Google is loosening one of its search spam rules in Europe, giving publishers a little breathing room while easing some of the heat from its antitrust fight with EU regulators.
Alphabet-owned Google said Friday that, starting Aug. 30, manual actions under its site reputation abuse policy will no longer affect search results for users in the European Economic Area, which includes the 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.
The policy targets “parasite SEO,” a practice in which third parties publish pages on established websites to take advantage of those sites’ search-ranking strength.
Google introduced the site reputation abuse policy to protect search quality and prevent websites from being used to boost unrelated third-party content. But publishers argued that the rules could also hurt legitimate businesses that host sponsored or commercial partner content.
The European Commission’s monitoring found that news organizations and other publishers were being demoted when their websites contained content from commercial partners, prompting regulators to investigate under the Digital Markets Act.
EU regulators welcome the move
The policy change helps Google avoid a significant DMA penalty while the European Commission continues to assess its approach.
“We welcome the repeal of this policy, which unfairly penalised publishers and other business users of Google Search,” EU Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said, according to Reuters.
“Thanks to the DMA, Google Search will no longer demote press publications solely for hosting third-party content,” Regnier added.
The commission said it would monitor how Google applies the revised policy to ensure it complies with the DMA. Companies that breach the law can face fines of up to 10% of their global annual turnover, according to the reports. Google said the change applies only within the EEA. Its existing enforcement approach will remain in place elsewhere.
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What it means for publishers
For European publishers, the change could reduce the risk of losing search visibility simply by working with commercial partners, affiliates, or other third-party content providers.
That does not mean Google is abandoning its fight against spam. The company said it remains focused on protecting search results from deceptive practices such as parasite SEO.
“Our priority is to keep Search results helpful and useful for users and protect them from deceptive practices like ‘parasite SEO’ spam that undermine the web,” a Google spokesperson said, according to Techeconomy.
The practical effect could be meaningful for European publishers that rely heavily on Google for traffic. Websites that previously risked a manual demotion for hosting commercial or partner content should no longer face that specific penalty for EEA users.
But the change is not a free pass for poor-quality content. Google’s broader efforts to combat spam remain in place, and the company will continue to enforce its existing policy outside Europe.
The bigger issue is the precedent: Google is effectively running a different search-enforcement model in Europe, showing how the DMA can force major technology companies to adjust their products and policies for a single region. For publishers, that could mean more freedom to pursue commercial partnerships without worrying that those arrangements alone will trigger a Google search penalty.
Related reading: For more on how Google’s evolving search strategy is affecting the media industry, read how new AI features are making publisher visibility harder.
