Websites that engage in “back button hijacking” might soon appear less prominently in Google Search results as part of a new spam policy.
Back button hijacking occurs when a site prevents users from “using their back button to immediately get back to the page they came from.” Users are instead sent to “pages they never visited before, be presented with unsolicited recommendations or ads, or are otherwise just prevented from normally browsing the web.”
As Google notes, this breaks the “fundamental expectation” of how a browser’s back button should work. Besides breaking browser functionality, it “breaks the expected user journey” and “results in user frustration.”
Back button hijacking interferes with the browser’s functionality, breaks the expected user journey, and results in user frustration.
Google Search is now classifying back button hijacking as a violation of its “malicious practices” spam policy.
Malicious 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.
As such, pages that engage in this deceptive practice will be “subject to manual spam actions or automated demotions, which can impact the site’s performance in Google Search results.” Google says it has “seen a rise of this type of behavior.”
The company is giving site owners two months to make changes, including reviewing advertising platforms that engage in back button hijacking. Policy enforcement begins June 15, 2026.
- “If you’re currently using any script or technique that inserts or replaces deceptive or manipulative pages into a user’s browser history that prevents them from using their back button to immediately get back to the page they came from, you are expected to remove or disable it.”
- “Notably, some instances of back button hijacking may originate from the site’s included libraries or advertising platform. We encourage site owners to thoroughly review their technical implementation and remove or disable any code, imports or any configurations that are responsible for back button hijacking, to ensure a helpful and non-deceptive experience for users.”
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