Promotional copy marked up as encyclopedic reference.
Google's structured-data-manipulation manual action targets pages that mark up promotional content with schema designed for encyclopedic reference 1 . On medical sites the documented trigger is MedicalCondition or MedicalProcedure schema applied to a commercial service page. The practice's laser-hair-removal landing page marked up as MedicalProcedure with mechanism-of-action descriptions, contraindications, and outcome data reads to Google's medical-content medical-content evaluators as encyclopedic reference.
The page is actually promotional copy. The mismatch triggers the manual action. The manual action surfaces in Search Console with the category 'spammy structured data' and a remediation note. Recovery requires removing the encyclopedic-typed schema from the commercial page and filing a reconsideration request in Search Console 5 . The reconsideration process takes 2 to 8 weeks; rankings during the manual action are demoted on the affected URLs.
Which types are encyclopedic-onlyMedicalCondition. MedicalProcedure. MedicalTest. MedicalTherapy. Drug.
The medical-reference types in the schema.org medical vocabulary are MedicalCondition, MedicalProcedure, MedicalTest, MedicalTherapy, Drug, and MedicalSignOrSymptom 2 . Each is designed for encyclopedic medical reference content. Each carries properties (cause, signOrSymptom, contraindication, mechanismOfAction, status) that read as objective medical reference.
Applied to a commercial-promotional page, the types misrepresent the content. The practice's surgical-procedure marketing page is not encyclopedic content about the procedure; it's a service offering. The medical-content evaluator reads the mismatch.
The safe patternMedicalBusiness plus availableService roll-up.
The safe schema choice for a commercial service page is MedicalBusiness on the practice entity with the availableService roll-up naming the services offered 3 . The availableService entries can be typed as MedicalProcedure or MedicalTherapy nodes nested inside the business node, but the typing reads as 'services this business offers' rather than as 'encyclopedic description of this procedure.'
The structural difference is the nesting. MedicalProcedure as a standalone primary entity on a page triggers the medical-content evaluator. MedicalProcedure nested as an availableService property of a MedicalBusiness entity reads as catalogue. The same type, two different positions in the graph, two different evaluation paths.
Editorial content authored under medical review.
Editorial content authored by a named ABMS-certified physician with a medically-reviewed-by attribution can carry MedicalCondition or MedicalProcedure schema as the primary entity. The page is encyclopedic in shape; the schema reads accurately. The editorial layer reads against the Reviews System 2023+ medical-content framework 4 for the first-party practicing-physician reviewer signals.
The commercial layer carries MedicalBusiness and the service roll-up. Two surfaces, two schema postures, the same site. Editorial articles at /research/ or /blog/; commercial pages at the service-line URL slugs. The architectural separation averts the manual-action trigger and routes each surface to the evaluation rule set that fits it.
The manual-action avoidance is structural input to the medical schema work at Praxis. The schema architecture is set up at build time to keep the commercial and editorial surfaces in their distinct postures.