Google Strengthens Policy Against Site Reputation Abuse

Google has issued new clarification for its site reputation abuse policy, which was launched earlier this year. It targets “parasite SEO” practices where websites leverage established domains to manipulate search rankings through third-party content.

Chris Nelson from the Google Search Quality team states:

“We’ve heard very clearly from users that site reputation abuse – commonly referred to as ‘parasite SEO’ – leads to a bad search experience for people, and today’s policy update helps to crack down on this behavior.”

Policy Clarification

The updated policy states that using third-party content to exploit a site’s ranking signals violates Google’s guidelines, regardless of first-party involvement or oversight.

This clarification comes after Google’s review of various business arrangements, including white-label services, licensing agreements, and partial ownership structures.

The updated policy language states:

“Site reputation abuse is the practice of publishing third-party pages on a site in an attempt to abuse search rankings by taking advantage of the host site’s ranking signals.”

Policy Details

What’s A Violation?

Google outlines several examples of policy violations, including:

• Educational sites hosting third-party payday loan reviews
• Medical sites publishing unrelated content about casino reviews
• Movie review sites featuring content about social media services
• Sports websites hosting third-party supplement reviews without editorial oversight
• News sites publishing coupon content from third parties without proper involvement

What’s Not A Violation?

Google acknowledges there’s a difference between abusive practices and legitimate third-party content.

Acceptable examples include:

• Wire service and syndicated news content
• User-generated content on forum websites
• Editorial content with close host site involvement
• Properly disclosed advertorial content
• Standard advertising units and affiliate links

Background

Enforcement of the site reputation abuse policy began in May.

The rollout is having a notable impact in the news and publishing industry, as documented by Olga Zarr.

Major organizations, including CNN, USA Today, and LA Times, were among the first to receive manual penalties, primarily for hosting third-party coupons and promotional content.

Glenn Gabe shared early observations:

Here’s another example. The query “uber promos codes” yielded CNN as #2 yesterday and Fortune at #4. Both are now gone. I can’t even find them. Wow. pic.twitter.com/0Oc48ggYeh

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 6, 2024

The recovery process has shown clear patterns: sites that removed offending content or implemented noindex tags on affected sections have started seeing their manual actions lifted. However, ranking recovery takes time as Google’s crawlers need to process these changes.

BTW, here’s a site that never dropped (must have slipped through the cracks when manual actions were sent out). But, they noindexed the coupons directory recently anyway. The site actually surges when others drop out due to manual actions. But again, that content is noindexed… pic.twitter.com/6lz8umfeBl

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) May 11, 2024

Looking Ahead

While enforcement relies on manual actions, Google has indicated plans for algorithmic updates to automate the detection and demotion of site reputation abuse, though no specific timeline has been announced.

Site owners found in violation will receive notifications through Search Console and can submit reconsideration requests.

Featured Image: JarTee/Shutterstock