Alphabet’s Google announced a modification to its spam policy for Europe on Friday in response to concerns raised by EU authorities and publishers. The move comes after monitoring by EU regulators suggested the policy had the effect of reducing the visibility of some news outlets and other publishers in Google search results when those sites included content from commercial partners.
Under the change, Google said that beginning on August 30 any manual actions taken to demote sites under its site reputation or spam rules will not be applied to users located in the European Economic Area - specifically the 27 European Union member states plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein. The company also stated that the policy would remain unchanged for users outside the European Economic Area.
The contested element of Google’s policy addresses what the company describes as attempts to game search rankings by publishing third-party pages on a host site to leverage the host site’s ranking signals, a practice commonly referred to as parasite SEO. Publishers had complained that Google’s site reputation abuse provisions were being applied in a way that harmed legitimate news media and other publishers when those publishers included material from commercial partners.
Those complaints prompted the European Commission - the EU’s competition enforcement authority - to open an investigation under the Digital Markets Act, the regulatory framework intended to constrain the conduct of large digital gatekeepers. The Commission’s probe follows its monitoring findings that Google’s spam policy led to demotion of publishers’ websites and content in search results when partner content was present.
The Digital Markets Act includes enforcement mechanisms with significant financial penalties for breaches. The law allows fines of up to 10% of a company’s global annual turnover for non-compliance, a punitive cap specified in the statute that regulators can apply if violations are found.
Google’s Europe-specific adjustment applies only to manual actions used to demote sites; the company emphasized that the broader policy framework will continue to operate outside the European Economic Area. The company did not indicate any change to the policy’s application beyond this regional carve-out.
Summary
- Google changed its spam policy application in the EEA to address EU concerns about demotion of publishers.
- Manual demotions will not be applied to EEA users from August 30; policy unchanged outside the EEA.
- The European Commission has opened a DMA investigation, with potential fines up to 10% of global turnover for breaches.
Contextual note - The adjustments relate specifically to the enforcement of site reputation and spam protections where third-party hosted content can affect search rankings. The EU monitoring cited demotion of news media and other publishers when content from commercial partners appeared on their sites.