Possible manual penalty but nothing showing up & undeclared affiliate links

Hi,

Sorry, first time poster, freaking out. My site traffic halved overnight. But I have no manual penalty in GSC.

How long does it normally take for a penalty to show up? Or should it already be there?

The only thing I have done on the site recently is add some more affiliate links (this is not core to our business, more of a side hustle), I haven't declared any of the affiliate links to Google as I read you don't really need to: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-penalty-affiliate-links/429907/

Can you get penalise for this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Manual penalties usually show up in GSC immediately, so if there’s no notification, it’s likely an algorithmic penalty, which doesn’t come with any alerts in GSC.

Regarding affiliate links - adding more affiliate links without proper disclosure (like using rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow") can potentially hurt your site if Google thinks you're trying to manipulate search rankings.

I suggest checking for recent algorithm updates and making sure all affiliate links are marked properly to prevent any penalties.

 

Your traffic drop might be related to an algorithmic change rather than a manual penalty. Undeclared affiliate links should be marked as "nofollow" or "sponsored" to avoid potential issues. I recommend auditing your affiliate links and ensuring they meet these guidelines, as well as checking for any recent Google algorithm updates that might have affected your site.

 

Hey there! It’s understandable to feel overwhelmed by sudden drops in traffic, especially for a first-time poster. While penalties can show up fairly quickly, fluctuations in traffic might also be due to algorithm updates or changes in user behavior rather than manual actions. Adding affiliate links typically doesn't lead to penalties unless they violate guidelines, so maybe consider checking your site's overall SEO health as well.

 

A 50% drop in traffic is quite significant.
Are you referring to overall traffic or just search traffic?
That’s the very first question that needs to be answered before moving forward with the website’s traffic recovery.

 

I suspect there might be a possible manual penalty on my website, but I'm not seeing any notifications in Google Search Console. I've also checked for undeclared affiliate links in my content. Has anyone else faced this issue or found a solution? Please share your experiences and advice!