Google Updates Site Reputation Abuse (Parasite SEO) Policy via @sejournal, @martinibuster
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SEJ STAFF Roger Montti August 28, 2026 ⋅ 11 min read SEJ STAFF Roger Montti Owner - Martinibuster.com at Martinibuster.com Bio Follow 1.1K READS Google updated their spam policy to reflect changes to their Site Reputation abuse policy. The biggest change is that manual actions for site reputation abuse are phased out and replaced with a different system for sites in the European Economic Area (EEA). The new guidance removes examples of site reputation abuse and replaces them with more detailed examples of how Google identifies site reputation abuse, including four site reputation abuse factors. Google posted an official blog post and updated their guidelines. Google wrote that it is changing how it enforces site reputation abuse (parasite SEO) manual actions in the European Economic Area (EEA) after having discussions with the European Commission. Starting August 30, manual actions will affect the violating section of a site for users outside the EEA. For users inside the EEA, there will be no manual action that will affect rankings. Instead, Google may separate the affected section from the rest of the site in its systems so that it eventually ranks on its own merits. Google trimmed their list of site reputation abuse examples and left a note that the list was not exhaustive and that they may not take actions on some instances. “For users outside the EEA, a manual action regarding our site reputation policy will directly affect search results for the portion of the site affected. As before, the rest of the site won’t be affected. For users inside the EEA, the impact of the manual action won’t apply. The affected section of the site may be separated in our systems so that, over time, it ranks independently from the rest of the site.” Google’s new blog post explainer on the topic lists four additional points: Google removed a significant amount of examples of site reputation abuse and added a new group with explanations. It also added a disclaimer that the examples are not exhaustive and that there will other instances where Google does not take action. The next change is interesting because it gives some insight into how Google determines whether site reputation abuse content is affecting the quality of a site. The main insight is that Google presumes that new pages added to a site will have the same general quality as all the other pages. It also says that the response will vary depending on the location of the website. This is some of the newly added content to the site reputation policy: “Google generally applies a presumption that individual pages (including new pages) match the overall quality of other pages on the domain. If we detect that a portion of your site may be out of line with this policy, a site will be subject to human review. As part of this review, if the site is found to be inconsistent with the policy, the consequences for the way the site’s pages appear in search results will vary depending on the location of users.” The next part states that Google’s enforcement of this policy is becoming more granular in that pages outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) will only drop off the search results to users that are outside of the EEA. “Outside the EEA: If a site is found to be out of line with this policy, the relevant pages may be subject to a manual action when they appear in Search results shown to users outside the EEA.” The next part covers manual actions to content that originates from within the EEA and notes that these pages will not be subject to manual actions. “Within the EEA: When pages appear in Search results shown to users within the EEA, the relevant pages may be categorized as separate from the main domain but won’t be subject to the impact of manual action. Additionally, users in the EEA will be able to mediate their disputes with Google. This will allow the different parts of the site to rank independently of each other, on their own merits. This ensures that content is ranked in a consistent way against other content of the same nature (for example, casino content ranks against other casino content), so that users get the best possible results for their query. If your site is affected in this way, we will notify you in the Manual actions report and in the Search Console message center. All sites will have the opportunity to address this issue or appeal via a reconsideration request. Eligible sites will, following the reconsideration request, also have the opportunity to bring disputes to mediation.” Google also published a new section titled “More Detailed Guidance” that explains that their goal is to determine whether content in a given section is created with enough input from the site that is hosting the content. Interestingly it says that human reviews are rare. “On the rare occasions where we perform a human review, our overarching goal is to determine whether content on the relevant portion of the site is created with sufficient input, editorial oversight, or contribution from the host site to be considered fully integrated with the main site. This ensures that a page’s rank reflects the way it is presented to and understood by users. This review applies globally and takes into account a number of objective factors, aimed at understanding the degree to which the host domain exercises control over the page content.” Google names four factors that are considered when a site undergoes a review for site reputation abuse. These new factors should prove useful to website owners, publishers, and SEOs who may want to understand how to avoid a site reputation abuse manual action. Google’s new documentation explains that these four factors are not like a checklist where if some factors aren’t in evidence that it means the site is safe from a manual action. Google explains that it’s looking at the overall situation to determine if a third-part is exploiting the website for ranking purposes. Google’s updated documentation provides two examples of site behavior that is unlikely to lead to a manual action for site reputation abuse. Google then lists examples of how it would approach a determination. The first example is of a coupon site that likely will not result in a manual action. The new documentation explains that it is unlikely to take action against a third-party coupons and deals section when the publisher has meaningfully integrated it into the website. The common point is that third-party involvement in itself is a problem. What does matter is whether the publisher is actively involved and responsible for integrating the content into the website. The updated guidance says that Google is unlikely to take action against affiliate content written by a freelancer when the publisher has editorial oversight over the content and it is genuinely created specifically for that publication. Google uses the example of a news site that’s expanding with a new cooking section that includes content written by a freelancer that’s interviewing celebrity chefs. In this section of the documentation Google outlines a scenario where it is likely to take action. The trigger is when the publisher does not appear to exercise meaningful editorial control and the content is not genuinely integrated into the publication.
Source: Search Engine Journal
This article has been carefully curated and reformatted for educational and informational purposes. Full credit goes to the original publisher.
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