What are the 12 New Types of Google Penalties?

Google penalties aren’t good news. The consequences of Google manual action penalties can include lost organic search visibility, traffic and revenue so it’s really important to comply with Google guidelines. While these were previously dished out for violation of Google Search, 12 new types of penalties are now associated with violations of Google News and Google Discover policies.

What is a Manual Action Penalty?

Manual actions are the most serious of all the penalties and take a lot of time and effort to recover from. Unlike automated penalties, manual penalties are issued by a human reviewer at Google if they determine your site does not meet Google guidelines.

They can be sent for actions such as unnatural links to your website, or for user-generated content spam. The punishment for receiving such a penalty is that your search rankings will drop considerably. If you’ve been ranking on the first page this can be a serious blow to your revenue. 

News Penalties

Google news penalties revolve around violating the transparency policy. So, if a site appears in Google News without clear by-lines and dates as well as information about the author, publication, publisher, company, and network behind it, a penalty could be issued. There also needs to be relevant contact information. Seeing as it’s relatively easy to miss out on one or more of these details, content creators, editors and publishers really need to be up-to-date with the latest Google News penalty updates.

Discover Penalties

The two-manual penalties related to Google Discover include:

  • Adult-themed content. So if Google discovers content that contains nudity, sex acts, sexually suggestive activities, or sexually explicit material, a penalty could be issued.
  • Misleading content. If the content is misleading and promises something that is not reflected in the content, a site might also be penalised.

Google News and Google Discover Penalties

As well as the three cases for manual penalties mentioned above. There are also nine penalties for violations of policies shared between Google News and Google Discover. These include:

  • Dangerous content: Google detects content that could cause serious and immediate harm to people or animals.
  • Harassing content: Google detects content that contains harassment or is of a bullying/threatening nature.
  • Hateful Content: Google detects content that incites hatred.
  • Manipulated media: Google detects audio, video, or image content that has been manipulated to deceive, defraud or mislead.
  • Medical content: Google detects content aimed at providing medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment for commercial purposes.
  • Sexually explicit content: Google detects content that contains explicit sexual imagery or videos primarily intended to cause sexual arousal.
  • Terrorist content: Google detects content that promotes terrorist or extremist acts, including recruitment, inciting violence or celebrating terrorist attacks.
  • Violence and gore content: Google detects content that incites or glorifies violence.
  • Vulgar language and profanity: Penalties will be issued if Google detects content that contains gratuitous obscenities or profanities.

Those issued with a manual penalty will be notified via Search Console. While recovery is possible it can be a slow and tedious process. So keep your content in check and obey the rules to help maintain the success of your content strategy.

Contact Whitefish Marketing today for a digital strategy that works including compliant content and SEO advice.

Avatar for Chris Surridge
About Chris Surridge

Chris is our marketing director. He comes from a split background in automotive and accountancy marketing, having worked with such brands in the past as Lookers PLC, Mercedes Benz and Vauxhall, as well as working with governing bodies such as ACCA and CIMA in the accounting world.