this is Mueller’s response:
“It used to be that domain names with a lot of hyphens were considered (by users? or by SEOs assuming users would? it’s been a while) to be less serious – since they could imply that you weren’t able to get the domain name with fewer hyphens. Nowadays there are a lot of top-level-domains so it’s less of a thing.
My main recommendation is to pick something for the long run (assuming that’s what you’re aiming for), and not to be overly keyword focused (because life is too short to box yourself into a corner – make good things, course-correct over time, don’t let a domain-name limit what you do online). The web is full of awkward, keyword-focused short-lived low-effort takes made for SEO — make something truly awesome that people will ask for by name. If that takes a hyphen in the name – go for it.”
Pick A Domain Name That Can Grow
Mueller is right about picking a domain name that won’t lock your site into one topic. When a site grows in popularity the natural growth path is to expand the range of topics the site coves. But that’s hard to do when the domain is locked into one rigid keyword phrase. That’s one of the downsides of picking a “Best + keyword + reviews” domain, too. Those domains can’t grow bigger and look tacky, too.
That’s why I’ve always recommended brandable domains that are memorable and encourage trust in some way.
Read the post on Reddit:
Read Mueller’s response here.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Benny Marty
-
WORDPRESS6 days ago
Turkish startup ikas attracts $20M for its e-commerce platform designed for small businesses
-
PPC7 days ago
31 Ready-to-Go Mother’s Day Messages for Social Media, Email, & More
-
PPC7 days ago
A History of Google AdWords and Google Ads: Revolutionizing Digital Advertising & Marketing Since 2000
-
MARKETING5 days ago
Roundel Media Studio: What to Expect From Target’s New Self-Service Platform
-
SEO5 days ago
Google Limits News Links In California Over Proposed ‘Link Tax’ Law
-
MARKETING6 days ago
Unlocking the Power of AI Transcription for Enhanced Content Marketing Strategies
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days ago
Google Search Results Can Be Harmful & Dangerous In Some Cases
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Daily Search Forum Recap: April 12, 2024
You must be logged in to post a comment Login