An unnatural links penalty is a manual action Google applies when a reviewer finds "a pattern of unnatural, artificial, deceptive, or manipulative links pointing to your site" [1]. For example, a store that bought 200 guest posts, each with the same keyword-rich anchor pointing at a category page, could receive this manual action and see some or all of its pages drop out of Google's results.

"Unnatural links penalty" is the SEO industry's name. Google's own name is the manual action type, and there are two of them [1]:

  • Unnatural links to your site: the problem is backlinks pointing in.
  • Unnatural links from your site: the problem is "a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative outbound links" on the site itself, typically sold links [1].

Most people searching the term mean the first one.

An unnatural links penalty is caused by links that break the link spam section of Google's spam policies. Google defines link spam broadly and lists examples [2]:

  • Buying or selling links for ranking purposes, including exchanging money, goods or services for links, or sending a product in exchange for a write-up with a link.
  • Excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you") or partner pages built only for cross-linking.
  • Using automated programs or services to create links to a site.
  • Advertorials or native advertising with links that pass ranking credit, and links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts or press releases distributed on other sites.
  • Forum comments with optimized links in the post or signature.

Google is clear that paid links themselves are not the problem. Paid links that are qualified with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow" do not break the policy [2]. Followed paid links do.

An unnatural links penalty removes some or all of the affected site from Google's search results. Google says that when a site has a manual action, "some or all of that site will not be shown in Google search results," and affected pages can be ranked lower or omitted "without any visual indication" in the results [1].

Google does not publish how many unnatural links manual actions it issues, how many links trigger one, or what share of a link profile counts as a "pattern." No published threshold exists, so any percentage quoted as the safe limit is a guess.

An unnatural links penalty is a manual action decided by a person and reported in Search Console, while an algorithmic devaluation is done silently by Google's automated systems. Both are reactions to link spam, and they are often confused.

Unnatural links penaltyAlgorithmic devaluation
Who applies itGoogle's spam team, after human review [4]Automated systems such as SpamBrain [5][6]
Shown in Search ConsoleYes, in the Manual actions report [1]No
Reconsideration requestYes [1]No
What happens to the linksThe site is penalized until the issue is fixed [1]The links' ranking benefit is removed and does not return [5]

The second column is the part most guides get wrong. After a link spam update, Google says the ranking benefit of spammy links "is lost," so cleaning up may not bring rankings back [5]. A lifted manual action and a recovered ranking are not the same thing.

To check for an unnatural links penalty, open Google Search Console, go to the Manual actions report and read the count at the top. If the site has no manual actions, the report shows a green check mark and a message saying so [1]. If it has one, the report names the type, such as "Unnatural links to your site" or "Unnatural links from your site" [1].

If the report is clean, the site does not have an unnatural links penalty, whatever a third-party "toxic score" tool says. A ranking drop with a clean report is either an algorithmic change or something unrelated to links.

To remove an unnatural links penalty, clean up the links, then submit a reconsideration request from the Manual actions report. Google's recommended steps for links pointing to the site are [1]:

  1. Download your links from Search Console's Links report or Top linking sites report.
  2. Review them against the spam policies and contact the owners of violating sites to ask for removal or for rel="nofollow" to be added.
  3. Disavow what you cannot remove using the disavow links tool [3].
  4. Select "Request Review" and explain the problem, the steps taken and the results.

Google warns that "blindly adding all backlinks to the disavow file is not considered good-faith effort" [1]. Reviewers expect to see real removal attempts first. Once the disavow file is uploaded, Google says it can take a few weeks to be incorporated as Google recrawls the web [3].

For the outbound variant, the fix is on your own pages: remove the paid or exchanged links, or add rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow" to them, then request review [1][2].

Most reconsideration reviews take several days or weeks, and Google notes that link-related requests may take longer than usual [1].

Google's link spam enforcement has two tracks: manual actions such as the unnatural links penalty, and automated systems. The automated track took its modern shape in 2012, when Google announced Penguin, a system against link spam [6][7].

2012: Penguin adds an algorithm against link spam

Google announced Penguin on April 24, 2012, aimed at sites that artificially inflated rankings by manipulating links [7]. Google's own ranking systems guide describes Penguin as "a system designed to combat link spam" [6].

2014: actions against private blog networks

Google targeted and penalized users of private blog networks on several occasions starting in 2014 [8]. Search Insider does not support or suggest the use of private blog networks.

2016: Penguin joins the core algorithm

Google integrated Penguin into its core ranking systems in 2016 [6]. From then on, Penguin discounted bad links rather than demoting whole sites [7], which made algorithmic hits less site-wide while manual actions stayed in place.

2022 onward: link spam updates

Google now ships improvements to its automated systems, including SpamBrain, as spam updates and link spam updates, and says the benefit of neutralized links is lost [5]. Manual unnatural links actions continue alongside them [1].

Use the disavow tool only when a site has a manual action for unnatural links, or when spammy links are likely to cause one. Google says disavowing is appropriate when you have "a considerable number of spammy, artificial, or low-quality links" and they "have caused a manual action, or likely will cause a manual action" [3]. Google adds that "most sites will not need to use this tool" because it can assess which links to trust on its own [3].

A site with no manual action and no history of buying links rarely needs a disavow file. A site that bought followed links at scale should stop, qualify any it still pays for with rel="sponsored", and treat the old links as worth nothing.