Back in the old days, when you received a manual action Google did not notify you in Google Search Console with a message. But can that still happen today? Can you get a manual action without a notification from Google? Most SEOs believe that can and does happen.
I did ask Google if they could comment but I did not hear back.
Here is a Twitter poll from Dejan that shows 75% of SEOs feel Google can demote a page/site with a manual action without notifying that webmaster in Search Console. The poll has over 200 responses:
I've always wondered whether Googlers have the ability to manually demote a domain or a page without webmaster being alerted. What do you think?
— DEJAN (@dejanseo) August 30, 2020
Again, Google did not comment on this.
Former Google Pedro Dias shared his thoughts:
I believe, currently, demotions without an alert only happen algorithmically.
— Pedro Dias (@pedrodias) August 31, 2020
To manually demote something within a SC message being triggered would involve a lot of hassle.
Back in the old days, even when messaging launched for manual actions - Google did say that it won't always send a message if it felt the message might help the spammer. But again, I am not sure if things changed in the past dozen years or so on that.
It seems most SEOs feel it has not changed.
Keep in mind, algorithm updates that impact sites might feel like a penalty but they are not manual actions and notices do not go out for algorithmic updates. I did ask Google to give us an automated action viewer but it isn't going to happen.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
