Google has once again said that its enforcement of the site reputation abuse policy is still only being done through manual actions and not algorithmically. Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liasion, said this on X yesterday, “We have not gone live with algorithmic actions on site reputation abuse.”

Sullivan added that “when we do, we’ll be very clear about that.” Meaning, when Google starts to enforce the site reputation abuse policy through algorithmic means, Google will announce it somewhere. Likely on the its search status page.

As a reminder, Sullivan said this on May 6th on X, as we covered back then. He wrote then, “we’re only doing manual actions right now. The algorithmic component will indeed come, as we’ve said, but that’s not live yet.” So the algorithmic component 18 days later is still not live.

Sullivan added:

Publishers seeing changes and thinking it’s this — it’s not — results change all the time for all types of reasons. The actions currently only also impact the content being actions, not the entire site, as the action notices I believe make clear.

This was in response to some SEOs saying that the site reputation abuse policy is algorithmic now. Google is saying no, it is not.

Here is that post:

We have not gone live with algorithmic actions on site reputation abuse. I well imagine when we do, we’ll be very clear about that. Publishers seeing changes and thinking it’s this — it’s not — results change all the time for all types of reasons. The actions currently only…

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 23, 2024

Google did say the site reputation abuse policy would be enforced both algorithmically and through manual actions but when it first went live, it was only enforced using manual actions.

As a reminder, site reputation abuse “is when third-party pages are published with little or no first-party oversight or involvement, where the purpose is to manipulate Search rankings by taking advantage of the first-party site’s ranking signals,” Chris Nelson from the Google Search Quality team wrote. This includes sponsored, advertising, partner, or other third-party pages that are typically independent of a host site’s main purpose or produced without close oversight or involvement of the host site, and provide little to no value to users, he explained.

Here is more commentary on this topic from yesterday:

I don’t know what that chart is based on. Third-party visibility stats? Or is this data from each site reported directly from Search Console? But beyond that, again, we’ve not added an algorithmic component for site reputation abuse. What I said in my original response is still…

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 23, 2024

Yes, that’s entirely coincidental. We’ve only taken manual actions.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 23, 2024

Thank you. It definitely has not rolled out.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 23, 2024

It’s not an update. It was a new spam policy that came into effect as of that day. We began manual actions the next day. We’re only doing manual actions on this, at the moment.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 23, 2024

I should add, there is a lot of confusion around a lof of the ranking volatility over the past few weeks. There was a lot of unconfirmed Google updates in the past few weeks that really shuffled things around in the Google search results.

Forum discussion at X.

We had more Google search ranking volatility in the middle of the week after some calming for a few days. Google Ads will soon show within the Google AI Overview, plus we covered a lot more ad news. Sundar Pichai was interviewed, and we broke it down. Bing lets you turn off its AI Copilot answers in the search results, but Google still does not. There are many poor-quality AI Overviews, and now there is a way to find a lot of them. Google said it is working on surfacing more heartfelt, helpful content in Search. Google is testing a special snippet treatment for Reddit. Google Search Console is showing a weird surge in the search performance reports for product snippets. Google and Bing recommend you upgrade to WordPress 6.5 because it supports lastmod dates in sitemaps. Google’s site reputation abuse policy enforcement is still not algorithmic. Google Lens now shows richer and links to sites. Google added more visual knowledge panel source information. Google can now index epub formats. Bing went down this week, taking down ChatGPT search, DuckDuckGo, Copilot, and more services. Bing is testing tags filters in its search results. Apple Maps can permanently close a business if the hours and address are missing or don’t match. GA4 real-time reports now show users in the last 5 minutes. That was the search news this week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

SPONSOR: This week’s video recap is sponsored by Duda, the Professional Website Builder You Can Call Your Own.

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Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google’s site reputation abuse policy is still not algorithmically enforced. Google Search can now index EPUB formats. There is a neat place to follow all the embarrassing Google AI Overview examples. Google Analytics 4 adds real-time metrics in the past 5 minutes. Google Search has new profiles for looking at reviews and notes. And I posted thew weekly SEO video recap.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

• 
  Google: The Site Reputation Abuse Policy Enforcement Not Yet Algorithmic
  
  
  Google has once again said that its enforcement of the site reputation abuse policy is still only being done through manual actions and not algorithmically. Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liasion, said this on X yesterday, “We have not gone live with algorithmic actions on site reputation abuse.”
• 
  Directory Of Embarrassing Google AI Overviews
  
  
  Every day now, I see several screenshots on X of embarrassing and sometimes harmful AI Overviews within the Google Search results interface. I mean, we covered the one that recommends you drink urine, but I can’t cover each and every one I see – there are just too many.
• 
  Google Analytics Real-Time Reports Adds Users In Last 5 Minutes
  
  
  Google has updated the Google Analytics real-time reports to show real-time data in the last five minutes. Previously, Google only showed users in the last 30 minutes but now Google is showing both, 30 minutes and 5 minutes.
• 
  Google Search Can Now Index Electronic Publication (EPUB)
  
  
  Google Search can now index Electronic Publication, the .epub, file type. Google added EPUB as a supported filetype to the file types indexable by Google help documentation.




• 
  New Google Search Profiles With Reviews & Notes
  
  
  Google is rolling out new profile pages that shows you the reviews and notes you left across Google Search. And starting on June 24 your reviews and notes may be public to other Google users.





• 
  Google Partner Bike – Full Size Edition
  
  
  We have seen Google partner bikes, they look like bikes made for smaller children. But Anthony Higman recently posted a photo of a new Google Partner bike he received that looks full-sized.
• 
  Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Ranking Volatility, Ads In Google AI Overviews, Sundar Pichai Interview, Heartfelt Helpful Content & More Ad News
  
  
  
  
  We had more Google search ranking volatility in the middle of the week after some calming for a few days. Google Ads will soon show within the Google AI Overview, plus we covered a lot more ad news. Sundar Pichai was interviewed…

Other Great Search Threads:

• is these cool graphs new shows up for winter/summer (city name) temperature queries, Gagan Ghotra on X
• Google AI overview suggests adding glue to get cheese to stick to pizza, and it turns out the source is an 11 year old Reddit comment from user F*cksmith, Peter Yang on X
• Google Podcasts Manager is going away – of course, Barry Schwartz on X
• I encourage you to apply the #googenough tag your suboptimal Google search results. If you do, it’ll be easy for the @Goog_Enough account to collect and amplify these SERPs and AI Overviews. I do not run that account. I don’t have the t, AJ Kohn on X
• To clarify a bit, I don’t work in Support or in a support role. I do try to help where I can but am not in a position to provide it at scale. My role is to share insights on how ads products and, AdsLiaison on X
• Today’s #GoogleDoodle is nacho average treat. It’s all about chilaquiles: the crispy, cheesy tortilla snack that’s a fiesta in every bite! Learn more, Google Doodles on X

Search Engine Land Stories:

Other Great Search Stories:

Industry & Business

Links & Content Marketing

Local & Maps

Mobile & Voice

SEO

PPC

Search Features

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