Your internal search creates an indexable URL for every query, and spammers have been generating thousands of search URLs containing their own brand names, phone numbers and web addresses
Manual action recovery
Site Abused With Third-Party Spam - Manual Action Recovery
A significant part of your site is being used by somebody else to host or promote spam, so we find out how they are getting it onto your domain, remove it, shut the route down and get the manual action lifted.
Free recovery brief · Written diagnostic · Fixed quote before booking
Is this the message in your Search Console?
Google’s Manual Actions report ↗Search Console / Report example
Manual actions
Site abused with third-party spam
WHAT IS A SITE ABUSED WITH THIRD-PARTY SPAM MANUAL ACTION?
This manual action is issued when Google has detected a significant portion of your site being abused with spam that was put there by visitors or other third parties, and it goes further than the standard user-generated spam action because it covers the less obvious places spam can appear, such as file uploaders, internal search result pages, free hosting areas and social features as well as forums and guestbooks. The spam is using your domain to promote something that has nothing to do with the subject of your site.
WHAT DOES IT DO TO YOUR SITE?
Google says that when it issues this action it generally believes the site itself is of sufficient quality that there was no need to action the whole thing, so it only affects the pages with the spammy content on them. However it also says that too much of this content can affect its overall assessment of the site, so it's a warning that needs acting on.
- Scope
- Abused publishing endpoints
- Typical clean-up time
- Estimated after diagnosis
- Review time
- Several days or weeks
WHY DID GOOGLE ISSUE IT?
A file upload feature lets anyone upload PDFs or documents to your domain, and it's being used to host spam documents that rank on the back of your site's reputation
Free pages, subdomains or user sites offered on your platform have been taken over for streaming, download, gambling or pharmaceutical spam
Forums, guestbooks and social features are being posted to automatically with out-of-context text and links
A vulnerability in a form or a plugin is allowing content to be created on the site without anyone logging in
HOW DO WE FIX IT?
We review the example URLs Google included in the notice and use them to identify which feature of the site is being abused
Abused URL inventory
Evidence log · Site abused with third-party spam
Affected URL or template
Action taken
Verification dateWe analyse your server logs and Search Console performance data for unexpected spikes on newly created URLs and for URL patterns that have nothing to do with your business
Entry-point investigation
Evidence log · Site abused with third-party spam
Affected URL or template
Action taken
Verification dateWe remove the spam content and return a 404 or 410 for the URLs involved, and we noindex or block the page types that should never have been indexable, such as internal search results
Endpoint corrections
Evidence log · Site abused with third-party spam
Affected URL or template
Action taken
Verification dateWe close the route in, whether that means adding authentication and validation to an uploader, filtering queries against a list of spammy terms or patching the vulnerability
Indexing and validation checks
Evidence log · Site abused with third-party spam
Affected URL or template
Action taken
Verification dateWe write and submit the reconsideration request and monitor the site afterwards to make sure the abuse hasn't found another way in
Submission record
Evidence log · Site abused with third-party spam
Affected URL or template
Action taken
Verification date
WHAT GOES INTO THE RECONSIDERATION REQUEST?
The request explains which feature was abused and how, the number of URLs removed, the technical changes made to prevent it and the monitoring now in place, so that the reviewer can see the cause has been dealt with and not only the symptoms.
Reconsideration request service →Questions about recovery
How is this different to user-generated spam?
The two overlap, and this action is used when a significant portion of the site is affected and the spam is coming through routes such as internal search, uploaders and hosting features as well as comments and forums.
Has my site been hacked?
Not necessarily, because in most cases the spammers are using a feature exactly as it was built and nobody anticipated it being used that way, although we check for a compromise as part of the diagnostic.
How long does recovery take?
Your diagnostic will include a clean-up estimate, and Google’s review usually takes several days or weeks, with link reviews sometimes taking longer.
User-generated spam 
Hacked site 
Site reputation abuse