Are "Unnatural links to your site" manual actions now a thing of the past?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Casey Markee: On the contrary, these are still a common occurrence and I just unwound one last week...for paid links.These type of manual actions have an "intent" focus. A clear demonstrated pattern of link scheme violation that rises to the level of a manual revi...Lihat Lainnya
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  Patty Mantaloons: I`m doing backlink audits and seeing hundreds of links from domains that were once bonafide respected sites, but then were snatched up at domain expiration and taken over by spammers. Original content thrown back on and some links to the target site, and often a couple of its social sites, and I`m talking in the hundreds - All by the same agency.
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  Patty Mantaloons: How are these links schemes discovered for manual review? Flags triggered? Spam reports? All of the above?
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  Casey Markee: Patty, correct. All of the above.
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  Patty Mantaloons: I have some steady resistance on Webmaster Central Help Forum against the idea that Google uses spam reports to take manual action on the source or target of spam links. I`ll PM you the link if you`re curious.
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  Patty Mantaloons: I`ve sent a detailed spreadsheet of links to a Googler who`s passed it on to the web spam team. Helping Google in the fight against webspam is nice and all, but would be nice to think that they slap sites that are maintained for link schemes out of the index, and preferably send out warnings to targeted sites.
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  Casey Markee: Patty, not all spam reports are acted upon."Google takes action on 65 percent of the 35, 000 user-generated spam reports submitted to Google monthly"...Lihat Lainnya
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  Patty Mantaloons: I`ve seen that data and also Google`s 2016 Webspam report. https://webmasters.googleblog.com/.../how-we-fought... How long have they been algorithmically ignoring unnatural links, since Penguin 4? Hoping there`s a 2017 spam report with similar numbers...
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  Patty Mantaloons: From that report: "The spam that we didn’t identify algorithmically was handled manually. We sent over 9 million messages to webmasters to notify them of webspam issues on their sites."So are those warning messages only, or do they imply a penalty? Do you think they`re saying 9 million manual actions related to webspam?
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  Casey Markee: Patty, every manual penalty is manual. Given by a real person. Reviewed by a real person. Removed by a real person. But not every warning message is a manual action. So no, I don’t believe that is what they are saying.
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  Patty Mantaloons: Ya, I`m assuming those messages are warning to either contact site owners, disavow, or proceed at your own risk