{"id":6505,"date":"2026-04-15T05:42:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T21:42:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/?p=6505"},"modified":"2026-04-15T05:42:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T21:42:27","slug":"google-search-to-penalize-back-button-hijacking-schemes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/?p=6505","title":{"rendered":"Google Search to penalize back button hijacking schemes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p> <div id=\"articleContent\" itemprop=\"articlebody\"> <div class=\"bialty-container\"> <p>Google has issued a new warning to sites using back button hijacking techniques, saying those sites have two months to remove or disable those techniques. If they do not, they will be subject to both subject to\u00a0manual spam actions\u00a0or automated demotions within Google Search.<\/p> <p><strong>Back button hijacking. <\/strong>Google explained that \u201cwhen a user clicks the \u201cback\u201d button in the browser, they have a clear expectation: they want to return to the previous page. Back button hijacking breaks this fundamental expectation.\u201d Google added:<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li>\u201cIt occurs when a site interferes with a user\u2019s browser navigation and prevents them from using their back button to immediately get back to the page they came from. Instead, users might be sent to pages they never visited before, be presented with unsolicited recommendations or ads, or are otherwise just prevented from normally browsing the web.\u201d<\/li> <\/ul> <p>While Google has previously said this has no impact on Google Search, that will change in two months.<\/p> <p><strong>June 15, 2026. <\/strong>Starting in about two months, June 15, 2026, Google will begin enforcement of this action. \u201cWe believe that the user experience comes first. Back button hijacking interferes with the browser\u2019s functionality, breaks the expected user journey, and results in user frustration. People report feeling manipulated and eventually less willing to visit unfamiliar sites,\u201d Google added.<\/p> <p>Why now? Google said they have \u201cseen a rise of this type of behavior, which is why we\u2019re designating this an explicit violation of our\u00a0malicious practices\u00a0policy, which says:\u201d<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li>\u201cMalicious practices create a mismatch between user expectations and the actual outcome, leading to a negative and deceptive user experience, or compromised user security or privacy.\u201d<\/li> <\/ul> <p>Google is now giving sites two months notice to take action. \u201cTo give site owners time to make any needed changes, we\u2019re publishing this policy two months in advance of enforcement on June 15, 2026,\u201d Google wrote.<\/p> <p><strong>Why we care. <\/strong>If you are using this technique, you probably want to remove it from your pages. You have a couple of months to make the change before any penalties or actions are taken against your website.<\/p> <\/div> <hr\/> <p class=\"article-disclosure\"> <em>Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush. We remain committed to providing high-quality coverage of marketing topics. Unless otherwise noted, this page\u2019s content was written by either an employee or a paid contractor of Semrush Inc.<\/em> <\/p> <hr\/> <div class=\"author-about py-4\"> <div class=\"card bg-light\"> <div class=\"row gx-0\"> <div class=\"col-12 col-lg-auto\"> <div class=\"authorImage p-2\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-fluid rounded avatar-border\" src=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/wp-content\/seloads\/2025\/05\/1630496745425.jpeg.webp\" alt=\"Barry Schwartz\" width=\"140\" height=\"140\" title=\"Google Search to penalize back button hijacking schemes\u63d2\u56fe\" \/> <\/div> <\/p><\/div> <div class=\"col-12 col-lg\"> <div class=\"card-body author-body p-2\"> <div id=\"authorBio-251\" class=\"author-desc\"> <p>Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.<\/p> <p>In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the &#8220;US Search Personality Of The Year,&#8221; you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O&#8217;Clock.<\/p> <p>Barry can be followed\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/rustybrick\/\">on X here<\/a>\u00a0and you can learn more about\u00a0Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.<\/p> <\/p><\/div> <\/p><\/div> <\/p><\/div> <\/p><\/div> <\/p><\/div> <\/div> <p> <!-- START SIDEBAR LOWER SPACE --><\/p> <p><!-- END SIDEBAR LOWER SPACE --><\/p><\/div> <p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>News#Google #Search #penalize #button #hijacking #schemes1776202947<\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google has issued a new warning to sites using back button hijacking techniques, saying those sites have two months to remove or disable those techniques. If they do not, they will be subject to both subject to\u00a0manual spam actions\u00a0or automated demotions within Google Search. Back button hijacking. Google explained that \u201cwhen a user clicks the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[742,75,23970,83,24265,24266,95],"class_list":["post-6505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers","tag-button","tag-google","tag-hijacking","tag-news","tag-penalize","tag-schemes","tag-search"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}