Google updated the “Prevent user-generated spam on your site and platform” help document to include blocking indexing of link-shared content and monitoring abuse in Search Console, the search company announced today.

Google warns about tools. Google has added the content “tools that let users publish shared pages, generated content, or web apps” to the introduction section. Here is what it says now, and I bolded the additions:

“Spammers often take advantage of open comment forms and other user generated content inputs and generate spammy content on an unsuspecting victim site. Hosting platforms and tools that let users publish shared pages, generated content, or web apps may be similarly open to abuse; spammers may create a large number of pages or sites that violate our spam policies and add little or no value to the web.”

Index only. Google also added a new section to this help document titled “Only index content meant for Search.” In that section, Google wrote:

“If your service lets users create shareable pages, generated outputs, or interactive tools, consider whether that content is meant to be found through search engines or only accessed directly by people with a link.

When pages are created for direct sharing, collaboration, or utility rather than public search discovery, apply the noindex rule (using a robots meta tag or X-Robots-Tag HTTP response header) or block crawling in robots.txt by default.”

Monitoring. Google updated the “Monitor your service for abuse” section to add two new bullet points, they include:

  • Verify your site or subdomain in Search Console so you receive email alerts if Google issues a manual action against your site or detects security issues. Also check the Page Indexing report and Search performance report regularly for unexpected spikes in indexed pages, impressions, or queries that don’t match your platform’s purpose.
  • Track platform-level creation and indexing metrics, and set up alerts for anomalies such as spikes in newly published public pages or a small number of users generating a large share of indexable URLs.

Why we care. Google said it updated the document “to help platforms keep user-created pages that aren’t meant for Search out of the index and detect spam earlier.” But Google wanted to clarify its policies and guidance here in order to be able to better enforce those guidelines.

Will we see Google take action on these spammy efforts in the near future? That is yet to be determined.