Google parent Alphabet is expected to face a new EU investigation over claims that it demotes news publishers in search results if they run sponsored or promotional content, a significant revenue source for many media outlets.

What’s happening. The European Commission, the EU’s top antitrust enforcer, is expected to announce the probe as soon as Thursday.

  • The case falls under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law that bars tech “gatekeepers” from unfairly favoring their own services or penalizing others.
  • Companies that break the rules can be fined up to 10% of their global revenue.

Site reputation abuse. Google’s enforcement against publishers is based on a spam policy introduced in March 2024 and updated in November 2024.

  • The policy targets “site reputation abuse” – better known to SEOs as parasite SEO – which occurs when third parties post low-quality content on trusted sites to piggyback on their authority and manipulate Google rankings.
  • Google said this kind of content can confuse or mislead users, and has taken manual action against sites hosting it.
  • The company later updated the policy to state that even content created with first-party oversight can violate the rule if its main goal is to exploit a site’s ranking signals.

The report. EU readies fresh investigation into Google over news publisher rankings (registration required)

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Danny GoodwinDanny Goodwin

Danny Goodwin is Editorial Director of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo – SMX. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events.

Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.


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Last Update: November 12, 2025