What to know
- Google has strengthened its site reputation abuse policy to combat “parasite SEO” practices where websites exploit established domains to manipulate search rankings.
- Major publishers like CNN, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, and others have lost millions in revenue as Google penalizes their affiliate business sections.
- The enforcement began with manual actions, with algorithmic updates planned for the future.
Google has launched a major crackdown on what the SEO industry calls “parasite SEO” – a practice where third-party companies publish content on reputable websites primarily to boost search rankings.
The search giant has started enforcing its site reputation abuse policy, targeting websites that allow third parties to exploit their domain authority. This enforcement has particularly hit the affiliate businesses of major publishers, including CNN, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and Time, causing dramatic drops in their search visibility.
The impact has been substantial, with these publishers collectively losing an estimated $7.5 million in revenue. The decline specifically affects their affiliate business sections, such as CNN Underscored, while leaving their main news operations untouched.
Google’s updated policy defines site reputation abuse as publishing third-party content to manipulate search rankings by leveraging a host site’s ranking power. For example, when educational websites host payday loan reviews or medical sites publish casino-related content without proper oversight.
The enforcement began with manual actions, where Google directly notified sites through Search Console about violations. Many publishers have already responded by either removing problematic sections or implementing no-index tags on affected pages.
This crackdown signals a significant shift in the publishing industry’s affiliate business model. Publishers who want to maintain affiliate operations may need to bring these efforts in-house rather than outsourcing to third parties, requiring more substantial investments in resources and oversight.
While the current enforcement relies on manual actions, Google plans to implement algorithmic updates to automatically detect and address site reputation abuse in the future, though no specific timeline has been announced.
Source | Via
