Google has updated its Site Reputation Abuse policy to prohibit publishers and target websites hosting third-party content from using host domains to improve affiliate site rankings.
The policy update clarifies that first-party involvement does not justify third-party host domain exploitation, and using it amounts to content abuse.
Websites that continue publishing third-party content for host site ranking exploitation purposes could lose their search visibility.
The updated policy
Google updated its Site Reputation Abuse policy to target “parasite SEO,” content, and site pages (often advertisements with affiliate links) with little relevance to the site’s purpose that exploits the host domain`s ranking on Google.
The update is an amendment to the Site Reputation Abuse policy Google launched in March 2024 to end publishers selling third-party vendors’ space on their websites to earn affiliated revenue.
Google Search Quality team member Chris Nelson wrote on Google Search Central:
- “We’re making it clear that using third-party content on a site in an attempt to exploit the site’s ranking signals is a violation of this policy — regardless of whether there is first-party involvement or oversight of the content.”
Site reputation abuse clarification
Google`s original Site Reputation Abuse documentation said that website owners must be involved in creating third-party content published on their sites. Publishers involved in producing the content would not be violating Google`s Site Reputation Abuse policy.
Google`s updated policy now clarifies that no level of publisher involvement in creating third-party content that exploits their site`s rankings on Google mitigates its policy violations.
Google`s Chris Nelson explained why:
- “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.”
Why the update?
Google announced its Site Reputation Abuse policy during the March 2024 core algorithm update. Since then, Google said it has reviewed the policy relative to changing situations.
Google said their policy review concludes that:
- “Varying degrees of first-party involvement, such as cooperation with white label services, licensing agreements, partial ownership agreements, and other complex business arrangements.”
Google added it has now determined:
- “No amount of first-party involvement alters the fundamental third-party nature of the content or the unfair, exploitative nature of attempting to take advantage of the host’s sites ranking signals.”
New violations
On Google`s “Spam Policy for Google Web Search” documentation page, Google outlines what it now considers as site reputation abuse, which 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. Such third-party pages include sponsored, advertising, partner, or other third-party pages that are typically independent of the main site’s purpose.”
Google also provides examples of its new policy violations, including but not limited to the following:
- Educational sites hosting reviews of third-party payday loan providers
- Medical sites hosting a casino review page
- Movie review sites hosting unrelated content to manipulate rankings
- Sports sites with third-party workout supplement reviews
- News websites hosting third-party coupon content
Google`s policy enforcement
Google said the policy update is not algorithmic yet, and it will notify publishers who violate the new Site Reputation Abuse policies manually, meaning a Google employee will review and determine if any content on your site fails to comply with its spam policy.
Google gave this advice about policy violation notification:“Site owners who receive a spam manual action will be notified through their registered Search Console account and can submit a reconsideration request.”
