As we all know, Forbes is a big news website. It publishes hundreds of posts and articles every day. For writing and posting content, it has an in-house team and freelancers who work round the clock. But “Forbes said they will stop using freelancers for some types of posting. It has cited Google site reputation abuse and spam policy for this change”.
Recently, Forbes has also said it will not hire freelancers to generate content for its product review section, Forbes Vetted. Forbes editor cited Google’s “site reputation abuse” policy for this change.
In May 2024, Google announced the ‘Site Reputation Abuse Policy.’ Later, they rolled it out in November 2024 to strengthen its effects. As a result, Forbes stopped using freelancers for the Forbes Vetted section due to policy changes.
One writer was fired by Forbes due to the rigorous editorial process in the Forbes Vetted section. But Forbes told him his previous articles might be rewritten by in-house staff. “One big product review I did was for $3,000 apiece. That’s too much to say, ‘Oh, we’ve got to do it all again with our own in-house staff,’” the writer told The Verge.
Google says content designed to exploit ranking signals violates its policies, but the content itself is not an issue. However, Forbes decided not to publish such articles on Forbes. Vetted due to the risk of violating Google’s policies.
It is unclear whether other content beyond Forbes Vetted will be affected. Forbes has not responded to multiple requests for comment.
Site reputation abuse, also called parasite SEO, refers to a website publishing irrelevant content to exploit its ranking power on Google. Sometimes this spammy content is produced by third-party marketing firms contracted to create search-friendly material.
Forbes has an especially wide pool of outside contributors publishing on its site. While many are legitimate journalists, some use the platform to spread questionable content, potentially prompting Google’s crackdown.
Google further tightened its rules around parasite SEO in November, specifically targeting the “third-party” nature of such content. The Google algorithm is now able to track any content activities published to provide ranking benefits to third parties. Google explained site reputation abuse policy as “when third-party web pages are published with very little or no first-party involvement or oversight, where the attempt is to manipulate search rankings by taking benefits of the first-party site’s ranking signals.
Forbes Vetted earns revenue when readers make purchases using links in its articles. A writer says past stories involved testing products, multiple edits, and interviews. Despite this, some articles may be completely re-reported and republished by in-house staff.
