New York, December 19: American business magazine Forbes will reportedly stop working with freelancers for certain types of stories permanently. Forbes blamed the recent update in Google Search policies for the change. The magazine giant announced it would stop hiring freelancers for writing in its product review section. Google's' site reputation abuse' policy is blamed by Forbes.

According to a report by The Verge, Parasite SEO, also referred to as site reputation abuse, means "a website publishing a deluge of off-brand or irrelevant content taking advantage of the main site's ranking power and reputation in Google Search". The report said that some of the content published on Forbes might have angered Google. PayPal Former CEO Peter Thiel Criticizes Work From Home Model, Says Employees Are Not Productive When They Do Not Come to Office: Reports.

In November 2024, the report said that Google tightened its rules related to Parasite SEO, a strategy that people use by leveraging the authority of the ranking websites to rank competitive words. The Verge said that Google changed its rules in order to take down the "third-party" involvement in such content. 

Forbes highlighted this issue and stated that after evaluating numerous cases, it found that no amount of first-party involvement changed the "fundamental third-party nature of the content." It added that there was no third-party exploitative, unfair, or similar nature that attempted to take advantage of the host's site ranking. Job Market in India Expected To Grow by 9% in 2025, IT, Telecommunication, Retail, Banking and Other Sectors To Be Primary Drivers: Report.

According to Google's spam policies, having freelancer content is not a violation of its site reputation abuse policy. It becomes an issue only if the content is crafted to exploit Google's ranking signals. Spokesperson Davis Thompson referred to an FAQ section for details on the freelancer policy. The Verge highlighted this clarification from Google.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 19, 2024 06:49 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).