What is a Google Penalty?

A Google Penalty, also known as a manual action, is a negative effect inflicted on a website's rankings based on updates made to Google’s search algorithms. Penalties are decided when a human reviewer determines that a website doesn’t comply with Google Search Essentials.

This can be the result of suspicious links, keyword stuffing, or any kind of spam listed here.

Use the Network Graph in the Backlinks tool to manually investigate a domain’s network of backlinks—both good and toxic.

Then, use Backlink Audit Tool to investigate each link and decide if disavowing anything is necessary.