Determining if your website has received a manual action penalty from Google Australia involves monitoring your site’s performance in Google Search results and checking for notifications within Google Search Console. A penalty signifies Google has determined your site violates its Webmaster Guidelines, impacting its ranking.
As of December 2025, Google Search Console remains the primary tool for identifying penalties. The ‘Manual Actions’ report within Search Console will display any penalties applied to your site, detailing the reason. Google Australia’s rollout of the Search Console enhancements in 2024 now includes more granular reporting, allowing you to see which specific pages or sections of your site are affected. Currently, Google doesn’t issue blanket penalties; actions are targeted. The ‘Coverage’ report also highlights indexing issues which, while not always penalties, can significantly reduce visibility. Google’s systems continuously analyse websites, and updates to these systems in 2026 are expected to further refine penalty detection and reporting. It’s important to note that algorithmic updates, which cause ranking fluctuations, are *not* penalties, though they can feel like them. These are changes to Google’s core ranking algorithms, not targeted actions against your site.
Google Search Console provides a direct channel for Google to communicate issues with your website, functioning as the key system for identifying and understanding any manual actions taken against it.
