On the 5th May 2024 Google started a process of evaluating content piggybacking on domains in accordance with the site reputation abuse policy. It was interpreted as a ‘parasite content’ penalty targeted at coupons, gambling, games, dating and other 3rd-party content hosted on subdomains or subdirectories. After an initial hit for exactly these types of domains, further changes have been seen – both negative and positive.
In 2019, following a similar statement from Google, we took a look at a series of hosted coupon sites. In the meantime, some of those sites have either moved, removed or de-indexed their content. Those that remained have now been largely removed by Google.
| Location | Scope | 5th May 2024 | 22 May 2024 | Change VI | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discountcode.theguardian.com | host | 0 | 0 | 0 | No visibility |
| https://www.standard.co.uk/vouchercodes/ | path | 0 | 0 | 0 | No visibility |
| https://www.thesun.co.uk/vouchercodes/ | path | 0 | 0 | 0 | No visibility |
| https://www.nus.org.uk/en/nus-extra/discounts/ | path | 0 | 0 | 0 | No visibility |
| https://www.pcworld.com/couponcodes/ | path | 0 | 0 | 0 | No visibility |
| discountcode.digitalspy.com | host | 0 | 0 | 0 | No visibility |
| https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/vouchers/ | path | 0.3843 | 0.7461 | 0.3618 | 94.15% |
| https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/ | path | 6.0233 | 7.3208 | 1.2975 | 21.54% |
| https://www.nme.com/discount-codes/ | path | 0.1011 | 0.0628 | -0.0383 | -37.88% |
| discountcode.mumsnet.com | host | 0.0893 | 0.0463 | -0.043 | -48.15% |
| coupons.businessinsider.com | host | 0.2309 | 0.0333 | -0.1976 | -85.58% |
| discountcode.independent.ie | host | 0.0078 | 0.0011 | -0.0067 | -85.90% |
| https://www.independent.co.uk/vouchercodes/ | path | 1.4504 | 0.0222 | -1.4282 | -98.47% |
| discountcode.dailymail.co.uk | host | 6.9713 | 0.1014 | -6.8699 | -98.55% |
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/vouchercodes/ | path | 3.8131 | 0.0377 | -3.7754 | -99.01% |
| https://www.wired.com/coupons/ | path | 0.4337 | 0.0032 | -0.4305 | -99.26% |
| coupons.cnn.com | host | 0.148 | 0.0004 | -0.1476 | -99.73% |
| discountcode.mirror.co.uk | host | 4.2242 | 0.0027 | -4.2215 | -99.94% |
| discountcode.metro.co.uk/ | host | 0.4302 | 0 | -0.4302 | -100.00% |
The message is clear. Automated, hosted 3rd-party coupon sites are out! The Marie Claire gain seen in the list is interesting because it’s a hand-crafted list of discount codes.
Google’s reference information on the site reputation abuse policy can be found within their spam policies.
News Media websites in May 2024
In addition to these changes, which Google revealed had included manual penalties, there have been other movements, not least in the news-media sector. In a tracker that we’ve been working on with the Press Gazette, we’re seeing large movements.
| Website | Scope | 2024-05-05 | 2024-05-22 | Change VI | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ | path | 59.204 | 162.002 | 102.798 | 173.63% |
| uk.news.yahoo.com | host | 3.785 | 8.7725 | 4.9875 | 131.77% |
| hellomagazine.com | domain | 9.1451 | 17.8276 | 8.6825 | 94.94% |
| https://www.bbc.com/news/ | path | 16.7702 | 25.1636 | 8.3934 | 50.05% |
| foxnews.com | domain | 3.7759 | 5.5998 | 1.8239 | 48.30% |
| gbnews.com | domain | 1.725 | 2.5479 | 0.8229 | 47.70% |
| eonline.com | domain | 5.4254 | 7.7677 | 2.3423 | 43.17% |
| people.com | domain | 27.7278 | 39.306 | 11.5782 | 41.76% |
| ok.co.uk | domain | 1.321 | 1.8325 | 0.5115 | 38.72% |
| kentonline.co.uk | domain | 0.6424 | 0.8805 | 0.2381 | 37.06% |
| liverpoolecho.co.uk | domain | 2.4925 | 3.2763 | 0.7838 | 31.45% |
| metro.co.uk | domain | 18.2819 | 23.057 | 4.7751 | 26.12% |
| theweek.com | domain | 2.007 | 2.496 | 0.489 | 24.36% |
| dailyrecord.co.uk | domain | 4.2973 | 5.2044 | 0.9071 | 21.11% |
| inews.co.uk | domain | 5.5479 | 6.5584 | 1.0105 | 18.21% |
| spectator.co.uk | domain | 2.2522 | 2.6077 | 0.3555 | 15.78% |
| news.sky.com | host | 29.5431 | 34.1105 | 4.5674 | 15.46% |
| dailystar.co.uk | domain | 6.6077 | 7.5887 | 0.981 | 14.85% |
| huffpost.com | domain | 5.6459 | 6.2703 | 0.6244 | 11.06% |
| chroniclelive.co.uk | domain | 2.1472 | 2.3662 | 0.219 | 10.20% |
| digitalspy.com | domain | 11.337 | 12.4694 | 1.1324 | 9.99% |
| msn.com | domain | 7.9764 | 8.7569 | 0.7805 | 9.79% |
| dailymail.co.uk | domain | 69.6256 | 75.0792 | 5.4536 | 7.83% |
| moneysavingexpert.com | domain | 74.4254 | 80.1761 | 5.7507 | 7.73% |
| thesun.co.uk | domain | 46.0439 | 49.4135 | 3.3696 | 7.32% |
| manchestereveningnews.co.uk | domain | 5.9694 | 6.3627 | 0.3933 | 6.59% |
| unilad.com | domain | 1.8607 | 1.9753 | 0.1146 | 6.16% |
| ladbible.com | domain | 1.7987 | 1.8968 | 0.0981 | 5.45% |
| finance.yahoo.com | host | 16.6784 | 17.3166 | 0.6382 | 3.83% |
| standard.co.uk | domain | 20.976 | 21.3481 | 0.3721 | 1.77% |
| heraldscotland.com | domain | 1.8109 | 1.8257 | 0.0148 | 0.82% |
| timeout.com | domain | 30.7316 | 30.8422 | 0.1106 | 0.36% |
| mirror.co.uk | domain | 53.485 | 53.2979 | -0.1871 | -0.35% |
| independent.co.uk | domain | 133.773 | 131.98 | -1.793 | -1.34% |
| nytimes.com | domain | 69.7419 | 68.1629 | -1.579 | -2.26% |
| express.co.uk | domain | 15.0305 | 14.4916 | -0.5389 | -3.59% |
| techradar.com | domain | 71.4953 | 68.6153 | -2.88 | -4.03% |
| radiotimes.com | domain | 13.39 | 12.58 | -0.81 | -6.05% |
| birminghammail.co.uk | domain | 2.2981 | 2.0831 | -0.215 | -9.36% |
| cnn.com | domain | 34.958 | 31.4737 | -3.4843 | -9.97% |
| mylondon.news | domain | 0.9658 | 0.8689 | -0.0969 | -10.03% |
| bristolpost.co.uk | domain | 0.8439 | 0.7542 | -0.0897 | -10.63% |
| thenorthernecho.co.uk | domain | 0.7493 | 0.6683 | -0.081 | -10.81% |
| hulldailymail.co.uk | domain | 0.4214 | 0.3758 | -0.0456 | -10.82% |
| news.google.com | host | 2.009 | 1.7701 | -0.2389 | -11.89% |
| https://www.itv.com/news/ | path | 5.3245 | 4.6827 | -0.6418 | -12.05% |
| which.co.uk | domain | 52.4194 | 45.7939 | -6.6255 | -12.64% |
| lbc.co.uk | domain | 0.909 | 0.7925 | -0.1165 | -12.82% |
| scotsman.com | domain | 3.4385 | 2.9909 | -0.4476 | -13.02% |
| economist.com | domain | 4.3644 | 3.7953 | -0.5691 | -13.04% |
| examinerlive.co.uk | domain | 0.7598 | 0.6601 | -0.0997 | -13.12% |
| aljazeera.com | domain | 18.6759 | 15.9228 | -2.7531 | -14.74% |
| washingtonpost.com | domain | 15.7915 | 13.4439 | -2.3476 | -14.87% |
| cosmopolitan.com | domain | 38.9523 | 33.0195 | -5.9328 | -15.23% |
| theguardian.com | domain | 278.749 | 234.387 | -44.362 | -15.91% |
| thetimes.co.uk | domain | 23.1262 | 19.3656 | -3.7606 | -16.26% |
| yorkshirepost.co.uk | domain | 0.3865 | 0.3201 | -0.0664 | -17.18% |
| businessinsider.com | domain | 22.8063 | 18.8591 | -3.9472 | -17.31% |
| bloomberg.com | domain | 27.617 | 22.6768 | -4.9402 | -17.89% |
| lancs.live | domain | 0.2328 | 0.1911 | -0.0417 | -17.91% |
| forbes.com | domain | 127.738 | 104.738 | -23 | -18.01% |
| edp24.co.uk | domain | 1.1485 | 0.9377 | -0.2108 | -18.35% |
| usatoday.com | domain | 19.7347 | 15.6757 | -4.059 | -20.57% |
| walesonline.co.uk | domain | 4.5305 | 3.5617 | -0.9688 | -21.38% |
| inyourarea.co.uk | domain | 0.4271 | 0.3171 | -0.11 | -25.76% |
| belfasttelegraph.co.uk | domain | 1.8996 | 1.403 | -0.4966 | -26.14% |
| reuters.com | domain | 17.8716 | 12.9419 | -4.9297 | -27.58% |
| cnbc.com | domain | 16.1846 | 11.3294 | -4.8552 | -30.00% |
| telegraph.co.uk | domain | 77.4501 | 54.1883 | -23.2618 | -30.03% |
| nottinghampost.com | domain | 0.6413 | 0.4398 | -0.2015 | -31.42% |
| irishtimes.com | domain | 2.9177 | 1.9865 | -0.9312 | -31.92% |
| leicestermercury.co.uk | domain | 0.5806 | 0.3822 | -0.1984 | -34.17% |
| gloucestershirelive.co.uk | domain | 0.9855 | 0.6284 | -0.3571 | -36.24% |
| ft.com | domain | 46.2228 | 25.7512 | -20.4716 | -44.29% |
| irishmirror.ie | domain | 1.995 | 1.0558 | -0.9392 | -47.08% |
Remember that the Visibility Index relates only to content in organic search and does not include Top Stories or Discovery visibility.
BBC UK website gets a huge boost
Interestingly, across all the domains in the list above, the net loss/gain is negligible. This could be an indicator that the BBC has gained through other losses although daily movements graphs don’t show a direct coupling between large, closely-related domains.
The other alternative reason for the boost at bbc.co.uk is a new Google machine learning data-set. If that’s the case we can expect further movements in the future as the search algorithms do their ongoing evaluation with the new data.
For the meantime though, the BBC can enjoy the big boost. The .co.uk domain now has a VI Rank of 13 in the UK.
