In early 2021, Google said it was about to address misleading, harmful and unsuitable content within its Google News and Google Discover platforms. It’s taken around a year for this threat to really come to fruition, but it does seem like many publishers are now being hit by Google’s so-called “manual actions.”
As the name suggests, these actions are not automated, but orchestrated by humans working for Google. If they see a piece of content that they believe to be in breach of a Google policy, they will ask the publisher to address it and submit it back to Google for review.
You can read the list of policies here. Addressing subjects like harassment and deception, they’re hardly controversial in themselves, but that doesn’t mean they’re not open to interpretation. Adding to the headache of getting a manual action is that Google won’t tell you specifically what you need to change, just which policy you’ve violated.
If you write meaningful and accurate content in the first place, that should be enough to avoid any Google actions, and this is what we supply at Words of Worth through our fantastic team of writers. If you’d like to join them, go ahead and fill in our application form.