Manual actions are penalties applied by Google's human Search Quality team, distinct from algorithmic ranking demotions. They are reported in Google Search Console under Security & Manual Actions → Manual Actions. Common manual actions: (1) Unnatural links to your site — paid or manipulated link patterns; (2) Unnatural links from your site — selling or exchanging links from your site; (3) Thin content with little or no added value — generally programmatic SEO without substance; (4) Cloaking and/or sneaky redirects; (5) Hidden text and/or keyword stuffing; (6) Pure spam; (7) User-generated spam; (8) Spammy structured markup. Recovery process: (1) Read the manual action notice carefully — Google specifies exactly what triggered it; (2) Audit your site comprehensively to identify all instances of the issue, not just examples Google cited; (3) Fix every instance — for unnatural links, remove what you can, disavow what you cannot; for thin content, substantially improve or remove; for spammy markup, remove the offending schema; (4) Document the work — Google's reconsideration process expects a detailed account of what you found and what you did; (5) Submit a reconsideration request through Search Console with the documentation. Typical timeline: 2–8 weeks for Google to review and respond. Recovery is achievable in most cases; the work is real.