Google Just Expanded Its “Site Reputation Abuse” Policy Laying Down Next Steps For Manual Action!

Google just updated its documentation for manual actions in relation to site reputation abuse, deciding to expand on the following actions and steps that website owners need to take in case they get this particular manual action. 

Google has been clearly saying that website owners should avoid blocking content with the help of robots.text file, especially if anyone is prone to using the noindex rule. 

Glenn Gabe was the first one to spot this new change, posting on X about it. He said: “OK, I wrote a post recently about how disallowing via robots.txt is NOT a valid approach when dealing with site reputation abuse. Noindexing is the way to go. Looks like Google is making this clearer now!”

Google’s Documentation And Changes:

Originally, Google’s documentation said: “Decide what to do with the violating content and take action. For example, moving the violating content to a new domain, using noindex to exclude the content from Search indexing, or redoing the content as first-party content.

If you moved the content to a new domain, and you link from the old site to the new site, use the nofollow attribute in those links. Avoid redirecting URLs from the old site to the new site, as redirecting may introduce the site reputation abuse issue again.”

Now it says:

• Move the violating content to a new domain. If you link from the old site to the new site, use the nofollow attribute in those links. Avoid redirecting URLs from the old site to the new site, as redirecting may introduce the site reputation abuse issue again.

• Use noindex to exclude the violating content from Search indexing. To make sure your noindex rule is effective, don’t block that content with your robots.txt file.

• Redo the violating content as first-party content.

• Remove the violating content from your site.