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Scaled content abuse

12 quoted answers, each with its source

The short answer

On March 5, 2024, Google announced a spam policy against scaled content abuse, defining it as producing content at scale to manipulate search rankings and stating that it applies whether content is produced through automation, human effort, or a combination; this policy builds on Google's previous spam policy about automatically-generated content. As of May 15, 2026, Google's spam policy documentation describes scaled content abuse as many pages generated primarily to manipulate search rankings and not helping users, with examples including using generative AI tools to generate many pages without adding value for users, creating multiple sites with the intent of hiding the scaled nature of the content, and creating many pages where the content makes little or no sense to a reader but contains search keywords. On April 26, 2024, Google reported that the rollout completed on April 19 and that low-quality, unoriginal content in search results was down 45%, versus the 40% improvement it had expected.

Every part of this comes from the quotes below. How we write these.

What the rules actually say10

Quoted straight from the people who make or enforce the rules.

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Google's "Spam policies for Google web search" documentation states that the scaled content abuse practice is typically focused on creating large amounts of unoriginal content of little to no value no matter how it is created.

first-party
1 quote from 1 source
This abusive practice is typically focused on creating large amounts of unoriginal content that provides little to no value to users, no matter how it's created.
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Google's 'Spam policies for Google web search' documentation lists using generative AI tools to generate many pages without adding value for users as an example of scaled content abuse.

first-party
2 quotes from 1 source
Examples of scaled content abuse include, but are not limited to:
Using generative AI tools or other similar tools to generate many pages without adding value for users
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Google's "Spam policies for Google web search" documentation lists creating multiple sites with the intent of hiding the scaled nature of the content as an example of scaled content abuse.

first-party
2 quotes from 1 source
Examples of scaled content abuse include, but are not limited to:
Creating multiple sites with the intent of hiding the scaled nature of the content
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Google's "Spam policies for Google web search" documentation lists creating many pages where the content makes little or no sense to a reader but contains search keywords as an example of scaled content abuse.

first-party
2 quotes from 1 source
Examples of scaled content abuse include, but are not limited to:
Creating many pages where the content makes little or no sense to a reader but contains search keywords
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Google's March 2024 core update and spam policies announcement states…

  • that the scaled content abuse policy builds on Google's previous spam policy about automatically-generated content.
  • that, under the scaled content abuse policy, Google can act no matter whether content is produced through automation, human efforts, or a combination.
first-party
1 quote from 1 source
This new policy builds on our previous spam policy about automatically-generated content, ensuring that we can take action on scaled content abuse as needed, no matter whether content is produced through automation, human efforts, or some combination of human and automated processes.
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Scaled content abuse is…

  • producing content at scale to manipulate search rankings.
  • abusive whether automation or humans are involved.
first-party
1 quote from 1 source
Our new policy is meant to help people focus more clearly on the idea that producing content at scale is abusive if done for the purpose of manipulating search rankings and that this applies whether automation or humans are involved.
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The documented position of scaled content abuse, as stated in the Google blog post "New ways we're tackling spammy, low-quality content on Search", is that scaled content abuse's previous policy against using automation to generate low-quality content at scale was originally designed for instances where it was clear that automation was involved.

first-party
1 quote from 1 source
We've long had a policy against using automation to generate low-quality or unoriginal content at scale with the goal of manipulating search rankings. This policy was originally designed to address instances of content being generated at scale where it was clear that automation was involved.

Measured finding1

Something someone actually measured, with the method attached.

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Google had expected a 40% improvement in reducing scaled content abuse (low-quality, unoriginal content) in search results.

first-party
1 quote from 1 source
Update April 26, 2024: As of April 19, we've completed the rollout of these changes. You'll now see 45% less low-quality, unoriginal content in search results versus the 40% improvement we expected across this work.

Changed on1

A dated change. This is where advice quietly stops being true.

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One of the three new spam policies announced by Google on March 5, 2024 was against scaled content abuse.

first-party
2 quotes from 1 source
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Today, we're announcing three new spam policies against bad practices we've seen grow in popularity: expired domain abuse, scaled content abuse, and site reputation abuse.