Google's New Spam Policy: Policy Circumvention

Google has added a new spam policy for policy circumvention. The new section was added to the Google spam policies document and basically says if you try to go around the Google spam policies, you can be penalized. So in short, if you find a loophole around a policy, Google may take action against your site or content or account.

Google wrote:

If you engage in actions intended to bypass our spam or content policies for Google Search, undermine restrictions placed on content, a site, or an account, or otherwise continue to distribute content that has been removed or made ineligible from surfacing, we may take appropriate action which could include restricting or removing eligibility for some of our search features (for example, Top Stories, Discover). Circumvention includes but is not limited to creating or using multiple sites or other methods intended to distribute content or engage in a behavior that was previously prohibited.

Let's try to break this down by section:

What is policy circumvention?

• It is an action that is intended to bypass any of the Google spam or content policies.
• It is an action that undermines the restrictions Google has placed on the site, content or account
• It is an action that finds other ways to distribute the content that was already removed or downgraded for previous violations
• Circumvention, as Google defines it, "includes but is not limited to creating or using multiple sites or other methods intended to distribute content or engage in a behavior that was previously prohibited."

What is the penalty for policy circumvention?

Google said the search company "may take appropriate action which could include restricting or removing eligibility for some of our search features (for example, Top Stories, Discover)." In short, Google will once again apply an action or penalty like it did originally in the same or more server way than the original action or penalty.

Other Spam Policy Update

With that new policy circumvention policy, Google also made tweaks to some of the other policies including the legal removals and personal information removals.

Here is the before and after screenshots.

Before:

After:

Forum discussion at Twitter.