Google has refreshed and updated its web search policies documentation. The big change is Google added more language around the site reputation abuse policy, while expanding, simplifying and clarifying other sections of its search policies.
Google wrote that they have "clarified some wording in our spam policies for Google web search to focus more on what web spam is and the tactics involved." "Also integrated an explanation of close involvement from our blog post for easier reference, and clarified that trying to circumvent our policies can also result in ranking lower or not at all," Google added.
Google said it made these changes because they "review and refresh our documentation periodically" and "this update is part of that process."
As I covered yesterday, the big change is that added section to the site reputation abuse policy that reads:
Close oversight or involvement is when the first-party hosting site is directly producing or generating unique content (for example, via staff directly employed by the first-party, or freelancers working for staff of the first-party site). It is not working with third-party services (such as "white-label" or "turnkey") that focus on redistributing content with the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings.
But Google made other changes - I have a diff document as a PNG over here or web version here comparing the archived version to the new version.
But here are some highlights if you don't want to see all the changes.
- Revised introductory paragraph
- Link spam updated
- Machine generated traffic updated
- Misleading functionality updated
- Scraping content updated
- Republishing content updated
- Site reputation abuse added to
- Coupon examples updated
- Thin affiliated pages updated
- Policy circumvention section updated
- Other misc changes
Forum discussion at X.
