Google Spam Policies Explained: Scaled Content, Site Reputation Abuse, and Expired Domains

Google’s spam policies describe practices that can cause a site to rank lower or disappear from Google Search, either through automated systems or through a manual action by a human reviewer. Three of them target tactics that can look like ordinary publishing from the outside: scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse and expired domain abuse. Each is defined by purpose and value rather than by a technique, and one of them, the site reputation policy, has been enforced differently inside the European Economic Area since August 30, 2026.

How the policies are enforced

Google’s spam policies page (last updated August 28, 2026) lists the prohibited practices and explains that Google detects them through automated systems and, where needed, human review. Two enforcement paths follow:

• Algorithmic. Automated systems such as SpamBrain and periodic spam updates lower or neutralize spam without notifying the site. Google’s spam updates page says that a site making changes “may” improve “if our automated systems learn over a period of months that the site complies with our spam policies” (Google on spam updates).
• Manual. A reviewer applies a manual action, which appears in Search Console’s Manual Actions report and can be appealed through a reconsideration request.

The difference matters for response: an algorithmic demotion has no report entry and no appeal; a manual action has both. A drop with no report entry is diagnosed like any update-related traffic loss.

Scaled content abuse

Google’s definition: “Scaled content abuse is when many pages are generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users”. The policy adds that the practice is “typically focused on creating large amounts of unoriginal content that provides little to no value to users, no matter how it’s created”.

Two phrases carry the weight:

• “Primary purpose”. Scale is not the violation; producing many pages mainly to rank is.
• “No matter how it’s created”. The policy covers pages written by people, by templates, by scraping or by generative AI. Google’s guidance on generative AI content says AI use is not itself a violation and points to the scaled content policy for the case where AI is used to generate many pages without adding value (Google on using generative AI content).

Google’s examples include using generative AI tools to generate many pages without adding value for users, scraping feeds or search results to build pages (including through automated transformations such as synonymizing or translating), stitching or combining content from different pages without adding value, and creating multiple sites to hide the scaled nature of the content. Programmatic pages built from real, useful data do not fall under the policy simply for being template-driven; the test is what each page offers the reader.

Site reputation abuse (the site reputation policy)

Google’s page now uses the heading “Site reputation policy”. The policy “applies where third-party content is published on a host site mainly because of that host’s already-established ranking signals, which it has earned primarily from its first-party content”, with the goal of making that content rank better than it could on its own.

Third-party content is defined as content created by a separate entity: users, freelancers, white-label services or people not employed by the host. Google states that having third-party content alone isn’t inconsistent with the site reputation policy.

Google says these examples are non-exhaustive and that, when it detects a portion of a site may be out of line with the policy, “a site will be subject to human review”.

The EEA change

On August 28, 2026, Google announced an adjustment to its enforcement in the EEA, made after discussion with the European Commission (Google’s August 2026 announcement). Beginning August 30, 2026:

• Outside the EEA, a manual action under this policy “will directly affect search results for the portion of the site affected”, and the announcement says the rest of the site won’t be affected. Google’s Manual Actions report help adds that a site repeatedly inconsistent with the policy may face further manual actions or an effect on its overall ranking.
• Inside the EEA, “the impact of the manual action won’t apply”. The affected section “may be separated in our systems so that, over time, it ranks independently from the rest of the site”.

The policy page adds details that affect real decisions:

• A manual action outside the EEA is not used as a ranking signal for that content inside the EEA.
• There is no obligation to noindex content under a manual action outside the EEA, and not doing so is not treated as evasion.
• Google will lift all previous site reputation manual actions for pages shown to users in the EEA.
• Site owners continue to be notified in Search Console, can file reconsideration requests, and eligible sites can bring disputes to mediation after a reconsideration request.

What the change does not mean:

• The policy has not been abolished in the EEA. The affected section may still be separated in Google’s systems there, so that over time it ranks on its own.
• It does not exempt EEA results from any other spam policy.
• It does not affect other manual action types.

The September 2026 spam update is a separate event

Google’s Search Status Dashboard records the September 2026 spam update as starting on September 24, 2026 and completing on October 8, 2026, applying “globally and to all languages” (status dashboard entry). It is an algorithmic update. Google’s August announcement concerns how manual actions under one policy affect EEA results. Neither source connects the two, and nothing in either establishes that the spam update implemented the EEA change. Treat them as two dated events when explaining a traffic change.

Expired domain abuse

Google’s definition: “Expired domain abuse is where an expired domain name is purchased and repurposed primarily to manipulate search rankings by hosting content that provides little to no value to users”. Google’s illustrative examples include affiliate content on a site previously used by a government agency, commercial medical products sold on a site previously used by a nonprofit medical charity, and casino content on a former elementary school site.

Buying an expired domain is not a violation. Using it for a business that continues or relates to its previous purpose, or for genuinely useful new content, is different from reusing its reputation to rank low-value pages.

Other policies to know

Google’s spam policies also cover cloaking, doorway abuse, hacked content, hidden text and links, keyword stuffing, link spam, machine-generated traffic, malware and unwanted software, misleading functionality, scraping, sneaky redirects, thin affiliation and user-generated spam. Link spam includes practices such as buying or selling links for ranking purposes and links with optimized anchor text in articles or guest posts distributed on other sites. Google also notes that links qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" are not a violation.

A policy applicability matrix

Three publishers measured against the policies

Consider three hypothetical publishers.

• A city guide network generates 40,000 pages, one per neighborhood and service, from the same template with only the place name changed. The pages add nothing a reader could not get from a search. This fits the scaled content definition regardless of whether a person or a model wrote the template.
• A university-affiliated blog hosts a coupon section run by a third-party company, unrelated to its subject, placed there to rank on the domain’s reputation. Under the site reputation policy, users outside the EEA would see the section demoted after a manual action; users inside the EEA would not see the manual action’s impact, though the section may be ranked on its own merits.
• A hobbyist buys an expired domain that hosted a defunct local charity and relaunches it with the charity’s history and an archive of its work, with the new ownership disclosed. That is not the repurposing the expired domain policy describes.

Reading the policies correctly

Each of these policies turns on purpose and value, not on the tool used. AI-generated content is not automatically spam, programmatic pages are not automatically spam, third-party content is not automatically a site reputation problem, and an expired domain is not automatically abuse. The questions to ask are whether the pages exist mainly to manipulate rankings, whether they give readers something of value, and, for site reputation questions after August 30, 2026, which users’ results are affected.