Google is changing how manual actions under its Site Reputation Policy affect search results in the European Economic Area. Starting August 30, a manual action can continue to affect an affected section of a website for users outside the EEA while not applying to results shown to users inside the EEA. The change creates a meaningful distinction for website owners whose audiences span multiple regions.
According to Google's official Site Reputation Policy update, the policy itself still applies. What changes is the effect of a manual action based on where the search user is located. Google says the approach follows discussions with the European Commission and is intended to address Digital Markets Act concerns without abandoning action against attempts to manipulate search results.
For businesses, the immediate implication is straightforward: performance for the same pages may now differ between EEA and non-EEA search audiences when a Site Reputation Policy manual action is involved. A recovery plan can no longer rely solely on a single global view of rankings and impressions.
What Google’s regional enforcement change means
For users outside the EEA, Google says a Site Reputation Policy manual action will continue to directly affect the relevant portion of a website in search results, as it did previously. For users in the EEA, that manual-action impact will not apply to those results.
