Alphabet's Google announced on its search quality team blog on Friday that starting August 30, manual actions issued under its "site reputation abuse" policy will no longer lower search rankings for users within the European Economic Area, which includes the 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein. For users located outside this region, search results will continue to be affected by the original rules. This means the policy has not been abolished globally, and the same webpage could display different rankings for someone in Berlin compared to someone in Boston. The European Commission, which had launched an investigation under the Digital Markets Act regarding this matter, stated it will continue to monitor whether the new enforcement approach complies with regulations.

Core of the policy change: enforcement impact altered, not the rule itself

"Site reputation abuse" refers to the practice of placing third-party content on domains with high authority, leveraging the host site's ranking signals for undue advantage, commonly known as "parasite SEO." Google incorporated this practice into its spam policies during the March 2024 core update and began applying manual actions to the affected sections or subdomains rather than penalizing entire websites. Friday's announcement outlines two parallel rules. For users outside the EEA, manual actions still directly target the pages involved in the violation, leaving the rest of the site unaffected. For users within the EEA, the ranking impact of the same manual action will no longer be reflected in search results. Flagged sections may be separated at the system level and, over time, will be ranked independently based on their own quality, without inheriting the authority signals of the host domain. Site owners will still receive manual action notifications in Search Console and can submit reconsideration requests, with a mediation process available after approval. Although displayed results in the EEA remain unaffected, the backend records persist, as the same pages may be accessed by users globally.

The official policy page adds that within the EEA, relevant pages can be classified as subcategories independent of the main domain, competing with similar content. For example, a gambling section would compete against other gambling sections rather than leveraging a news brand's authority for rankings. No unified deadline has been set for the separation timeline, with the announcement only stating it will progress "over time." The algorithmic treatment of a section as an independent site for evaluation purposes has not been discontinued. A Google spokesperson indicated that European users also face issues with parasite content and paid placements, and the company maintains its stance on the policy. However, there are concerns that an overly broad application of the Digital Markets Act could weaken anti-spam capabilities. In response to the European Commission's concerns, Google agreed to adjust its enforcement approach in Europe and clarify its assessment criteria. The blog post was attributed to the search quality team without an individual author, and the interval between Friday's announcement and the Sunday effective date was just two days.

Commission investigation and publisher demands

The European Commission formally opened a case on November 13, 2025, under the Digital Markets Act. Regulatory monitoring determined that when news and other publishing sites host content from commercial partners, the existing policy could lower these sites' rankings in search results, either in whole or in part. Publishers reported losses in traffic and advertising revenue. German company ActMeraki and European publisher organizations were among those filing complaints. A Commission spokesperson welcomed Google's adjustment, stating that search will no longer downgrade news publications solely for hosting third-party content, while pledging to continue overseeing whether the implementation complies with the Digital Markets Act. Non-compliance could result in fines of up to 10% of global annual turnover. Google characterized this change as an enforcement adjustment made after discussions with the Commission, while reiterating concerns about the law being applied too broadly. During the same period, the list of examples in the policy was shortened, with a note clarifying it is not exhaustive and that some situations may not trigger action. Rules for enforcement outside the EEA remain unchanged.

Pending matters and ongoing monitoring

Manual action notifications will not cease simply because a searcher is located in the EEA. Site owners may still see "site reputation abuse" entries in Search Console, and the reconsideration process remains unchanged, with access to the existing mediation mechanism afterward. However, Google has not disclosed the number of active manual actions, how many entries will be de-ranked in EEA display results, or a technical completion timeline for section separation. For publishing sites serving audiences in both Europe and the U.S., results are now regionally divided: EEA users are no longer directly suppressed by the manual action, while users outside the region still see the demoted sections under the original penalties. The definition of "parasite search" and the standards written into policy in 2024 have not been repealed. The Commission retains its monitoring authority, but no timeline has been set for the next potential initiation of penalty proceedings.