Google first released an “interactive infographic” titled “how search works” in 2013.

It started with the number of “30 trillion individual pages” Google had in its index. Later on another number was mentioned:

0.22% of all domains in the Google index have been subject to a “manual action” type of penalty.

What does this mean? Billions of sites could have been penalized!

How many websites are affected by Google’s manual actions then?

Are there billions or millions penalized sites?

Billions of sites could have been affected by Google penalties dubbed “manual actions” when using simple math.

After that we got more exact numbers. By 2019 Google disclosed that

“4.3 million manual action messages were generated to website owners.”

That number is likely lower by now (we don’t know for sure).

Yet there seems to be a resurgence in manual action notifications due to AI slop.

Have you been hit by one? You’re not alone.

I also have been subject to one on a client site.

What are manual actions or penalties?

So-called “manual actions” show up on your Google Search Console (click the link to check whether you have one).

My GSC report shows “no issues detected”. Phew!

See screenshot above!

They usually mean that your website has been demoted in Google search results.

These penalties allegedly happen when actual humans decide you deserve one.

Remember that Google also employs algorithmic aka automated penalties which are much more common.

Algorithmic penalties or algorithm updates do not involve any human oversight when your site gets demoted.

Some typical manual actions are

• pure spam (the most common one last time Google shared data)
• hacked site
• unnatural links to your site

While pure spam and unnatural links are usually your own fault a hacked site is not.

In that case such a notification may save your site.

The others can mean months of detective work and fixing things one by one.

Personally I fixed an unnatural links penalty once and it was the most tedious and frustrating work in my SEO career.

Thus I stopped doing it myself ever since. Yet I can advise you how to fix one nonetheless.

Sometimes it’s easy to spot at least.

Unnatural links are often links built by cheap SEO outsourcing services.

Did you pay some random freelance SEO with no name on Upwork $200 for 2k “high DA links”? Then this is likely the culprit.

SEO automation is even more likely to cause trouble.

Many business people take shortcuts just to take the long painful path afterwards.

Likewise “pure spam” is often obvious.

When you create thousands of automated pages using AI you are to blame yourself.

A manual action is even better then. At least you can appeal by filing a reconsideration request on GSC.

Most sites using AI slop at scale just get a silent demotion and can’t recover at all probably.

So just don’t risk your domain by adding AI slop en masse and committing “scaled content abuse” that way.

Since 2026 spam reports on your site may be used to trigger such a manual action.

Small number of penalized sites

Anyway, I was intrigued by this “small” number.

You probably know quotes often (falsely) attributed to Winston Churchill like:

“Do not trust any statistics you did not fake yourself.”

At first I was a bit overwhelmed.

I tried to count how much 0.22% of 30 trillion is. I asked other people and even they were unable to really help me.

Finally I asked Google search itself and the answer was 66,000,000,000 or 66 billion.

There is a problem with that number though.

We knew how many “individual pages” Google indexes but not how many “domains” they penalize manually.

Assuming that a domain can have dozens, thousands or even millions of pages (think WordPress.com) we can’t be sure how to divide that number.

As far as I know Google does not disclose how many domains they index.

Let’s assume for simplicity’s sake that they index “only” one trillion domains (the assumption would be that a domain has a median number of 30 pages).

Now let’s remember that one trillion is 1000 billion and one billion is 1000 million.

Then let’s just take 0.22% out of that.

It’s still 2.2 billion sites that have been manually “marked a spam”.

And indeed in 2019 Google shared that it filtered

“more than 25 billion spammy pages.”

How would it be even possible?

How many real people, even including so-called Google quality raters, would be needed to do the work?

I have to admit that I am so shocked and awed by these numbers that this post is still probably wildly inaccurate.

Yeah, I know that a domain can house more than one site. Mine does!

That’s why these “individual pages” vs “domains” numbers are pretty useless and difficult to compare.

• How many sites have been actually affected by manual penalties or “manual actions” in the Google jargon?
• Are there billions or “just” millions of sites manually penalized by Google?
• How many more have been subject to algorithmic penalties and updates?

We don’t know as Google stopped sharing the numbers by now.

Subjectively the number of reports has fallen in recent years.

Or people just stopped talking about this shameful topic by now.

Anyway as noted above the last verifiable stats from Google are from 2019 and that’s old news by today’s standards:

Even if it’s just around “4.3 million messages” per year that’s still a huge number.

That would mean Google needs a huge penal system with thousands of people working on sending those.

Plus checking the reconsideration requests. You often have to file more than one!

So I don’t know who can do that work other than Google’s cohorts of low paid outsourced “quality raters”.

I’m certain no high profile PhDs from the Google headquarters in Mountain View will do that dirty work.

It seems to be an automated system, probably using AI by now. Otherwise they workload would be overwhelming.

So “manual” might mean just site specific. Instead of adjusting their search algorithm they just send a message and inform you.

You get demoted by the algo yet it is still vulnerable to that type of abuse.

Did Google penalize you?

Are you one of the people affected?

Share your story with me on social media.

I’m onreact everywhere: LinkedIn, Gmail are the fastest ways to contact me though.

I have been myself the victim of several penalties either on my own site or on client sites.

Yes, despite being known as one of the most ethical SEO specialists around.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of! We can all learn from your mistakes.

I might even be able to help you with common ones like the helpful content update.

Or we can even expose Google and their unjust system of judge, jury, and executioner all in one.