When it comes to link penalties, there are two main types: manual penalties and algorithmic penalties. Manual penalties are the result of a human reviewer from Google's webspam team analyzing and assessing your link profile. These penalties are specifically tailored to target websites that have violated Google's guidelines by engaging in manipulative or unnatural link-building practices.
On the other hand, algorithmic penalties are imposed automatically by Google's algorithms, without any manual intervention. These penalties are triggered when the algorithms detect patterns or signals that indicate a website has engaged in spammy or low-quality link-building tactics. Algorithmic penalties are usually more widespread and affect a larger number of websites, as they are based on rules and algorithms that analyze various factors beyond just a manual review of the link profile.