Google's Site Reputation Policy (And When It Isn't You)

Google's site reputation policy covers third-party content published on a host site to trade on ranking signals the host earned with its own content. It used to be called site reputation abuse. It was rewritten in November 2024 and changed again on 30 August 2026, when Google split its enforcement inside and outside the European Economic Area. If you bought an expired domain and publish your own pages on it, this is not the policy that applies to you. The one that does is expired domain abuse. The distinction matters because nearly every article telling expired-domain buyers to worry about site reputation abuse has the wrong policy, and the name it uses has not existed for two years. Quoted here from Google's spam policies, read on 16 September 2026.

What does the site reputation policy say?

The site reputation 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. The goal of this tactic is for the content to rank better than it could otherwise on its own.

Google then defines the key term:

Third-party content is content that's created by an entity that's separate from the established host site. Examples of separate entities include users of that site, freelancers, white-label services, and content created by people not employed directly by the host site.

And immediately narrows it:

Having third-party content alone isn't inconsistent with the site reputation policy; it's only inconsistent if the third-party content is published on a host site mainly because of that host site's already-established ranking signals.

The two illustrative violations Google gives are an educational site hosting a page of sponsored payday-loan reviews written by a third party that distributes the same page elsewhere, and a medical site hosting a low-quality third-party advertising page about "best casinos" that is not integrated with the site.

What is not a violation?

Google publishes this list, which is the more useful half:

Examples that are NOT considered inconsistent with the site reputation policy include:

• Wire service or press release service sites
• News publications that have syndicated news content from other news publications
• Sites designed to allow user-generated content, such as a forum website or comment sections
• Columns, opinion pieces, articles, and other work of an editorial nature
• Third-party content (for example, "advertorial" or "native advertising" type pages) where the purpose is to share content directly to readers (such as through promotion within the publication itself), rather than hosting the content to manipulate search rankings
• Using affiliate links throughout a page, with links treated appropriately, or embedding third-party ad units throughout a page

Google adds that the list is non-exhaustive and "there will be other instances where we don't take action".

Does it apply to a domain I bought?

Almost never. The policy needs two things: a host site with established ranking signals earned from its own first-party content, and separate third-party content placed on it to borrow those signals. A freshly registered expired domain has no established signals of its own under your ownership, and the content you publish is yours, not a third party's. Neither element is present.

What is present is the thing expired domain abuse names: an expired domain purchased and repurposed. That policy asks whether the new content provides value and whether the repurposing exists to manipulate rankings. It is a content-and-intent test on your own site, not a hosting test.

The one case where the site reputation policy does reach an expired-domain project: you buy an aged domain, build a real site with its own audience and links, and then rent out a subdirectory to an affiliate operator who publishes their pages there to use the standing you built. That is the policy exactly, and first-party oversight will not save it. Google's November 2024 rewrite is blunt about that:

Our evaluation of numerous cases has shown that no amount of first-party involvement alters the fundamental third-party nature of the content or the unfair, exploitative nature of attempting to take advantage of the host's sites ranking signals.

The same post notes Google does not take a site's own account of how content was produced at face value.

What changed on 30 August 2026?

Enforcement now depends on where the searcher is. From Google's update to the site reputation policy, posted 28 August 2026:

For users outside the EEA, a manual action regarding our site reputation policy will directly affect search results for the portion of the site affected. As before, the rest of the site won't be affected.

For users inside the EEA, the impact of the manual action won't apply. The affected section of the site may be separated in our systems so that, over time, it ranks independently from the rest of the site.

Google says this followed discussion with the European Commission, and that it remains "concerned that an overbroad application of the DMA could prevent us from addressing real threats to the integrity of our search results". Site owners are still notified in Search Console either way, can still file a reconsideration request, and eligible sites can take a dispute to mediation afterwards.

Inside the EEA the consequence is no longer a demotion but a separation, where the section ranks on its own merits instead of the domain's. Outside it, the manual action still bites.

Where the policy has teeth for an expired domain

One clause in the same document should change how you read an aged domain's history, and it has nothing to do with manual actions:

Aside from site reputation abuse issues, we also have systems and methods designed to understand if a section of a site is independent or starkly different from the main content of the site. By treating these areas as if they are standalone sites, it better ensures a level playing field.

A domain whose final years were a bolted-on affiliate section may already have been read that way. There is no notice for it and nothing to appeal. It is one more reason to read the site history rather than the headline link count.

Google is also explicit that no third-party metric maps onto its signals: "some third-party services provide 'reputation' or 'authority' scores for sites. These don't correspond to any of Google's own signals nor come from Google." That applies to every authority number in this market, including ours.

Using the Revised directory for this

The fit question this policy raises is whether the site you build is one site with one subject, or a shell with somebody else's pages inside it. The directory's job is the input to that decision.

1. Open the directory and read the History column on a shortlist. Era summaries show what the domain published in each period. A domain whose last stretch was an unrelated commercial section is the case above.
2. Use the Quality spam-screen band. Across the 12,137 live listings, 10,318 sit in the low band and 1,819 in the moderate one. 78 domains are blocked outright and never appear.
3. Read the Linked by column and prefer editorial references. Domains with .gov backlinks and the source index group listings by who references them.
4. Run a shortlisted name through the expired domain checker for the site history and the backlink checker for the linking pages, then open a few of those pages and read what they were pointing at.

Building a genuine resource on the name is the version of this that passes both policies. A niche resource site on an expired domain covers what that looks like in practice.

FAQ

Is site reputation abuse still called site reputation abuse? No. Google's spam policies now head the section "Site reputation policy". The phrase site reputation abuse survives in the November 2024 blog post and in older coverage. If a page uses only the old name and gives no date, it has not been checked against the live document.

Does the site reputation policy apply to expired domains? Not to buying one and publishing your own content on it. That is covered by expired domain abuse. The site reputation policy reaches an expired-domain project only if you host somebody else's pages on the site to exploit standing the site earned.

What is parasite SEO? The industry name for publishing content on somebody else's strong domain to rank faster than you could on your own. Google covers the practice under the site reputation policy, and since November 2024 editorial oversight of that content does not exempt it.

Is guest posting site reputation abuse? Not on its own. Columns, opinion pieces and work of an editorial nature are on Google's list of things that are not violations. A syndicated page distributed to many hosts to borrow their ranking signals is on the violation list.

What happens if Google applies this policy to my site? You get a notice in the Manual actions report in Search Console. Outside the EEA the affected section is demoted. Inside the EEA, since 30 August 2026, the section may instead be separated so it ranks on its own merits. Either way you can file one reconsideration request after fixing the cause.

Do authority scores from tools reflect this policy? No. Google states that third-party reputation and authority scores "don't correspond to any of Google's own signals nor come from Google". Use them to sort a list, not to predict enforcement.