Updating Google's spam policy

Google recently updated its spam policy (https://developers.google.com/search/updates#spam-policy-clarifications), and around the same time, Forbes Advisor saw a slight drop in search rankings.

Here's what changed in the new version of Google's spam policy:

1. The introductory paragraph was completely rewritten to simplify the explanation of the document's goals.
2. Link spam: The wording was changed to clarify what constitutes spammy links, and the mention of links affecting relevance was removed.
3. Misleading functions: The requirement for high-quality content creation was removed from this section.
4. Content scraping: Mentions of copyright issues and possible ranking penalties for frequent copyright infringement complaints were taken out.
5. Reputation manipulation: It is now clearly stated that content must be created by the website itself without outsourcing to third-party companies under "white-label" or turnkey arrangements.
6. Examples of compliant coupons now include those directly from sellers or companies working directly with customers.
7. Policy circumvention: Google may remove more pages from search results if the website consistently violates the policy.
8. Minor additional changes can be seen in the screenshot.
9. The biggest change is the new section added to the site reputation manipulation policy, which may be linked to Forbes Advisor's ranking drop.

Recently, Forbes Advisor has been at the center of a controversy following an investigation by Lars Lofgren. Lofgren claimed that Forbes Marketplace has become a tool for manipulating Google's search results to profit from affiliate business.

Key findings from the investigation:

• Forbes Marketplace, a separate entity from Forbes itself, uses the authority of the Forbes domain to dominate search rankings across various affiliate program categories. They create sections like forbes.com/advisor/, forbes.com/home-improvement/, and forbes.com/health/ to capture top positions by mass-publishing content.
• This violates Google's spam policy and is not overseen by Forbes' editorial department.
• Forbes Marketplace does not disclose its earnings, but the author estimates they could range from $300 to $400 million per year.
• Forbes itself has also been implicated in questionable practices, such as creating duplicate sites to boost ad revenue.