What is a manual action?
A manual action is a penalty a Google employee places on a site that breaks Google's spam policies. It can lower rankings or remove pages from search.
A manual action happens when a person at Google reviews a site and finds it breaking the spam policies, for example with unnatural links, hidden text or spammy content. Affected pages or the whole site can drop in rankings or disappear. If you have one, Google Search Console shows it in the Manual actions report with the reason. After you fix the problem, you can ask Google to review the site again.
Why it matters for your business: Manual actions are rare for honest small businesses, but they can follow from bad SEO work done in the past. Search Console is where you would find out.
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