Google Updates EU Spam Policy Amid Antitrust Concerns

Google has made changes to its EU spam policy in response to concerns from European Union regulators that could have led to an antitrust fine.

The policy targets 'parasite SEO', a tactic where websites host third-party content to manipulate search rankings by taking advantage of the host site's ranking signals.

The European Commission found that Google's spam policy was demoting news media and other publishers' websites in search results, which led regulators to launch an investigation under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Under the new policy, manual actions taken to demote websites will not apply to users in the 27 EU member states, as well as Iceland, Norway, and Liechtenstein.