Google updates guidelines for spam and rating systems

[samiaseo75]

Google has updated its web search spam guidelines and rating system guide to clarify how it handles websites with high levels of objectionable explicit imagery and removal requests.

These changes address policies that specifically address websites that charge fees to remove negative information. The guidelines also state that if they also take down content on other sites that business owner data engage in the same pattern of behavior, it may result in a demotion for those sites as well.

In practice, this means that reporting one website can trigger the downgrading of other websites that have similar types of exploitative removal practices.

Background to Google's policy on non-consensual explicit imagery
Google is demoting pages for images posted without the consent of the party whose image is publicly shared on the site. These changes continue the evolution of Google's ranking and spam policies.

Google Spam Policy Changes
Here are the changes to Google's spam and demotion guidelines:

Original text:
“If we process a large volume of personal data removals related to a site with exploitative removal practices, we will demote other content from the site in our results.

We are also investigating whether the same pattern of behavior is happening with other sites, and if so, we will apply content demotions to those sites.

We may use similar demotion procedures for sites that receive a high volume of doxxing content removals.