Google is changing its spam policy across the European Economic Area after EU regulators raised concerns about unfairly demoting publisher websites in search results.
In Europe, Google has revised its spam policy to address concerns from EU regulators and avoid possible antitrust penalties. Alphabet Inc.'s subsidiary was accused of violating the site reputation abuse policy by manipulating search results through websites hosting third-party content. This kind of SEO is popularly known as parasite SEO.
According to EU monitoring, the policy would penalize news organizations and other publishers if their sites hosted any content from business partners. EU regulators opened an investigation into Google under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
From August 30, the manual action from Google on the basis of its policy shall not apply to all users from the EU's 27 member states, as well as Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein. The new policy applies to the European Economic Area but not outside this area for Google.
The European Commission was pleased with the decision, as publishers should not be penalized because of hosting third-party content. It also promised that it will monitor the implementation of the modified policy by Google to ensure compliance with the DMA.
This incident could lead to further implications regarding Google’s changes to their SEO policy in Europe, especially for those publishers who heavily depend on their search visibility and business relationships.
This is one of the examples of increased regulation of Google's search activity of Google. According to the DMA, firms can receive fines equivalent to 10% of their worldwide annual turnover. Business Honor believes Google’s EU policy change shows how digital regulations are increasingly influencing search practices and publisher visibility.
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