Google Guide Actions with backlog and delayed responses

Danny Sullivan of Google confirmed on Twitter that there is or has been a backlog of manual actions by Google. Google reacted slowly and with delay to these manual actions, but is working off the backlog.

Danny said, “We apologize for the delay in processing the re-exam. We were behind and have now resolved the action.”

Here is this tweet:

The manual action wasn’t a punishment for what you write about. It was only used for unnatural linking and had no influence on your ranking. We apologize for the delay in processing the re-exam. We were behind and have now deleted the action. Your links have trust again …

– Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) January 11, 2022

There are others with similar problems, hence the backlog:

“Delayed” is nice enough. See date. pic.twitter.com/UKYqLvkGy2

– Rob P (@MrRobzilla) January 11, 2022

Well, this case is interesting in that this publisher was so upset about their Google rankings that they made a lot of noise. This noise prompted Google to reply that the manual action did not affect the ranking of the site, but it did devaluate the links on the outbound links. It was apparently caught for allegedly linking for payment or other linking schemes. especially the Unnatural links from your website manual action:

Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, misleading, or manipulative outbound links on your website. Buying links or participating in link programs to manipulate PageRank is against Google’s guidelines for webmasters.

Google prevented this site from sharing the link value externally.

That being said, here is Danny’s full answer on this case:

The manual action was not due to your journalism. It was strictly for unnatural links. It became mid-December 2020 (not November) and, as explained to you in the Search Console, had no impact on your ranking …

– Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) January 11, 2022

The manual action wasn’t a punishment for what you write about. It was only used for unnatural linking and had no influence on your ranking. We apologize for the delay in processing the re-exam. We were behind and have now deleted the action. Your links have trust again …

– Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) January 11, 2022

We had a core update in December 2020 and at times that can cause traffic changes, including for Discover. You can find our advice on core updates here: https://t.co/nF7Ashb3Zk

– Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) January 11, 2022

Click through the original tweet to view the full complaint.

The only thing new about this story is that Google is getting delayed because of processing manual actions. The specific manual action isn’t new, Google can prevent websites from passing the link value (since before 2012) and before that, even before Google had manual actions. And yes, loud people can get Google’s attention sometimes, but will that matter?

Forum discussion at Twitter.