Google Changes EU Spam Policy to Avert Antitrust Fine
Google is changing its site reputation abuse enforcement in the EEA after EU scrutiny, reducing one search penalty risk for publishers. The post Google Changes EU Spam Policy to Avert Antitrust Fine appeared first on TechRepublic .
Google is altering its policy for dealing with site reputation abuse in the European Economic Area (EEA) to avoid potential antitrust penalties. Starting on August 30, manual actions under the policy will no longer impact search results for users in the EEA, which includes 27 EU member states and three additional nations. This change targets "parasite SEO," a tactic where third parties publish pages on established websites to gain from their search-ranking advantages.
The policy change comes after the European Commission's investigation found that news organizations and publishers were being demoted when their websites contained content from commercial partners. The European Commission's spokesman welcomed the repeal, stating that the Digital Markets Act (DMA) will prevent Google Search from demoting press publications solely for hosting third-party content.
Google emphasizes that the change does not signal abandonment of efforts against spam, maintaining its focus on protecting search results from deceptive practices. The revised policy primarily benefits European publishers who rely on Google for traffic, as it removes the risk of manual demotion for hosting commercial or partner content. However, the change does not permit the use of poor-quality content.
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