Google Alters Site Reputation Abuse Policy, Ends EEA Penalties

Image credit: Search Engine Journal

Google updated its Site Reputation Abuse policy globally Monday, phasing out manual penalties for violations within the European Economic Area (EEA) and introducing new enforcement methods.

The policy shift means websites within the EEA will no longer face direct manual penalties from Google for reputation abuse, a change that impacts how content is categorized and presented to users, according to the company.

Outside the EEA, manual actions for policy violations will continue to affect search results, but only for users located outside the EEA, Google said.

Within the EEA, pages identified as violating the policy may be categorized as distinct from their main domain, but they will not incur the impact of a manual action. Google also noted that users in the EEA retain the ability to mediate disputes regarding such categorizations.

Google presumes that newly published pages generally reflect the overall quality of other content on a given domain. The consequences for policy violations will vary depending on the user’s geographical location, the company said.

The company issued new, detailed guidance outlining four primary factors for identifying site reputation abuse. These factors include how content is presented, the overall quality of the content, the stated or implied authorship, and whether the content appears on multiple websites.

Google stated that human reviews for site reputation abuse are infrequent. When such reviews occur, they primarily focus on the host site’s involvement, its editorial oversight, or its contribution to the content in question.

Source: Search Engine Journal