Google Updates Manual Action News & Discovery Policy Violations

Google has been intermittently updating its manual action policies for several months, one notable being the addition of manual actions to its Site Reputation Abuse policy. However, one went unnoticed: an update to its manual action policy violations list for Google News and Discovery. 


Manual action recap

A manual action is when a Google employee determines that pages on your site violate its spam policies, such as manipulating Google’s search index or engaging in Parasite SEO practices, and issues a manual action against your site. 

Google notifies sites issued a manual action in the Search Console message center and the Manual Actions report; notified sites can experience a drop in rankings or, in the worst-case scenario, be omitted from Google’s search results.  

The update goes unnoticed!

Some months back, Google updated its News and Discovery manual actions by removing the artificial freshening sections and adult-themed content, adding five new deceptive practice violations, and updating the hateful content section. 

Gagan Ghota, who wrote on X, noticed the update:

  • “Last year, somewhere between 10th Oct and 27 Nov, Google updated Manual Actions for News and Discovers to add some specific policy violations for Deceptive Practices.”

Barry Schwartz, who writes for Search Engine Land and Search Engine Roundtable, was the first to notice Gagan Ghota’s post and report the update. 

The crucial changes for content creators

Anyone who creates or publishes content should know about Google’s manual action policy violation updates to ensure they comply with Google’s policies and avoid receiving one, as it can severely harm their site’s rankings on Google Search, Google Discover, and Google News.  

The recent changes content creators should know about are:

Google updated its News and Discover policy violation by changing Hateful content to Hateful content (News and Discover).

Google removed the Adult-themed content (in Discover) and Artificial freshening (in News and Discover)

Here’s a screenshot of the five new deceptive practices Google added: 

You can view all the policy changes on the Manual Action report page on Google’s Search Console.

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Terry O'Toole

Terry is a seasoned content marketing specialist with over six years of experience writing content that helps small businesses navigate where small businesses meet marketing - SEO, Social Media Marketing, etc. Terry has a proven track record of creating top-performing content in search results. When he is not writing content, Terry can be found on his boat in Italy or chilling in his villa in Spain.

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