Google has updated its spam reporting documentation to indicate that the feature can now be used to initiate manual actions against websites that are considered spam. This is a policy change that gives SEOs the ability to see their spam reports potentially queued for manual action.
Change to spam reporting policy
THE previous The Spam Reports documentation previously stated that Google would not use Spam Reports to take action against websites.
This wording has been largely removed:
“Although Google does not use these reports to take direct action against violations, these reports nevertheless play an important role in helping us understand how to improve our spam detection systems that protect our search results.”
This part is shortened to emphasize that submitted spam reports help improve their spam detection systems:
“These reports help us understand how to improve the spam detection systems that protect our search results.”
More aggressive approach to spam
Google also added new wording to make it clear that Google can use spam reports to take manual action against websites. Google used to refer to manual actions in terms related to penalization, but the word “penalization” may have connotations of punishment, which is not what Google is doing when it removes a site from the index. It’s not a punishment, it’s just a disbarment of the index finger.
Google’s new wording makes it clear that taking manual action against reported sites is now an option:
“Google may use your report to take manual action against violations. If we issue a manual action, we send verbatim everything you write in the submission report to the site owner to help them understand the context of the manual action. We do not include any other identifying information when we notify the site owner; as long as you avoid including personal information in the open text field, the report remains anonymous.”
Everything else on the page is the same, including the button to file a spam report.
Screenshot: Report spam button
By clicking on the “Report spam” button, you access a form which can now lead to manual action:
Screenshot: Spam Report Form
Is this good news for SEOs?
Site owners and SEOs who are tired of seeing spammy sites dominating search results may want to check out the new page and start reporting spammy websites. Nobody really likes spam and now users can do something about it.
Featured image by Shutterstock/NLshop
