Our policy
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Google wants free listings to be useful, varied, relevant and safe for customers, so we don’t allow any of the following:
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All of our policies are crafted to protect a high quality user experience, and we have enforcement systems and processes to stop content that falls below these standards from being shown to users. We take any attempts to trick or circumvent our review processes very seriously, so play fair.
Examples of what's not allowed
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Malicious or unwanted software
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Malicious software or “malware” that may harm or gain unauthorized access to a computer, device, or network.
- Examples: Computer viruses, ransomware, worms, trojan horses, rootkits, keyloggers, dialers, spyware, rogue security software, and other malicious programs
Listings that violate Google's Unwanted Software policy
Examples: Failing to be transparent about the functionality that the software provides or the full implications of installing the software, failing to include Terms of Service or an End User License Agreement, bundling software or applications without the user's knowledge, making system changes without the user's consent, making it difficult for users to deactivate or uninstall the software, failing to use publicly available Google APIs properly when interacting with Google services or products. Learn more about Google's Unwanted Software policy
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Low-value content
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Products that are designed for the primary purpose of showing ads or promotional content
- Examples: Driving traffic (through “arbitrage” or otherwise) to destinations with more ads than original content, little or no original content, or excessive advertising
CSS product pages that display merchants where not all customers are able to complete the purchase of a product
- Examples: Sites that allow purchase only by businesses, sites that allow purchase only by a certain subset of customers. Learn more about business-to-business advertising
Content that's replicated from another source without adding value such as original content or more functionality
- Examples: Mirroring, framing, or scraping content from another source
Landing pages that are solely designed to send customers elsewhere
- Examples: Bridge, gateway, or doorway pages
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Gaining an unfair advantage
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Using the Google network to gain an unfair traffic advantage
- Examples: Clicks or impressions generated by a CSS clicking their own listings, automated clicking tools or traffic sources, robots, or other deceptive software; duplicate listings
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Gaming the Google network
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Engaging in practices that attempt to circumvent or interfere with Google’s systems and processes
- Examples: Cloaking; use of dynamic DNS to switch page or product; manipulating product data or site content in order to bypass our automated system checks; restricting crawler access to your landing pages. Learn more about Google search essentials