In recent years, Forbes Advisor has stood out among the major SEO players , dominating the top positions in Google searches for various topics. However, recently, this dominance suffered a major blow with a Google penalty on Forbes Advisor.
This case illustrates how risky SEO practices can be, especially when there is policy abuse and lack of compliance with website reputation guidelines.
What happened to Forbes Advisor?
Forbes Advisor is a section of Forbes dedicated to affiliate marketing, operated by an entity called Forbes Marketplace. This business model aims to monetize traffic generated by SEO-optimized content, focusing on popular and profitable topics such as insurance, health and home improvement. The operation has grown significantly since its inception in 2020, reaching millions of monthly visitors.
However, in September 2024, signs emerged that Google had viber data taken manual action against Forbes Advisor. The action resulted in a substantial drop in SEO rankings, impacting the site's visibility in a number of areas, including credit cards, healthcare, and auto insurance.
This penalty raised questions about the site 's compliance with Google's guidelines, particularly regarding website reputation abuse.
Website reputation abuse
Google has strict guidelines to ensure that websites provide quality information to users. Among these guidelines is the Website Reputation Abuse Policy, which prohibits practices such as creating content with the sole purpose of manipulating search rankings without providing real value.
The Forbes Advisor case appears to be related to this policy, as the site was accused of exploiting parasitic SEO practices to dominate search results in areas where it had no authority.
SEO expert Lars Lofgren wrote an article about the explosive growth of Forbes Advisor , highlighting how the company used aggressive SEO practices to gain top rankings on Google.
According to Lofgren, Forbes Marketplace, which operates Forbes Advisor, has created a separate structure from the main Forbes, using the brand name and reputation to promote affiliate content.
This approach, known as “parasite SEO,” allows companies to use the reputation of strong domains to rank low-quality content in terms of relevance.