Google may now use your search spam reports for manual actions, and the text in those reports may be sent “verbatim” to the site owner you report.
What Google said. Google wrote it has “Clarified that Google may use spam report submissions to take manual action against violations.”
The new text says:
“Ranking manipulation techniques that attempt to compromise the quality of Google’s search results violate our spam policies and can negatively impact a site’s ranking. Google may use your report to take manual action against violations. If we issue a manual action, we send whatever you write in the submission report verbatim to the site owner to help them understand the context of the manual action. We don’t include any other identifying information when we notify the site owner; as long as you avoid including personal information in the open text field, the report remains anonymous.”
Spam reports used for manual actions. Google framed this as a clarification — that it may use spam reports for manual actions. However, it seems to contradict Google’s earlier statements that it doesn’t use spam reports for manual actions. This feels like more than a clarification to me.
Your spam report text sent along. Google also said it may send the text you include in a spam report directly to the site owner. Google wrote:
- “Send whatever you write in the submission report verbatim to the site owner to help them understand the context of the manual action. We don’t include any other identifying information when we notify the site owner; as long as you avoid including personal information in the open text field, the report remains anonymous.”
Google also warned that you should avoid including personal information or anything you don’t want the site owner to see.
Why we care. This appears to be a significant change from how Google previously handled spam reports. If you submit them, be aware of these changes and adjust your reports accordingly going forward.
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