Google Site Reputation Abuse Policy Now Incorporates First-Party Involvement

Google has updated its site reputation abuse policy to include cases where first-party involvement or oversight is found. Cases previously excluded from this policy include manipulation of search rankings through third-party content, even in scenarios where first-party involvement or oversight could be determined to exist. This policy update was initially included in Google’s March 2024 core update.

Chris Nelson of the Google Search Quality team explained, Using third-party content to exploit a site’s ranking signals is a violation of this policy, regardless of first-party involvement or oversight.

New Policy Definition

The new policy reads:  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.

Why an Update?

Since the launch of the policy, Google considered different degrees of first-party engagement, such as collaborations with white-labelling, licensing agreements, and partial proprietorship arrangements. Based on the studies conducted, Google concluded that the involvement of first parties would not alter the exploitative nature of third-party content nor its impact on search rankings.

Nelson also pointed out that users have complained vigorously about reputation abuse of sites, which is often called Parasite SEO and serves to degrade the overall search experience. 

Policy Enforcement:- The policy is enforced through human action rather than algorithms. Website owners whose sites are found in violation are notified via their Search Console account and can file a reconsideration request. Google made clear that not all third-party content violates the policy, and specifics are outlined in its spam policies. 

Independent Content Evaluation

If the sub-sections of sites contain content significantly different from the main site, its algorithms can now test it independently. This prevents sub-sections from free-riding on site-wide ranking signals. Google clarified that such tests are not demotions but a measure to ensure equal rankings. 

Importance for SEO

It updated the long-standing issues of Parasite SEO that evoked fairness concerns about the search results.

Plenty of people in the SEO community will rejoice at this move, but others will see it as a form of constraint.

After all, its purpose is to fortify the user experience and ranking integrity.

To learn more about it, check out Google’s spam policies page.