Google proposes changes to spam policy after publishers complain to EU

Alphabet’s Google has proposed changes to its spam policy asourceser publishers complained that its “site reputation abuse” policy unfairly demoted their pages in search results, according to a European Commission document seen by sources.

The dispute centers on Google’s crackdown on what it calls “parasite SEO” — publishing third-party pages on a site in an attempt to benefit from the host site’s ranking signals.

Publishers have argued that Google’s policy has also affected news media and other sites that use commercial partnerships as part of their monetization strategy.

The European Commission opened an investigation in November under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) following the complaints. The Commission has said its monitoring showed the policy demoted news media and other publishers’ websites and content in Google Search when those websites included content from commercial partners.

Google’s proposed modifications are intended to comply with the DMA. Interested parties have until next week to provide feedback on the changes.

Under the DMA, breaches can result in fines of up to 10% of a company’s global annual turnover.