Google Spam Policies
Google's spam policies are the published guidelines defining what Google considers spam — cloaking, link schemes, hacked content, hidden text, scaled content abuse, expired-domain abuse, and others — with manual actions and algorithmic demotions for violations.
In context
Spam policies are enforced both algorithmically (the SpamBrain system) and by manual reviewers. Manual actions appear in Search Console with a category and a reconsideration request workflow. Common ways legitimate sites accidentally trigger demotions: scaled programmatic content that adds no genuine value (Google's 'scaled content abuse' policy, 2024), AI-generated content used to manipulate rankings, automated link-building tools, expired-domain redirects to pivot to a new vertical. Familiarity with the published policies is risk management.
A Canadian site that bought an expired domain in a different vertical and 301-redirected the entire domain to its main site triggered Google's expired-domain abuse policy — a clean reset (no redirect) was needed to recover.
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