Google Changes Site Reputation Abuse Enforcement in Europe After EU Challenges Search Demotions

Google is changing how one of its most closely watched search-spam policies is enforced in Europe after regulators raised concerns that legitimate publishers were being unfairly demoted. Beginning August 30, manual actions related to Google's site reputation abuse policy will no longer affect search users in the European Economic Area. The underlying policy remains unchanged elsewhere. Google introduced the policy to target websites that host third-party content primarily to exploit the ranking authority of an established domain. The European Commission opened a Digital Markets Act investigation after finding indications that enforcement could also penalize publishers using legitimate commercial partnerships and third-party content. The change creates an unusual situation in which enforcement of an important Google Search policy will differ depending on where the search user is located.