Google Search improves de-ranking system for sites with predatory practices


While Google Search is a great tool for finding useful information on the web, it also can be used maliciously to find compromising information about an individual. To help prevent this, Google introduced a system where the search results are not only removed but also the site is de-ranked, and now it will also de-rank such results from similar sites.

Since 2018, Google has had a system for people to request removal of pages that contained exploitative information about them from their results. Google would also demote the particular site from their Search result rankings.

However there are edge cases where the certain known individuals face repeated harassment from multiple sites. To deal with situations, Google has updated their system  where once a person requests a removal from one site with predatory practices, Google will automatically apply ranking protections to help prevent content from other similar low quality sites appearing in search results for people’s names.

The update, while not perfect, will help improve the quality of results and prevent malicious websites gain traffic through Google Search.