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You are here: Home / SEO / Manual Penalty Fairness Issue

Manual Penalty Fairness Issue

February 11, 2014 //  by Alyson Harrold//  Leave a Comment

Last Updated on September 10, 2020

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Who Should Pay the Price?

A business’ worst SEO nightmare is getting slapped by a manual penalty. Several months ago we landed a new client because their old agency used Grey Hat techniques. The client didn’t understand that their agency was cheating (going against Google’s quality guidelines). It begs the question about fairness.

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What Is a Manual Penalty?

A manual penalty refers to a message sent by Google to a business via Webmaster Tools. It looks like this:

Google has detected a pattern of artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site. Buying links or participating in link schemes in order to manipulate PageRank are violations of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

As a result, Google has applied a manual spam action to [insert website url here]. There may be other actions on your site or part of your site.

If you manage a website, this is a message you absolutely don’t want to see. Ever.  

Who Is Responsible?

Online marketing requires deep knowledge of many areas, including managing the technical aspects of a website (e.g., meta data, codes interpreted by search engine crawlers), studying related search terms and mapping to a site’s sales funnel, and ultimately generating original content to build SEO equity. Is it reasonable to require a business owner or marketing manager to understand all these components in order to market online? For many businesses, outsourcing to a subject matter expert is a logical and smart decision. Yet, if you choose the wrong agency… you potentially risk a manual penalty.

Should the agency, not the client, bear the brunt of the manual penalty? Or should they share equally?

In the case of our client, they are a legitimate business adding to California’s economy. They employ dedicated workers, passionate and committed to their business’ mission. The manual penalty has throttled back their organic visibility… greatly impacting their sales. In this case, is it fair that their old agency wasn’t slapped as well?

Cleaning Up the Aftermath

spooky-lego-280x175After three years of Grey Hat work, there’s a lot clean up for this client. As a Google Partner, we have access to the best and brightest in online marketing via a private forum. We posted a question about fixing this manual penalty. Here are what our buddies shared with us:

  • There are no shortcuts. Recovering from a manual penalty is a tedious and painstaking process.
  • Disavow any shady link schemes off the site and explain the situation via the reconsideration request (basically follow the process outlined by Google).
  • Google looks poorly on excuses. They expect companies to understand what’s going on with their contractors and make sure they are properly vetted.

Avoid Problems Before They Happen

There’s a wide selection of online marketing agencies out there. It pays to do your homework and ask questions… lots of them. Choose an agency that reflects your  values, as you don’t want to gamble with your online reputation. Lastly, manage your contractors so you understand what they are doing on your behalf.

Do you think SEO agencies should share responsibility (e.g., also receive a manual penalty) for webspam?

How can we help?

Need help in strategically updating your web content for White Hat SEO? Don’t have the time or bandwidth to generate consistent blog posts that are keyword optimized?

We are the spectrum group, and we offer strategic and tactical consulting so you can monetize your online presence. Call us for a complimentary 30-minute consultation to discuss how to leverage customer testimonials.

Contact Us Today »

photo credit – top: Derek Gavey
photo credit – body: d.loop

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Category: SEO

About Alyson Harrold

Alyson is Co-CEO and Chief Storyteller. Prior to forming the agency, her career spanned media (NBC-TV affiliates and city magazine, international ad agency) and positions like C-Suite financial services marketer and digital marketing consultant. Alyson learned how the right medium with the right message can attract the right audience. With her team, Alyson helps brands have meaningful customer interactions. Now she teaches those lessons—among others—as a UC Berkeley Extension instructor in her SEO and Digital Marketing courses since 2014. Alyson shares her knowledge as a speaker at preeminent digital marketing conferences around the country like Digital Growth Unleashed and more.

Betty Kaufman
Betty Kaufman
2020-12-27
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2017-07-14
Massimo and The Spectrum Group Online have been very effective at sending quality traffic to our website and generating phone calls for appointments. Massimo has always been professional, responsive, and ready to make useful suggestions as well as explain the many ins and outs of search advertising. I highly recommend him to any business wishing to use a skilled and professional search marketing expert to increase their leads and grow their revenues.
Google rating score: 5 of 5,
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