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24 items tagged "Spam"

Related tags: Web [+], Search [+], SEO [+]

Search Engine Roundtable

• 

  Google's Cleaner Spam Reporting Page

  Fetched: August 5th, 2011, 2:07am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Search Web SEO Spam  

  Last night, Matt Cutts from Google tweeted they have "released the biggest refresh of our spam report form in, oh, say 10 years." Indeed.

  Here is a picture of the new page:

  As you can see, they break it down by type of "spam":

  • Paid links - This page is selling or buying links.
  • Copyright and other legal issues - This page should be removed under applicable law.
  • Objectionable content - This page is inappropriate.
  • Personal/private - This page discloses private information.
  • Malware - This page is infected.
  • Phishing - This page is trying to get sensitive information.
  • Other Google products - This page abuses Google products other than Search, e.g., AdSense, Google Maps, etc.
  • Something else is wrongThis page has other, non-webspam related issues.

  Plus they have a button at the bottom that reads, "This page is really webspam. Report Spam."

  Then each form has specific fields they want you to fill out related to the topic. Should make it easier for Google to route the reports to the appropriate groups, thus making it faster for Google to take action.

  The old form, which Matt McGee posted a picture of is here:

  Google has many ways to report spam and keeps adding new ways. They tend to work for some and while many SEOs won't use it.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Many Feel Google & Bing Should Offer Spam Report Incentives

  Fetched: June 9th, 2011, 4:56pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Search Web SEO Spam  

  A couple weeks ago, we reported that Bing was considering offering spam reporting incentives.

  To encourage SEOs, who are not too likely to report spam to search engines anyway - incentivize them to increase the chances that they report spam.

  The results are in, with with over a hundred responses:

  Should Google & Bing Offer Incentives To Report Spam?

  • 57% said YES
  • 43% said NO

  Forum discussion continued at Bing Forums.

  Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.

  
  

• 

  Three Years Later, SEOs Still Won't Rat Each Other Out

  Fetched: June 9th, 2011, 4:56pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Search Web SEO Spam  

  I have to say I am completely shocked by the results of a poll I ran a few weeks ago asking would you report search spammers to Google.

  Three years ago, we ran a similar poll, soon after Google began pushing SEOs and others to report spam to them, where less than 30% would report spam to Google. I totally expected the poll to reverse, where 70% would say they would report spam to Google. I was wrong.

  That number only jumped up by 6-7 points, where 36% said they would now report spam to Google. 60% said they would not report spam to Google.

  I am really all for an industry standing behind each other - so I am a bit happy to see this, to be honest. Loyalty is good to see. Of course, if this was illegal, that would be a different story. I would hope if I ran another poll asking if you would report hacked sites, 100% of you would say yes. Take our poll on that question over here.

  Forum discussion continued at Sphinn.

  Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.

  
  

• 

  Do You Report Malware In Search Results To Google?

  Fetched: June 8th, 2011, 8:04pm CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Search Web SEO Spam  

  There is clearly a difference between search spam and hackers. Read our story from last year named Is Black Hat SEO Criminal?

  SEOs can use black hat techniques to boost their rankings. And then there is going beyond black hat, hacking sites, injecting malware and harming people and computers.

  That being said, we ran a poll a few weeks ago we ran a poll asking Would you report search spammers to Google?

  I wanted to differentiate the question by asking - Would You Report Hacked & Malicious Sites To Google?

  Please take my poll:

  Would You Report Hacked & Malicious Sites To Google?

  Forum discussion continued at Sphinn.

  Note: This story was written earlier this week and scheduled to be published today.

  
  

• 

  Bing Considering Rewards For Search Spam Reports

  Fetched: May 25th, 2011, 9:14am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Search Web SEO Spam  

  It is no secret that both Google and Bing want you to report search spam to them and people do it. It helps them both manually and algorithmically tailor their search ranking algorithms to be better quality.

  Google has gone to lengths to encourage users to report spam by creating chrome extensions, forms in webmaster tools, generic forms and heck even the block sites feature. But Google has never promised action on those spam reports nor have they offered any monetary reward for these reports.

  A Bing Forum thread has one SEO recommending to Bing to offer an incentive or "small reward" for users who report search spam to Bing. If the spam report leads to a nice unearthing of a spam technique, give the spam reporter something nice to encourage that spam reporter and others to report spam more often.

  Side note: The interesting thing about this post was that the one who suggested it dropped a anchor text rich link to his business.

  Bing's response was non-committal but yet not shut down completely. Wil from Bing said:

  Thank you for your feedback. While we cannot guarantee all requests to be granted, we will certainly have our team review this and consider it in future releases.

  Do you think Google and Bing should offer incentives to report spam? Take our poll:

  Should Google & Bing Offer Incentives To Report Spam?online survey

  Forum discussion at Bing Forum.

  
  

• 

  Do You Report Search Spammers To Google?

  Fetched: May 16th, 2011, 3:34am CEST by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Search Web SEO Spam  

  Just over three years ago, we polled you asking do you report competitors via spam reports to Google? And the results were that most do not report spam to Google.

  But that was a different time. Three years later, I'd be surprised to see 70% of our industry claim to not report competitors for spamming Google's index in order to benefit their own sites.

  Since Matt McGee created a discussion on this topic at Sphinn asking that question, I'd figure we run the poll again.

  Do you report search spammers, including competitors, to Google's spam report?

  Do You Report Search Spammers To Google?customer surveys

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  Payback: Upset Ex-Girlfriend Spams Boyfriend In Google Images

  Fetched: February 7th, 2011, 8:21pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Search Web SEO Spam  

  Upset boyfriends and girlfriends are nothing new. There are plenty of stories of girlfriends getting back at their ex-boyfriends for mistreatment and visa versa. But in the age where Google ranks supreme, you do not want to mess with a girl who knows how to manipulate Google.

  One guy learned this the hard way.

  Apparently, a disturbed ex-girlfriend took her ex-boyfriend's professional taken picture and polluted it all over Google Images for a search on his name. You can see the Google Image search spam yourself by clicking here or in the screen shot below:

  There has to be dozens of the same image, all with little notes from the girl written all over them. I won't name the individual in text on this page (because I do not want the page to rank for his name) or the notes but it is a bit interesting to see upset ex-couples use Google Images as payback.

  I suspect the images will be dropping out of Google shortly simply because it seems like the image sources have been removed from the servers they were hosted on.

  As per the complaint thread started by the boy's mother at Google Webmaster Help, the mother was extremely upset about this. She said:

  My minor son's ex-girlfriend took a copyrighted picture of him (we own copyright) and uploaded it more than 60 times to a website. On each image she wrote slanderous, defamatory and pornographic captions. The webmaster of the site states he removed the images 6 weeks ago, but Google Search still shows all the images. My son is so stressed out and embarrassed and we've done everything we can to get images off of Google including URL removal tool, a letter to Google Legal with all the URLs because of copyright infringement, and nothing has worked!

  You see, she knew to have the source site remove the images but Google still has them in their index. The issue is that although the images appear to be gone, the URLs they are sourced via are actually returning a 200 status code, which to Google means they are still there. They need to return a page not found status code, and they do not.

  Lesson? Before you upset your girlfriend or boyfriend, make sure they do not know how Google works. Oh, and never mess with an SEO.

  Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

  
  

• 

  Google's Own Content Farm: Google Translate Spam

  Fetched: January 29th, 2011, 4:17am CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Search Web SEO Spam  

  Vanessa Fox covered how Google was content spamming their own index with Google Translate pages. She discovered it via a tweet from @rishil.

  In short, if you searched site:translate.google.com up came thousands of pages that Google was indexing of a simply auto-translated set of search results. Here is a picture:

  We know Google considers Google Translated pages as spam on some level. They do not want auto-translated content in their index. But this is exactly what Google was showing in their index, even better yet, on the Google.com domain.

  This is technically a form of content spam and we know Google said they are targeting content farms and spam in 2011. Timely?

  In any event, as Vanessa explains, this is a case of one division in Google not knowing that they did something wrong. As soon as Google was informed, they put in the required robots.txt commands to block these pages. If you take a look at translate.google.com/robots.txt you will see two lines, one for Disallow: /?q= and other for Disallow: /?text=. This should fix the issue and drop all these pages from the Google index.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  Google's Thoughts On Link Building Through Comment Spamming

  Fetched: January 28th, 2011, 12:48pm CET by Barry Schwartz

  Tags:  Search Web SEO Spam  

  If the nofollow attribute was built for anything, it was built for comment spam. Yes, if you do not remember, Google and the search engines worked closely with MovableType, WordPress and other blog and forum systems to help them build in the nofollow attributes to help save their search index and to help reduce comment spam. That was one, if not the single most important, reason behind introducing the nofollow attribute. It has thus been expanded for other things, such as any paid link or PageRank sculpting (it gets more complicated).

  Anyway, I found an interesting thread at Google Webmaster Help which talks about the nofollow and link building through comment spamming. One thing you do not want to do is ask Google if it is okay to drop comments on blogs with the sole intent of building links. But people do crazy and wild things in official Google forums.

  I was initially going to name this post, Google's final word on what the nofollow attribute blocks, but then I saw JohnMu at Google somewhat mocking the use of comment spam for link building. Hence the new focus. Let me pull out the reply from John.

  Going back to the original question, commenting only with the goal of getting links is a bit lame, in my opinion. Do you honestly think that any site owner appreciates comments like "I really enjoyed the article. It proved to be Very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commenter here! It's always nice when you can be informed In such way,I'm sure you had fun reading and watching this post. san diego wrongful death attorney" or "It would also be useful have the plugins categorized a little better on the website. Browsing them is a pain the backside, since you have to go thru about 10 million social plugins that are a waste of time when you specifically need web dev tools. Domain Names Australia" (both taken from our blog's spam queue this morning)? That's just pure spam, and if you're contributing to it by posting more comments like that, then I know a few people who would like to talk to you out back...

  He gives two examples of poor comment spam. You and I see it every day, it is nothing new. If they get passed my spam filters, I try to manually block them - some always slip by.

  But then John ends with the line that I love, "if you're contributing to it by posting more comments like that, then I know a few people who would like to talk to you out back..."

  Sometimes I love the honesty here.

  And what is Google's official word on how the nofollow works?

  Let's be absolutely clear about this: Links that use the rel=nofollow microformat do not pass PageRank and are not used in our ranking algorithms.

  This does not mean that the target URL will never be crawled. By adding a rel=nofollow to a link, you're essentially removing a sign pointing to the restroom. Just because that sign is gone does not mean that Googlebot will never find the restroom. Using rel=nofollow is not a way to block crawling altogether -- if you need to do that, then use the robots.txt file.

  Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

  
  

• 

  Google Cost A Business $4 Million or Was It a Link Curator?

  Posted: August 31st, 2010, 3:28pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  Inc.com posted a really great article with a very catchy title. The title is a bit misleading, it reads How Google Cost Me $4 Million. In short, it goes through a story of how a site was doing great on Google, until Google penalized them and they rankings tanked, costing them a fortune of money.

  The article ends very well:

  We didn't see the kind of ratings we had before the penalty until Google's Caffeine update, this June. That was our final pardon. Now we're back at the top.

  Without the Google penalty, we wouldn't be anywhere near as far along as we are. You have two choices: You can roll over and die, or you can grow beyond it.

  But I love how Googler's respond to the title. Let me quote some Tweets:

  .bbpBox22548554238 {background:url(http://s.twimg.com/a/1282866105/images/themes/theme10/bg.gif) #000000;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

  I'm pretty sure I even know the specific SEO that caused [goo.gl] @gmtgiftbaskets are you going to name them? ;) #youveheardofthemless than a minute ago via webMatt Cutts
  mattcutts

  .bbpBox22554897762 {background:url(http://s.twimg.com/a/1282866105/images/themes/theme1/bg.png) #7668EB;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

  This co. hired a Link Curator. Maybe link manipulators in the SEO trenches will reinvent themselves? [goo.gl]less than a minute ago via webBrian White
  brianwhite

  .bbpBox22547666024 {background:url(http://s.twimg.com/a/1282866105/images/themes/theme10/bg.gif) #000000;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

  Reading [goo.gl] . Agree with the comment by JustinM @ [goo.gl] . Our guidelines are clear on this topic.less than a minute ago via webMatt Cutts
  mattcutts

  Clearly the company and Google know stuff we don't know. But in the end, this company received a nice amount of links and even asked Matt:

  .bbpBox22560907248 {background:url(http://a1.twimg.com/profile_background_images/76347860/GGB_Twitter_BGround.jpg) #C0DEED;padding:20px;} p.bbpTweet{background:#fff;padding:10px 12px 10px 12px;margin:0;min-height:48px;color:#000;font-size:18px !important;line-height:22px;-moz-border-radius:5px;-webkit-border-radius:5px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata{display:block;width:100%;clear:both;margin-top:8px;padding-top:12px;height:40px;border-top:1px solid #fff;border-top:1px solid #e6e6e6} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author{line-height:19px} p.bbpTweet span.metadata span.author img{float:left;margin:0 7px 0 0px;width:38px;height:38px} p.bbpTweet a:hover{text-decoration:underline}p.bbpTweet span.timestamp{font-size:12px;display:block}

  @mattcutts But you could link to us out of the kindness of your heart ;)less than a minute ago via TweetDeckGourmet Gift Baskets
  gmtgiftbaskets

  I doubt you will see Matt link to them any time soon.

  So who cost this gift basket company $4 million? Was it Google, a link builder or themselves?

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Deja Vu: First Time Matt Cutts of Google Saw Web Spam

  Posted: July 29th, 2010, 4:03pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  Aaron Wall posted an example of a large brand manipulating Google through an old spam technique. In short, they were buying expired domains to piggy back off of the link popularity and anchor text of those old domains.

  Aaron wall said, "buying expired domain names for links is something Matt Cutts loathes." What I find most interesting is the video he posted after (spam doesn't always interest me all that much these days).

  This video was done by Matt Cutts of Google about two years ago. He talked about the first time he found search web spam.

  One thing Aaron Wall (and Michael Gray) are good at is calling out double-standards specifically with Google.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  Does Google Give Mahalo A Spam Pass Or Positives Outweigh Negatives?

  Posted: June 17th, 2010, 3:04pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  A Sphinn thread links to a post named Was The Google Mayday Update A Complete Failure Then?. The blog post goes through examples on how even though the May Day update was suppose to really downgrade the rankings of sites like Mahalo, that site just doesn't go away.

  Mahalo launched in 2007 by Jason Calacanis, who has been known to go at SEOs. So as you can imagine, SEOs are very critical over Calacanis's property. Aaron Wall called the site out as spamming Google's guidelines. Even Danny Sullivan did a detailed analysis of Mahalo and how they push the line of breaking Google's guidelines.

  One would have thought that May Day would have put the site to rest but it has not.

  Alan Bleiweiss made an interesting and likely correct comment on the Sphinn thread, he said:

  I've said this a few times for similar issues - Matt Cutts would say - there's other signals that outweigh any negative. I say this because that's his response to me when I asked him about sites showing up in top organic position even though they distribute "free page counters" that embed links to their site in the footer of thousands or tens of thousands of trash sites. (free page counters by the way, that they promote through AdWords).

  In this case, the premise would be that because Mahalo has millions of pages of content, and all those "valid" other signals of "authority", it justifies Google not slapping them for the crud.

  Except I would venture to guess there's a million pages of that crud on their site :-)

  So, in this case, do you think it is special Google treatment or is the good outweighing the bad?

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  Is Black Hat SEO Criminal?

  Posted: April 16th, 2010, 3:30pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  Mikkel deMib Svendsen, a well known SEO who is also known for his famous red suits at conferences, wrote a very interesting post. The post is named Confessions of a Black Hat SEO: There is a limit to what I will do!

  In this post he explains that he is a black hat SEO, he will cloak, he will buy links, he will push the envelop as far as possible for him to "win the battle" and get the rankings, but he won't go as far as to destroy other's web sites. By that he means, he won't comment spam, he won't hack web sites, he won't destroy your web site in order to gain from your destruction.

  Mikkel said that when you start to impact other people's web sites by injecting them with spam and ultimately leaving their web site unusable by real users, then it is "just not fair! it's not right!," he said. Many of these sites are run by people with "very limited technical skills and resources," and this makes the web a great place. Destroying them is not right.

  Mikkel goes on to say that "hacking is not the same as Black Hat SEO." He said although black hat SEOs don't always respect the search engine guidelines, they do respect the law and that is what separates black hat SEOs from hackers.

  Now, some may have a different definition of what black hat SEO is. Some may say it is criminal to cloak. Some may say there is no difference between taking advantage of Google or taking advantage of someone else's web site. But this message comes from a true and respected black hat SEO. He is proud to be a black hat SEO and he is upset that hackers are coming in and ruining his and his niche's name.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  SEO's Nemesis, Ripoff Report, Caught Selling Links

  Posted: March 12th, 2010, 2:50pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  Frank Watson wrote that RipOff Report Now Selling Links, Verifying Safe Cash4Gold. In short, he shows how they are selling links for certain "qualified" and "verified" businesses.

  What is the big deal if a site sell links? Well, it is not - it is up to the site if they want to take the risk of selling links and being penalized by Google for doing so. So what is the big deal here?

  Well, Ripoff Report is a site that can often be an online reputation management nightmare. Ripoff Report tends to rank very well for business names that have complaints about them. Pushing down results in Google from Ripoff Report is often not the easiest task to complete. Which is why SEOs might like to call out issues with the site, especially webmaster guidelines issues.

  Just read this Sphinn comment:

  Its hard to understand how Google can justify the authority it betows on this site. They break all the rules and continue to thrive hurting many innocent victims of their so called consumer advocacy site.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

  
  

• 

  Defending Against Proxy Hijacks

  Posted: February 23rd, 2010, 1:53pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  We haven't covered the proxy hijacks issue in a while, but a new WebmasterWorld thread has brought it back to life. The individual said his web site suffered a hijack in Google:

  Iv just notice that a russian website has Proxy Hijacked our website and got it indexed in G results.. We have noticed a steady decline in our SERP positions since end of Jan. I found the copy site by doing a "quote" search of the tittle in G.

  WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, links to the old 2007 thread on the topic and quotes the part on how to defend yourself from such issues.

  How you stop this problem is to use REVERSE and FORWARD DNS to validate that Googlebot is coming from an actual Google IP, which returns a domain name that contains ".googlebot.com". If the reverse DNS of the IP that claims to be Googlebot doesn't contain ".googlebot.com", you simply bounce them.

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

  
  

• 

  Google: Comment Spam Can Hurt Your Site's Ranking

  Posted: November 27th, 2009, 2:33pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  Google wrote a blog post named Hard facts about comment spam. I'll sum it up for you quickly. If you do not protect your site against comment spam, Google will trust your site less and it can ultimately hurt your rankings.

  Most blogs these days have automatic comment spam solutions, but you need to make sure your blog is handling it correctly. I check comment spam here several times a day. Although most gets caught, some leaks through and I need to take care of them manually. Yes, I have them all nofollowed anyway, but comment spam looks bad and it distracts from the content on this site. I am more concerned with it distracting from the content here then Google trusting me less - too be honest. But most bloggers are more concerned with Google trust over reader trust, so either way, this is something you need to take care of.

  How does this hurt your rankings? Well, if Google trusts the links on your site less, then your internal linking power dwindles down and you rank lower.

  Google offers these tips:

  • Disallow anonymous posting.
  • Use CAPTCHAs and other methods to prevent automated comment spamming.
  • Turn on comment moderation.
  • Use the "nofollow" attribute for links in the comment field.
  • Disallow hyperlinks in comments.
  • Block comment pages using robots.txt or meta tags.

  There is a lot of discussion around this blog post at Google. Some seem surprised by this, while others do not.

  Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and HighRankings Forum.

  
  

• 

  Opening a Can of Worms To Find Search Spam

  Posted: May 21st, 2009, 3:51pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  I often see threads at the Google Webmasters Help discussion forum of people who have sites that were penalized for having issues with their site in the Google Webmaster guidelines. But it is not often where you see a thread that one issue then opens up an other issue, then an other issue and so on.

  A recent Google Webmasters Help thread has just that. It starts off by looking like the site has a copied privacy policy, which isn't nice, but normally doesn't warrant a penalty. It then looks like there are way too many link pages, so that should be removed. We then notice that some of this person's sites have duplicate content amongst themselves. So fix that.

  Then I see this from the webmaster:

  My partner's brother had muscular dystrophy. He made several md sites based on personal knowledge as well as medical facts. These are examples of our sites which are useful and deserve to be indexed.

  www.typesofmusculardystrophy.com
  http://duchennemusculardystrophycure.com/

  We have hundreds of sites like this.

  Okay, to have hundreds of sites in different topics make sense. But to have hundreds of sites on exactly the same topic? Well, that just seems redundant to me.

  In any event, the thread is an interesting read in that this webmaster is getting advice from both SEOs and Googlers on several layers of issues.

  Forum discussion at Google Webmasters Help.

  
  

• 

  Is AOL Gearing Up To Create Automated Search Spam?

  Posted: April 23rd, 2009, 3:45pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  A WebmasterWorld thread spotted an interesting paragraph in an Reuters article on AOL possibly using automated tools to create an infinite number of niche sites, targeted at driving users to the site via search and having them click on the ads on the site. The article says:

  AOL, for example, is embarking on a strategy of creating a plethora of niche websites through automated methods on which to place ads, partly through its own ad platform. It has called this "leaning into the fragmentation of the Web.

  The debate in the thread is two fold:

  (1) Is this simply bad journalism and AOL is not trying to go this route? If not:
  (2) What will search engines do to combat such a large site creating such spam?

  It is no doubt that there are many "authority" sites that create these types of pages and get by for doing so because of their "authority" status. In fact, many SEOs have called out these type of sites before.

  AOL can make a lot of money if they did go this route, but are they really going to go the automated route when they do a pretty good job at creating unique content already?

  Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

• 

  Is There a Keyword Phrase Specific Penalty?

  Posted: April 3rd, 2009, 2:58pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  Throughout my many years (makes me sound old) in the search industry, I have heard about many filters and penalties, including a filter or penalty to prevent a site from ranking well for a specific keyword phrase. For example, if I want to rank well for big blue pineapple chair and I create a page about a big blue pineapple chair but Google never ranks me for that term, I may consider my site to be penalized from ranking well from that specific term.

  A HighRankings Forum thread has a couple webmasters asking about such a filter. They say they rank well for everything they want, but not for a single keyword phrase that they once ranked well for. The question they asked does a search engine, such as Google, penalize a site for a specific keyword phrase?

  Here is a poll, let me know what you think about this topic:

  Does Google Penalize For Specific Keyword Phrases?
  ( surveys)

  As you can see from the poll, I have two Yes answers and one No. You can select all or none. Yes algorithmically means that Google has a filter that is automated. Yes Manually means Google does filter for keyword phrases, but a human does it. No, means, no, Google does not penalized in this way.

  I'll vote but I won't tell you what my thoughts are until after I post the results.

  Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

• 

  When Search Spam Gets Evil: "Craphat"

  Posted: March 5th, 2009, 2:32pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  There are different levels of search spam. Some search spam involves creating spam on sites you control. Some spam involves injecting links into third party sites, hacking sites, infecting computers, phishing attempts and so on. Where does search spam cross that line and become "evil." That is somewhat of a debate, but Danny Sullivan is coining the term "craphat" in order to differentiate between "blackhat" and "whitehat" SEO. Because, many believe that "blackhat" SEO is not necessarily "evil" and that some people who consider themselves "blackhat" go to extremes that make some "blackhats" not want to be considered blackhat anymore. Which is why I think the industry hats and colors are melting a bit.

  Danny created a Sphinn thread to discuss this topic, the topic of "craphat" SEO. How does Danny define this work?

  Real crap? Automated link drops. Anyone who runs a blog, look at the shit that your comment filter catches automatically. It’s a crap harvest. Manual off-topic link drops, like we delete routinely here. Gibberish pages that say nothing and serve no purpose either than to get a rank and shove some Google AdSense ads at the top of them. Or one of my favorite examples, or not so favorite because it’s so sad, how a memorial site that Mike Grehan did for a friend got covered in link spam, adding to the further stress his widow was already under.

  Danny thinks the industry should "try to stamp out." But being a realist, Danny knows "it won’t get stamped out," but adds, that it "doesn’t mean we shouldn't try."

  Spam is getting worse and worse by the day and people are going to extremes they may have never thought they would go to. Matt Cutts discussed this in detail with his Virtual Blight video.

  How can we make a difference and help prevent this type of stuff? Can we?

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

• 

  Dislike Search Spam? Tell Google What You Dislike The Most

  Posted: January 8th, 2009, 2:57pm CET by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  Matt Cutts has his annual post on tell him what Google's search quality team should tackle in 2009, to prevent web spam.

  So far, Matt's post has 90 suggestions. So if you really hate web spam, go there, comment and let Matt know what you think. Matt said:

  Based on your experiences, close your eyes and think about what area(s) you wish Google would work on. You probably want to think about it for a while without viewing other people’s comments, and I’m not going to mention any specific area that would bias you; I want people to independently consider what they think Google should work on to decrease webspam in the next six months to a year.

  Once you’ve come up with the idea(s) that you think are most pressing, please add a constructive comment. I don’t want individual sites called out or much discussion; just chime in once with what you’d like to see Google work on in webspam.

  Okay, so again, if you hate spam, go to Matt's post and comment.

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.

• 

  Cuil Says it's Not Cool to Comment Spam

  Posted: December 18th, 2008, 3:09pm CET by Tamar Weinberg

  Tags:  Spam  

  Is Cuil, the new search engine that seems to have lost momentum, trying to bring brand awareness back to the forefront by adding spam comments to blogs? That's what I'd say -- after all, they spammed my blog:

  And that's also what forum members have caught. A Sphinn submission points to a blog post where it's obvious that I'm not the only one who was a victim of the Cuil spam. Even WebmasterWorld forum members are a bit shocked.

  On my flickr screenshot (click the image above for the link), Brad from Cuil writes the following:

  Hey Tamar, it actually isn't us (Cuil) posting the spam. We are as against spamming as you. We'll be doing a blog post later today to clear things up.

  And just as promised, the Cuil team has written a blog post to publicly inform the community that it's not them either.

  Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld and Sphinn.

• 

  Are City/State Landing Pages Also Doorway Pages? Google Thinks So

  Posted: July 18th, 2008, 3:03pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  A Google Groups thread has discussion on the topic of dynamically creating pages to target localized searches. For example, this particular webmaster wants to be able to target 28 different zip codes for his client's A/C business. He summarizes what he wants to do:

  Johns A/C does work in 28 different zip codes. He creates 28 webspages, page names reflect the township AC_service_City_zip.htm, meta tags reflect city, zip such as Johns AC serivce serving the "City" and "zip code" area. Then the body is a template and the city and zip are filled in for each city/zip area.

  This way when someone does a search for AC service "zipcode" or "city" there is a good chance his page will be included.

  This was a popular SEO tactic years and years ago. These days, it is much harder to rank well for terms using the automated city database methodology. We actually covered some of the databases you can purchase to accomplish this back in 2005. But is this legit?

  According to Google, no it is not. In fact, Googler, Reid, said that the manner in which this webmaster wants to go, seems to be a "doorway page." Reid said:

  I agree with webado in this scenario. If the body of these pages is a template and the only thing that changes is the city and zip code, this sounds a lot like doorway pages:

  google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355

  Why push the limit on how much duplicate content a page can have? Pages with unique content often perform the best in Google's search results, are better for users, which in turn, is probably better for your business.

  Your best bet in this situation is to create useful and unique content for each page. How? Well, take a look at some of the major local portals and see how much effort they put into their localized pages.

  But would you consider these to be doorway pages? Google defines a doorway page as:

  Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination.

  Forum discussion at Google Groups.

• 

  Poll: Do You Report Your Competitors as Spam in Google?

  Posted: May 8th, 2008, 2:59pm CEST by rustybrick

  Tags:  Spam  

  Ann Smarty goes through the conflicts of reporting competitors as spamming Google search results. Yes, this is a topic we covered many times here, including:

  • Reporting Spam: Is It Ethical
  • How Can I Report Spam to Google?
  • Google Spam Reporting Working
  • Does Google Investigate Spam Reports?
  • Quick Spam Reporting Tool

  In any event, the related Sphinn thread has discussion on if you report your competitors as spamming in Google. So I decided to run a poll here to find out if you have ever reported a competitor as spamming in Google. Simple Yes or No - hoping people don't use the "other" option, but I added it just in case.

  Here is the poll:
  

  Forum discussion at Sphinn.