It's been a while since Google has come out with a new search spam policy and penalty to accompany it with and now we have a new one, "back button hijacking." Back button hijacking is something many of us were surprised Google didn't specifically disallow but now, Google said it is on the rise and it is adding it to the list - officially.
If you use back button hijacking, you must remove it by June 15, 2026. If you do not, Google may issue a search spam penalty either manually or algorithmically to your site, which can result in your site and/or pages not ranking as well in Google Search. Google has given two months notice to these sites.
Back button manipulation/hijacking is something that Google turned the other way on for many years and said, there is no search penalty for it. But again, that has changed because Google has "seen a rise of this type of behavior."
Google defines back button hijacking as:
When a user clicks the "back" button in the browser, they have a clear expectation: they want to return to the previous page. Back button hijacking breaks this fundamental expectation. It occurs when a site interferes with a user’s browser navigation and prevents them from using their back button to immediately get back to the page they came from. Instead, users might be sent to pages they never visited before, be presented with unsolicited recommendations or ads, or are otherwise just prevented from normally browsing the web.
June 15th: Google has given two months notice saying:
Pages that are engaging in back button hijacking may be subject to manual spam actions or automated demotions, which can impact the site's performance in Google Search results. To give site owners time to make any needed changes, we're publishing this policy two months in advance of enforcement on June 15, 2026.
The new policy says:
Malicious practices create a mismatch between user expectations and the actual outcome, leading to a negative and deceptive user experience, or compromised user security or privacy.
It is also listed in the manual actons list now:
I am not upset about this one but hey, I am sure there are some who are.
Sites have two months to stop it. -> Whoa, huge news and it's something I wrote about last year on my blog. If you hijack the back button, you are going to get a manual action. This is great news for users... Enough with hijacking the back button and providing a Google-like feed… https://t.co/jcgLuDlerl
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) April 13, 2026
Forum discussion at X.
