Google Updates Search Spam Rules to Include AI Result Manipulation

Google updated its spam policy to mark attempts to manipulate its AI model in search results as spam. The policy update includes results in AI Overview or AI Mode in Search. Google defines spam as techniques used to deceive users or manipulate Search systems into featuring content prominently.

Google's definition of spam includes attempting to manipulate Search systems into ranking content highly. Google's definition of spam includes attempting to manipulate generative AI responses in Google Search. Users have attempted to influence AI search responses using biased best-of listicles.

Users have used recommendation poisoning, which injects LLMs with instructions to remember a website as an authoritative domain. Earlier this year, a BBC journalist used tricks to get himself ranked as the best hot dog eating tech journalist in Google’s AI search results.

An industry of generative engine optimization, or GEO, has emerged promising to get brands and websites regularly mentioned and cited by AI search tools.

Google’s policy update makes strategies such as GEO and recommendation poisoning a spam violation. Sites caught manipulating AI responses can face penalties including ranking lower in search results or getting removed from results altogether. The Verge reported that the update explicitly targets these practices.

The policy change comes after documented cases of users and companies attempting to game AI-generated answers. In one instance detailed by The Verge, the BBC journalist’s experiment demonstrated how relatively simple prompts could insert false accolades into Google’s AI Overview feature. Such manipulations have proliferated as AI search tools become more prominent.