This is a welcome move, but it comes late. As Daring Fireball aptly pointed out: there's a Reddit thread from 15 years ago with people already complaining about this practice — and Google is only acting now in 2026. From the perspective of someone who works with websites and traffic, there's an important point that goes beyond SEO: back button hijacking always sat in that uncomfortable gray area of the web — widely hated by users, associated with aggressive monetization, and treated as a "bad experience" rather than a formal violation. That has now changed. The most relevant detail for anyone using third-party ad platforms or content widgets is that even if the behavior comes from external scripts, libraries, or ad platforms, Google still holds the site owner responsible — who will need to remove or disable any code causing the issue. In practical terms, this means: if you use ad networks or content recommendation tools on your site, it's worth auditing them now before June.