Google updated its spam documentation, adding a new definition of site reputation abuse as the biggest single change, followed by additional information on implications for manual actions. The remaining updates are a content update aimed at making the documentation easier to understand and more concise. Understanding these changes can provide ideas for how to update your own content effectively.

What changed

There are about eight types of changes to the documentation that improve the content. There are seven ways older content can be made fresher.

These are the types of changes made:

• More information about website reputation abuse
• New details on consequences for manual action
• Changed concept of thin affiliate to thin affiliate
• More appropriate opening sentence
• Consolidation of Words: Practices & Spam Practices
• Added the concept of spam abuse
• Improved brevity in general
• Improved topic: Machine generated traffic

More information about website reputation abuse

The previous documentation states that abuse of site reputation is when a third party publishes content on an authoritative site with “little or no first-party oversight,” but it did not explain what “first-party oversight” is, so the new version of the spam documentation adds a new definition.

“When supervision or involvement is when the first party web host directly produces or generates unique content (for example, through staff directly employed by the first party, or freelancers working for the staff of the first party site). It does not work with third party services (such as “white -label” or “turnkey”) that focus on redistributing content with the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings.”

New details on consequences for manual action

Google added a new sentence explaining that one of the consequences of continuing to violate Google’s spam guidelines is that they can escalate the consequences by removing more parts of a website from search results. This is not a new consequence but it is new information.

This is the new detail associated with a site that continues to spam:

“…and take broader actions in Google Search (such as removing more parts of a website from search results).”

This is an example of updating content by adding additional information that was omitted in the original version.

Changed concept of thin affiliate to thin affiliate

Google changed the section on “Thin Affiliate Pages” to read “Thin Affiliation” and added a definition of what they mean.

The original version about thin affiliate pages started like this:

“Thin affiliate pages are pages with product links…”

The new version starts like this:

“Thin linking is the practice of publishing content with product links…”

More appropriate opening sentence

Google’s documentation improved the opening sentence by making it more appropriate to the context of the topic. It now defines what spam is. The new sentence does not replace the old opening sentence, the old one simply becomes the second sentence.

Original opening sentence:

“Our spam policy helps protect users and improve the quality of search results.”

New opening sentence:

“In the context of Google Search, spam is web content designed to deceive users or manipulate our search engines to rank high. Our spam policies help protect users and improve the quality of search results.”

The new version starts with a definition of spam, which makes sense for spam documentation.

Consolidation of Words: Practices & Spam Practices

The following example shows how Google consolidated euphemisms for the same thing (spam) into a single phrase emphasizing the phrase Spam Practices.

This change combines phrases like “content and behaviors” and “forms of spam” into the simpler phrases “practices” and “spam practices.” I’m not sure why Google made this change, but using consistent terminology makes the content easier to understand.

Here are some examples of the phrases “practice” and “spam practice” being emphasized:

1. The second paragraph is amended to make it more concise.

This:

“We detect content and behavior that violates the policy both through automated systems. . . .”

Is this now:

“We detect policy-violating practices…”

The sentence becomes easier to understand.

2. Around the fourth paragraph:

This:

“Our policies cover common forms of spam, but Google can take action against any type of spam we detect.”

Will this be:

“Our policies cover common spam practices, but Google can take action against any type of spam we detect.”

The new sentence above is a bit redundant, but it shows a deliberate attempt to consolidate similar activities into a single activity category.

The concept of spam abuse

The next change is to increase the use of the word “abuse” in the new version of the spam policies. Abuse is a word that describes a harmful activity. When it comes to SEO, Google can use that word because it describes an activity that intentionally deceives users and search engines.

The old version used the word 11 times and the new version uses that word 17 times. It’s a relatively small change but it reinforces the notion that spam is a form of abuse significantly.

Here are two examples of how Google added the concept of abuse:

1. The word “doorways” is now “doorways abuse”
2. The phrase “Hidden text and links” is now Hidden text and links abuse”

There are other changes in the documentation where they add the word “abuse” and what’s interesting about that is that this is a change in how a concept (abuse) is introduced to make a series of seemingly disparate things related. This helps the reader’s understanding because “hidden text” and “doorways” are now linked together in the concept of “abuse” in the sense of spam.

Improved conciseness

Another change that should always be considered in a content update is making phrases more concise.

Google changed the following text:

“Google uses links as a factor in determining web page relevance. Any link intended to manipulate rankings in Google search results can be considered link spam. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outbound links from your site.”

It is now significantly shorter:

“Link spamming is the practice of creating links to or from a website primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.”

Big difference, right? I really like that change because someone probably looked at the original three sentences and thought about what the core message was trying to get through that thicket of three sentences.

If you read the original three sentences, it’s kind of a lot of information that doesn’t really stick in the mind. Considering whether a series of sentences communicates effectively is a good way to approach content rewriting. Just read it and ask “what does this mean?” and if the answer is shorter, consider writing it instead of the sentences.

Improved topic communication: Machine generated traffic

This next change dramatically improves the machine generated traffic section because it removes some that make it about Google and makes it more about a definition of machine generated traffic.

These sentences:

“Machine-generated traffic consumes resources and interferes with our ability to best serve users. Examples of automated traffic include:”

Is this now:

“Machine-generated traffic (also called automated traffic) refers to the method of sending automated queries to Google. This includes scraping…”

The part about consuming resources is still there but it has now been moved towards the end of that section.

There are other instances in the documentation where two sentences were shortened into one that gets to the point more directly, concisely.

For example, the section on deceptive functionality replaces two sentences with one sentence defining what deceptive functionality is:

“Deceptive functionality refers to the exercise of…”

The scraped content section replaced three long sentences with one sentence defining what scraped content is:

“Scraping refers to taking content from other websites…”

Content update versus a rewrite

The updated spam documentation is not a rewrite but an incremental update with some new information. It suggests ways to update your own content by adding new details and making existing information clearer and more concise.

Read the updated documentation:

Spam Policies for Google Web Search

Featured image by Shutterstock/Shutterstock AI Generator