On the 25th of September, Google made a few interesting amendments to its spam policies for Google web search document. Most notably, Google added an entire new paragraph to the site reputation abuse section.
Google stated that they have ‘clarified some wording in our spam policies for Google web search to focus more on what spam is and tactics involved. Also integrated and explanation of close involvement from our blog post for easier reference, and clarified that trying to circumvent our policies can also result in ranking lower or not at all.’
Changes to Look Out For
Site Reputation Abuse
The biggest addition was this paragraph in the site reputation abuse section:
‘Close oversight or involvement is when the first-party hosting site is directly producing or generating unique content (for example, via staff directly employed by the first-party, or freelancers working for staff of the first-party site). It is not working with third-party services (such as “white-label” or “turnkey”) that focus on redistributing content with the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings.’
Link Spam
Google also made an interesting update to its definition of link spamming…
New wording: ‘Link spam is the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.’
Old wording: ‘Google uses links as a factor in determining the relevancy of web pages. Any links that are intended to manipulate rankings in Google Search results may be considered link spam. This includes any behaviour that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.’
It’s unclear whether this edit indicates a shift in the way Google uses links or if it was purely for concising the information.
Other Changes
Added to this, plenty of other edits were made to the documentation, including:
- Machine generated traffic
- Scraping content
- Republishing content
- Coupon examples
- Thin affiliated pages
- Policy circumvention
What Do the Changes to Google’s Spam Policy Document Actually Mean?
Google noted that it reviews and refreshes its documentation periodically and says that ‘this update is part of that process.’ This suggests that the changes were made for clarification purposes. However, many do believe policy document changes mean manual actions may be on the horizon.
Whether or not you think manual actions will follow, it’s important to keep up to date with Google’s policy documents and look out for any changes that may affect your site.
Possible recuperations have already been noted. Glenn Gabe speculated on X about Forbes Advisor’s recent drop:
What do you think about Google’s spam policy update – just harmless rewording or something more significant?
We regularly post on our blog to give you essential updates in the world of search, so be sure to check back in for up to date news and industry insights. Alternatively, if you’re concerned your site may be affected by the change, or you’ve noticed a recent drop in rankings or visibility, get in touch with our experts today.
