Google's spam policies, one by one

Google publishes a named list of spam policies for web search. They apply regardless of how content was produced, by a person or by a machine, and Google states it detects violations through automated systems and, as needed, human review that can result in a manual action. Violating sites may rank lower or not appear at all. Each is summarized below from Google's spam policies page.

The named policies

Cloaking

Presenting different content to users and search engines to manipulate rankings, such as travel pages for search engines and discount drugs for users. A paywall is not cloaking when Google sees what a subscriber sees.

Doorway abuse

Sites or pages created to rank for specific, similar queries that route users through pages less useful than the destination. Google names city-targeted pages funneling to one page: the near-identical town page set.

Expired domain abuse

Buying an expired domain and repurposing it primarily to manipulate rankings by hosting content of little value. Google's examples are affiliate content on a former government agency site, medical products on a former charity site, and casino content on a former school site.

The policy catches legitimate buyers because marketplaces sell expired domains on the attribute it targets: standing a previous owner earned for a different purpose. Two tests separate acquisition from abuse: whether the new content continues what the domain was about, and whether you would have bought it with no history. Redirecting a closed competitor's domain to matching content is ordinary; supplement reviews on a defunct charity's domain are not.

Hacked content

Any content placed on a site without permission through a security vulnerability. Google names code injection, page injection, content injection and injected redirects, and notes hackers often cloak the injection.

Hidden text and link abuse

Placing content on a page solely to manipulate search engines and not to be easily viewable: white text on white, text behind an image, off-screen CSS positioning, zero font size or opacity, or a link on a single hyphen. Accordions, tabs, sliders and screen-reader-only text do not violate it.

Keyword stuffing

Filling a page with keywords or numbers to manipulate rankings, listed unnaturally or out of context. Google's examples are lists of phone numbers and blocks of text listing targeted cities.

Link spam

Creating links to or from a site primarily to manipulate rankings: bought and sold links, excessive exchanges, automated link building, and paid articles with optimized anchor text. Paid links are fine when qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". See backlinks.

Machine-generated traffic

Sending automated queries to Google, including scraping results for rank checking, without express permission. Google states this violates both the spam policies and its Terms of Service, and much of the rank tracking sold as a service is built on it.

Malicious practices

Practices that create a mismatch between user expectations and the outcome, or compromise security or privacy. Google names malware, sometimes hosted inadvertently through downloadable binaries; unwanted software, such as an app that changes browser settings without disclosure; and back button hijacking.

Misleading functionality

Intentionally building sites that trick users into believing they can access content or services they cannot. Google's examples are a fake app store credit generator and a site promising a utility such as PDF merge that serves deceptive ads instead.

Scaled content abuse

Generating many pages primarily to manipulate rankings rather than help users, whatever the method: AI output at volume without added value, scraped feeds, or sites created to hide the scale. It has its own page: thin content and the scaled content abuse policy.

Scraping

Taking content from other sites, often automatically, and hosting it to manipulate rankings. Google names republishing without added value or attribution, copying with synonym substitution, and embedding media without added value.

Site reputation abuse

Publishing third-party content on a host site mainly because of that host's already-established ranking signals, earned primarily from its first-party content, so it ranks better than it could alone. Google defines third-party content as content created by an entity separate from the host: users, freelancers, white-label services. It is a violation only when the reason for publishing it there is the host's ranking signals.

Google's violating examples include an education site hosting sponsored payday loan reviews, and an established site branching into a new area primarily with freelance content because it will rank better there. What is not site reputation abuse is equally specific: wire and press release services, news syndication, forums and comment sections, editorial columns, native advertising meant for that publication's own readers, ordinary affiliate links and merchant-sourced coupons.

The last violating example catches legitimate publishers. Commissioning freelancers is not the problem. Launching a section on a subject your site has no standing in, staffed by outside writers because your domain will carry it, is.

Sneaky redirects

Redirecting maliciously to show users and search engines different content, or to show users unexpected content. Google's example is serving desktop users a normal page while sending mobile users to a spam domain. Site moves and page consolidation are legitimate; the test is intent to deceive.

Thin affiliation

Publishing affiliate content where descriptions and reviews are copied from the merchant with no added value, often as cookie-cutter templates. Google says an affiliate program does not make a site thin: price data, original reviews, testing, ratings and comparisons.

User-generated spam

Spammy content added by users through a channel intended for user content, often without the owner knowing: spam accounts, forum posts, blog comments and uploaded files. Open comments and uploads carry the risk.

The other practices Google lists

Google also names practices leading to demotion or removal: legal removals for copyright, defamation, counterfeit or court-ordered complaints in volume; exploitative personal information removals; policy circumvention through new subdomains; and scam and fraud.

Manual actions and reconsideration requests

Per Google's manual actions documentation, a manual action is issued when a human reviewer determines that pages on a site do not comply with the spam policies, and some or all of that site will then not be shown in search results. The report lists current actions and history, and expanding one shows the patterns of affected pages; it is one of several covered in Search Console.

The fix sequence is to identify the affected pages, fix the issue on all of them, since fixing only some earns no partial return, confirm Google can reach them, with no login, paywall, robots.txt block or noindex, then select Request Review and describe the fixes. Google states a good request explains the exact quality issue, describes the steps taken, and documents the outcome. Most reviews take days or weeks, and you should not resubmit while one is open.

Why read the list

Most legitimate sites never encounter any of this. The list is worth reading as vocabulary, not as a compliance exercise. When someone proposes a growth tactic, whether buying a domain for its links, spinning up city pages or renting a section of your site to a partner, the useful question is whether it already has a name here. If traffic has already fallen, start with diagnosis: see diagnosing a traffic drop. For automated publishing against these policies, see automation.