Google: Site Reputation Abuse Isn't About Linking

May 10, 2024 - 7:41 am 6 by

Rusted Google Links

Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, made it crystal clear that the site reputation abuse policy has zero to do with linking. This means that who you link to and/or who links to you has no impact on this new policy that Google began enforcing with manual actions earlier this week.

Danny Sullivan said this on X, "Site reputation abuse isn't about linking." Instead, he said it is about the content, "It's about content abusing a site's reputation," he wrote.

Here are those posts:

So if anyone was confused by this, it should now be crystal clear - this policy is about the content, not about the links.

Here is how Google defines site reputation abuse:

Site reputation abuse is when third-party pages are published with little or no first-party oversight or involvement, where the purpose is to manipulate search rankings by taking advantage of the first-party site's ranking signals. Such third-party pages include sponsored, advertising, partner, or other third-party pages that are typically independent of a host site's main purpose or produced without close oversight or involvement of the host site, and provide little to no value to users.

Google posted more examples at the link above.

Forum discussion at X.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: July 15, 2025

Jul 15, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google Maps

Google Local Ranking Documentation Updated

Jul 15, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Automatically Adding Social Media Links To Businesses

Jul 15, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Search Console Analytics API New Metadata Incomplete Data Points

Jul 15, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google AdSense

Google AdSense PIN Verification Issues

Jul 15, 2025 - 7:21 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Now Requests Text/WhatsApp Number During Setup

Jul 15, 2025 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google Local Panel With Owner Attribute