Sign in Subscribe
Search

EU defends big publishers' spam revenue while small sites burned

European Commission investigates Google's parasite SEO crackdown while ignoring algorithm that destroyed thousands of independent publishers with 95% traffic losses.

Luis Rijo

• 13 min read
EU defends big publishers' spam revenue while small sites burned

The European Commission announced an investigation into Google on November 14, 2025, targeting the company's efforts to combat parasite SEO. The regulatory action defends major publishers' revenue from what critics describe as spam operations, while offering no intervention for thousands of independent publishers who lost their businesses to algorithm changes Google itself acknowledged were flawed.

"The European Commission has lost the fucking SEO plot," Lars Lofgren, a content strategist and former VP of Content, wrote on LinkedIn November 13, 2025. "They just announced an investigation into Google for taking action against parasite SEO."

PPC Land Newsletter

Subscribe PPC Land newsletter ✉️ for similar stories like this one

Subscribe

The investigation examines whether Google unfairly demotes news publishers hosting sponsored content under its site reputation abuse policy, according to the Financial Times on November 12, 2025. Major media outlets complained that the March 2024 policy threatens revenue streams from third-party promotional content. The European Commission views this as a potential Digital Markets Act violation.

"I thought to myself: surely they're not attacking Google for taking action against parasite SEO spam?" Lofgren continued. "If anything, Google hasn't done nearly enough in this space. They cannot possibly be this fucking stupid."

The regulatory priorities reveal a stark disparity. Large publishers with resources to lobby European regulators receive Commission protection for monetization schemes that exploit their domain authority. Independent publishers who created quality content and lost everything to algorithm failures receive nothing.

OpenAI’s Altman says Google profits when search fails
Sam Altman outlined workplace AI transformation and Google’s search conflicts during October 17 Progress Conference appearance with economist Tyler Cowen.
PPC LandLuis Rijo

"Yup, that's exactly what they're doing," Lofgren wrote. "They are indeed that fucking stupid."

Follow PPC Land

Follow on Google, Google News, X, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Bluesky, or via RSS

The September 2023 Helpful Content Update triggered what industry experts describe as an extinction event for independent publishers. Small sites lost up to 95% of their traffic, according to reports from affected businesses. Thousands of publishers saw their businesses collapse overnight while following Google's own content guidelines.

GGRecon shut down in October 2024 after the HCU destroyed its traffic. The UK gaming publisher experienced record visitor numbers in August 2023, only to collapse following the September update. Test Coches lost 3 million monthly readers, reducing traffic to thousands of monthly visitors despite a decade of human-authored automotive content. Cinephilia & Beyond experienced a 99% traffic loss, threatening the non-profit film preservation organization's survival.

Google acknowledged the problems at a Web Creator Summit in late October 2024. Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, stated that many affected websites had "nothing wrong" with their content, according to analysis published by Marie Haynes. Sullivan characterized this as an admission that the Helpful Content Update negatively impacted certain sites in ways other than what Google initially intended.

The European Commission offered no investigation into why Google's systems destroyed quality publishers. No probe examined why recovery took nearly two years. No regulatory action addressed why Google acknowledged mistakes but left independent publishers to collapse while fixing the problems.

"The EU is defending media companies that sell out their brands to spam the internet," Lofgren wrote. "They clearly haven't read any of my posts."

Lofgren published a detailed investigation into Forbes Marketplace on September 18, 2024, documenting how the operation generated an estimated $300-400 million annually through parasite SEO strategies. Forbes Advisor experienced ranking drops affecting 1.7 million search queries seven days later, following Google's enforcement of its site reputation abuse policy.

Advertise on ppc land

Buy ads on PPC Land. PPC Land has standard and native ad formats via major DSPs and ad platforms like Google Ads. Via an auction CPM, you can reach industry professionals.

Learn more

The contrast is brutal. Forbes Marketplace makes hundreds of millions exploiting Forbes' domain authority to rank for thousands of keywords across unrelated niches. The European Commission investigates Google for stopping this. Meanwhile, Healthy Framework—a small dating review site operated by people passionate about helping others find love—saw traffic drop to essentially zero and had to fire most of their team.

Ready Steady Cut, a UK entertainment website, lost 50% of its traffic overnight following the HCU, according to BBC reporting from October 2024. The company laid off its entire writing team of approximately 20 people, putting $400,000-500,000 in annual revenue at risk. The site spent $20,360 on recovery efforts, including comprehensive content audits and technical improvements. After 12 months following Google's recommended best practices, the site reported no meaningful recovery.

"Google is my favorite punching bag at the moment. Well, maybe right behind Reddit. It's 50/50," Lofgren wrote. "But on this, I'm siding with Google."

Research from Moz revealed the systematic nature of the damage. Tom Capper, Head of Search Science, analyzed data from multiple HCU rollouts between September 2023 and August 2024. Sites negatively impacted by the Helpful Content Update had an average Brand Authority score of 37, while unaffected sites averaged between 50-52. The algorithm didn't evaluate content quality. It evaluated brand power.

Independent publishers lost because they were small. Not because their content was bad. Not because they violated guidelines. They lost because Google's systems favored brand authority over content quality, systematically destroying sites that couldn't afford massive marketing campaigns to build navigational search volume.

Lily Ray, VP of SEO Strategy & Research at Amsive, described the situation as unprecedented. "Google's just committing war on publisher websites," Ray stated, according to BBC reporting. "It's almost as if Google designed an algorithm update to specifically go after small bloggers. I've talked to so many people who've just had everything wiped out."

The European Commission investigates none of this. No probe examines why Google's systems destroyed quality content from independent publishers while elevating Reddit threads and Quora answers regardless of accuracy. No regulatory action addresses why recovering from acknowledged mistakes took nearly two years, leaving small businesses to collapse while Google slowly fixed its broken systems.

"If a regulator wants to go after Google, it should be about how Google crushed all the independent sites with the HCU," Lofgren wrote. "Or their flagrant copyright violations in AIOs. But slapping Google for taking manual action on parasite SEO programs? What in the bloody hell?"

Google hosted its first Web Creator Event on October 29, 2024, bringing together 20 independent publishers who reported traffic losses ranging from 70% to 100%. The unprecedented meeting came after filtering through over 13,000 submissions. Publishers described laying off entire teams, draining savings, and watching their businesses die while following Google's guidelines perfectly.

Multiple attendees reported that Google engineers demonstrated limited familiarity with the business realities of web publishing. One product manager admitted they had only recently learned what "HCU" meant. Google offered no immediate solutions. No compensation. No fast-tracked recovery. Just acknowledgment that yes, the algorithm destroyed quality sites, and yes, that wasn't intended.

The independent publishers get a meeting after losing everything. The major publishers exploiting domain authority for spam revenue get a European Commission investigation protecting their monetization schemes.

"Now I have to side with all the tech bros yelling about how the EU regulators are out of control," Lofgren concluded. "God damnit."

Google defended its position in a November 13, 2025 blog post. Pandu Nayak, Chief Scientist for Search, characterized the investigation as misguided and potentially harmful to millions of European users, according to the company's statement. The policy exists for protecting users from deceptive, low-quality content and scams along with the tactics that promote them.

Parasite SEO operates through a specific mechanism where a spammer pays a publisher to display content and links on the publisher's website, according to Nayak's explanation. The practice exploits the publisher's established ranking to trick users into clicking low-quality material. Google provided examples including payday loan sites paying respected websites to publish their content, or weight-loss pill promoters leveraging trusted domains to fool both users and ranking systems.

Several years ago, Google heard from users that they were seeing degraded and spammy search results, due to a growing trend of parasite SEO, according to the blog post. The company implemented its site reputation abuse policy in March 2024, specifically targeting what the SEO community calls parasite SEO. Manual enforcement began in May 2024, with algorithmic detection remaining in development.

The company updated the policy in November 2024 to specify that content created with first-party oversight can still violate guidelines if its primary goal involves exploiting ranking signals, according to Google's statement. This expansion removed exceptions previously granted to publishers maintaining editorial control over sponsored sections. Google defended the policy by stating such content confuses or misleads users.

A German court already dismissed a similar claim against Google's anti-spam policy, ruling the policy valid, reasonable, and applied consistently, according to Nayak's statement. The company emphasizes this precedent in defending against the European Commission investigation.

The investigation proceeds under the Digital Markets Act, which designated Google as a gatekeeper in May 2023. According to the Financial Times report, the legislation bars tech gatekeepers from unfairly favoring their own services or penalizing others without justification. Companies found violating DMA provisions face fines reaching 10% of global revenue.

Publishers argue Google's site reputation abuse policy creates an impossible choice: lose search traffic by hosting sponsored content or forfeit revenue essential for sustaining operations, according to the Financial Times. Many news organizations depend on sponsored articles, native advertising, and affiliate content to supplement declining advertising income.

According to Chris Nelson from Google's Search Quality team, the company's systems can now identify when subdomains or content sections differ substantially from main site content. This capability allows Google to evaluate website subsections independently rather than granting site-wide authority benefits. The technical approach mirrors previous crackdowns on parasite SEO, where third parties published content on high-authority domains primarily to manipulate rankings.

Glenn Gabe, SEO Consultant at G-Squared Interactive, noted on social media platform X that Google's enforcement particularly affects publishers hosting third-party promotional content, according to his statement sharing news of the Financial Times report. "Claims that Google demoted publishers who carry paid promotional content, such as sponsored articles," Gabe wrote.

Google's anti-spam policy helps level the playing field, according to Nayak's statement, so that websites using deceptive tactics do not outrank websites competing on the merits with their own content. The company heard from many smaller creators that they support the work to fight parasite SEO. These creators face displacement when established sites sell subdomain access or content placement to third parties seeking ranking manipulation.

The Commission imposed a €2.95 billion fine on Google in September 2025 for advertising technology violations, demonstrating regulatory willingness to pursue enforcement actions. Google has faced dozens of antitrust investigations globally, examining whether it abused dominance in search, advertising, and mobile ecosystems.

The investigation adds to mounting regulatory pressure on Google. In December 2024, over 20 European price comparison websites criticized Google's search modifications, claiming they failed to address fundamental DMA requirements regarding self-preferencing. Publishers filed antitrust complaints targeting Google's AI Overviews feature, alleging the company uses publisher content for AI-generated summaries without providing opt-out options.

HouseFresh achieved traffic recovery on October 11, 2025, after losing 95% of Google traffic. The recovery came after two years of continuous site improvements, YouTube channel development, and collaboration with Linus Tech Tips. Managing Editor Gisele Navarro indicated limited recovery examples across similarly affected publishers. When asked about other recovery cases, Navarro responded that she was "actually on the hunt right now, connecting with other sites with a very similar pattern."

The scarcity of recoveries demonstrates the systematic nature of the destruction. Until the August 2024 core update, there had been no documented recoveries among HCU-affected sites, according to analysis from SEO professionals tracking algorithm impacts. Google's June 2025 core update brought the first significant improvements in nearly two years.

Independent publishers spent those two years watching their businesses die. They followed Google's guidelines. They improved their content. They waited for systems to recognize their quality. Many gave up and shut down. The survivors barely held on. The European Commission investigated none of this systematic destruction of independent publishers creating quality content.

The regulatory disparity reveals whose interests European regulators actually protect. Major publishers with lobbying resources and political connections receive investigations defending revenue from schemes critics describe as manipulative spam. Independent publishers creating original content receive nothing when acknowledged algorithm failures destroy their businesses.

The parasite SEO investigation matters for understanding regulatory priorities in digital markets. The Commission demonstrates willingness to challenge Google through both traditional antitrust enforcement and Digital Markets Act provisions. But the focus reveals selective application of competition concerns based on who complains loudest and who wields political power.

"It's always a bummer when you have to defend a monopoly," one commenter wrote on Lofgren's post.

The Digital Markets Act is already making Search less helpful for European businesses and users, according to Nayak's statement. This surprising new investigation risks rewarding bad actors and degrading the quality of search results. European users deserve better, and the company will continue to defend the policies that let people trust the results they see in Search.

If the Commission proceeds with formal investigation proceedings, Google must respond to detailed information requests and potentially modify its policies. According to the Financial Times, DMA enforcement mechanisms allow regulators to impose interim measures preventing further harm during investigations. The Commission evaluates responses before issuing preliminary findings or proceeding to final decisions.

Publishers may submit formal complaints providing evidence of traffic losses and revenue impacts from site reputation abuse enforcement, according to the investigation framework. These submissions could influence Commission assessment of whether Google's policies constitute unfair treatment of business users. The investigation adds to ongoing debates about platform power, publisher sustainability, and appropriate regulatory frameworks for digital markets.

The investigation forces uncomfortable questions about regulatory effectiveness in protecting genuine competition versus protecting established players' revenue streams. Does defending parasite SEO revenue help consumers? Does it improve search quality? Does it protect competition, or does it protect the ability of large publishers to monetize their domain authority through schemes that undermine the value of their brands?

Sources indicated the Commission planned to announce the investigation as early as Thursday, November 14, 2025, according to the Financial Times report. The timing creates a remarkable contrast. Two years after thousands of independent publishers lost everything to acknowledged algorithm failures, the Commission investigates Google for stopping spam operations that generate hundreds of millions for major publishers.

Timeline

PPC Land Newsletter

Subscribe PPC Land newsletter ✉️ for similar stories like this one

Subscribe

Summary

Who: The European Commission is investigating Google following complaints from major news publishers who generate revenue through sponsored content partnerships. Independent publishers who lost businesses to the Helpful Content Update receive no regulatory intervention despite Google acknowledging the algorithm failures. Lars Lofgren, content strategist who documented Forbes Marketplace's parasite SEO operations, criticized the Commission's priorities. Thousands of small publishers including GGRecon, Test Coches, Healthy Framework, and Cinephilia & Beyond lost businesses to HCU while major publishers with lobbying resources receive regulatory protection.

What: The Commission examines whether Google unfairly demotes publishers hosting sponsored articles under its site reputation abuse policy targeting parasite SEO. The investigation defends major publishers' revenue from what critics describe as spam operations that exploit domain authority for search rankings. The Commission offers no regulatory action for thousands of independent publishers who lost 95% of their traffic to algorithm changes Google acknowledged were flawed and that destroyed quality content through systematic bias toward brand authority over content quality.

When: The Financial Times reported on November 12, 2025, that the Commission planned to announce the investigation on November 14, 2025. Google implemented the site reputation abuse policy in March 2024, with manual enforcement beginning May 2024. The Helpful Content Update that devastated independent publishers was implemented in September 2023. Google acknowledged problems at an October 2024 summit. First meaningful recoveries appeared in July 2025, nearly two years after the destruction began. A German court already dismissed a similar claim against Google's anti-spam policy, ruling it valid, reasonable, and applied consistently.

Where: The investigation proceeds under European Union jurisdiction through the Digital Markets Act framework. The case affects publishers operating across European markets and Google's search practices serving European users. Independent publishers worldwide suffered HCU impacts, with documented cases from the UK, Spain, Croatia, and United States. The Commission's regulatory priorities reflect influence of European media lobbies with political power compared to dispersed independent content creators lacking coordinated representation.

Why: Major publishers depend on sponsored content revenue as digital advertising economics pressure traditional media business models. Google's anti-spam policy threatens revenue streams from parasite SEO operations that exploit domain authority to manipulate rankings and deceive users. The Commission views potential violations of provisions ensuring business users can generate revenue through third parties. Independent publishers who created quality content and lost everything to acknowledged algorithm failures receive no regulatory attention because they lack lobbying resources and political connections to secure Commission investigations. The disparity reveals whose interests European regulators actually protect when competition concerns conflict with revenue models of politically powerful established players versus genuinely competitive independent businesses creating original content.