One of the most common complaints I've heard from webmasters and SEOs in the past 18 months has been around Google's inaction on spam reports. While the web spam team has been aggressive about asking webmasters to contribute via their spam report form (though they prefer the version in Webmaster Tools as this helps verify the identity of the reporter), they've (seemingly) been much more hands-off in penalizing sites that are engaging in these practices. Naturally, many SEOs feel that this validates the spam tactics, but there may be more to this story.
It's certainly true that 2-3 years ago, spam reporting that happened publicly in the SEO world - on prominent forums/blogs/sites - would often find themselves the victim of swift punishment. The SEO community has noticed that trend decline dramatically and at the same time seen (or, at least, felt) that Google's web spam team is no longer taking a significant quantity of actions directly against individual sites. Common webmaster complaints (and plenty of Q+A we get here at SEOmoz) goes something like this:
My competitor has clearly been buying links from low quality sources in obvious ways. I've spam reported them for the 5th time in the last 6 months, but they're still ranking. I'm thinking I should just give up and buy those same links so at least I'm not behind them - it seems that Google doesn't care much anyway.
I've got more messages like this in my inbox than is healthy, and I suspect that while the web spam team may be taking some targeted action, they've chosen to go a different route in the last couple years. Why?
There's likely a number of factors at work, but I'll try to detail those I'm familiar with, have heard about directly from folks on the web spam team (and other Googlers / community members who interact with them) and some of my own speculation:
- Zapping Individual Spammers Isn't Scalable
It's certainly the case that hundreds, possibly thousands of spam reports pour into Google each week. It would take a literal army of reviewers 20-30 minutes to review each case, make the right call and determine whether to remove the links' value, penalize the acquirer the provider or both and add comments to the case. There's no way that process can work with a team as small as web spam (which, to my understanding, has fewer than 500 people worldwide, possibly much less).
Far preferrable in Google's eyes is to record interesting and new types of manipulation, classify a solid quantity of each type and then work on coding algorithms that catch the worst stuff first, then go in descending order of "negative impact to the search results." This process takes time - sometimes even years, as Google needs to ensure that their changes don't have negative blowback on innocent parties. From what I've heard, they use much the same instinct as judicial theory and say they'd rather have 10 guilty spammers get away with it than penalize 1 innocent site. This obviously makes engineering these system very hard.
_ - Removing the Value Certain Links Pass May Be a Better Option
Instead of penalizing or banning the site(s) responsible, Google may, in many cases, prefer to simply remove the value the links pass. This is virtually undetectable by webmasters, particularly if some links lose their value but the reported competitor continues to gain other links (legitimate or not). It could very well be that much of what webmasters perceive as inaction is actually already being addressed and it simply isn't "those links" that are making the site rank as well as it does.
At SEOmoz, we certainly want to help with this, but our link analysis tools have nothing like the sophistication of Google's webspam team. Comparing mozRank and toolbar PageRank may be of value in some cases, and looking at mozTrust on a page or domain may be helpful as well. However, the sad truth is that there aren't any foolproof ways to determine whether a competitor is gaining value from a manipulative link short of engaging in this (relatively intensive) process.
_ - Webmaster Spam Reporting Volume Has Dramatically Increased
It's certainly possible that webspam is struggling under an unexpectedly high load and one where it may not be ROI positive for Google to put massive talent against the problem. Webspam engineers are handpicked from other parts of the search quality and web search team and they need to be 100% trustworthy, loyal and committed (as well as incredibly smart and talented). Google won't abide by speculative hiring of a few hundred or thousand extra hands to help police spam and then potentially release those individuals out into the wild. As SEOs who've attempted to hire former Google webspam team members know (Dave being one of the more vocal of these), there's close to zero opportunity there.
If it is indeed due to high volume, then it could be Google is taking just as much action (or maybe more) than in years prior, but the sheer quantity makes it so that many webmasters feel their requests are being ignored. Frustrating? Absolutely, but I have strong convictions that it won't be a problem the company ignores for long. Bing is a credible threat, and while they're relatively poor at spam today in comparison to Google, it's an area that could, if exposed, cause Google real pain.
_ - A Shifting Mindset About Spam & Link Buying at Google
A possibility that I personally think is remote but many more cynical webmasters argue is the idea that Google has decided in many cases not to take action when the results are still good from a user's perspective. If CNN spams their way to the top for popular news queries or Amazon buys links to boost their books' rankings (please note that I'm not suggesting either of these are happening in any way), Google simply might not care that much. There's so many things the webspam team can worry about - international spam has certainly been something they've been vocal about and it's still a massive issue, so that could certainly be sucking bandwidth.
I personally find this explanation somewhat antithetical to Google's mindset and, more specifically, how the webspam team emotes about their job. However, it's certainly not impossible that a milder version of this exists in which webspam has simply prioritized spam complaints and worries less (and thus addresses less) those results and spammers whose sites do provide a positive, relevant user experience (which has generally been where I see/hear complaints).
_ - Big Changes are in Process at Google Web Spam
If you've heard Google's webspam chief talk about paid links in the recent past, he's certainly been hinting that they're cooking up something big for release in the "near future." It could be that Google's quite aware the problem has been getting worse, but have concentrated efforts on a scalable, big release and thus have been ignoring or putting off many of the individual requests which they feel will be addressed in whatever it is they're launching.
This is pure speculation, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a system emerge that resembles (or at least takes cues from) Google MapMaker, which leverages a kind of social PageRank to allow users themselves to contribute to the construction of maps in areas where Google doesn't yet have them. I doubt users will have the ability to actually remove/penalize sites or pages, but a feedback army of spam reporters building up reputation and making suggestions that can then feed into Google definitely seems like a cultural and intellectual fit (it also might be a reason they've started a marketing presence with a Twitter account).
I'd love to hear more from those of you who feel impacted by this issue. Does this trend match your experience? Have you seen Google take some actions in the recent past? How do you deal with those who spam and seem to benefit? And which of these scenarios, if any, do you find likely?
p.s. For those who may not be aware, SEOmoz strongly recommends against link manipulation and buying links (not on ethical grounds, but for practical, business reasons).
Thanks for this article, I think Google are right to remove the value of specific links in some cases instead of banning sites.
We constantly have discussions about clients competitors building spammy links to our clients websites, then reporting them for building spammy links.
How would Google distinguish when this is happening? I think its early days for spam detection.
I agree that it is early days for Spam detection / penalisation and I think that one way Google could and probably already is combating Spammy links is just by devaluing them.
Instead of actually penalising a website for doing this the best course of action would be simply to remove any value the link itself had.
The next issue for google is locating these Spammy Links, generally speaking Comment Links should be easy to find, whereas paid links can be a little more tricky.
Whether or not reporting these links will get things done faster I am not sure.. :)
Agreed penalising a site is probably not the road to go down.
Else you could just buy a load of spammy links for your competition
i've been reporting spam for YEARS... we even have a billing item for client for just that billable time.
the KEY is to use your Google Webmaster Tools Account..
this from @mattcutts
#imjustsayin
I couldn't agree with you more there Hannah. I think ripping the spammy pages off the SERPs isn't the best thing the do. The spammers will just create a new site and spam, that'll get taken down so they'll do the same again and so on and so forth.
If the links they're paying are still appear, they're ranking for certain terms but realistically their links are losing value, then they're less likely to create new domains for the same purpose because they won't see that the links aren't getting much value.
Devaluing paid links deftly solves the problems associated with penalizing site rankings. It essentially turns the penalization from a ranking penalization to a financial penalization.
The funny thing is, when people buy paid links and they don't get banned, it leads them to think "Hey, I'm getting away with it! I should buy more!" It turns linkbrokers into a sort of SEO Snake Oil salesman, who keeps selling you more and more of nothing.
If this is the route that Google is taking, it seems they are backing a "buyer beware" mentality. Considering they deal in information, it's not that surprising that they would consider it to be the purchasers fault for not doing your due diligence before buying. Search for "paid links" and the 1st page has all kinds of information on it (including some from our dear SEOmoz).
It's a quagmire they have created and inspired, fact is that human genius knows no bounds - whatever they will bring to moderate spam, people will find ways around - as long as this is done via the algo.
It may be time to bring the pigeons back, and add them to the spam team...
agreed Rishi, I'd still argue that the curve of technology is not in the majority of spammers favour (as most are lowtech high volume). The few you refer to are high tech and low volume.
LOL. I'd never seen the Google pigeons Rishi. Thanks for providing my morning laugh.
Hi Rand,
good article. Something strikes me though. 3 out of your 5 points are related to Google in some way not being able to handle all the spam: its not scalable, high volume of reports and changes in process at the web spam team.
This is kind of remarkable, because that means that Google is writing their own death-sentence. Spammy results will eventually mean that users will walk away. It might take a while but if people find out that other search engines are less spammy they might make the move (come on in Bing).
Is Google not fit to do the job? A big company like that? It would surprise me if they can't handle the one thing they became big with: good searchresults. Do you really think Google is not capable of this?
Im with you on that they CAN handle it, but with Rand on that they choose not to.
Take a look at ridiculous things the large advertisers can get away with on PPC and its easy to see Google turn a blind eye to where they are making money while providing bad results. e.g. Ask et all advertising on every word they stuff in with no relevant content on the landing page
Ive seen similar things in Google Product Search - recently Play.com spamming their way to the top of iPad SERPS by sticking the iPad in at a fixed price in the UK before a price or date was even announced
Google is falling to the short termism that plagues most businesses after they stop focussing on quality and start to focus on the money
Yup - I've been reporting policy violations for Google Product Search. I get that they've got no chance of policing this by hand - after all, that's what an algorythm is for right?
My real gripe (other than the obvious one that nothing seems to happen) is that the policy violations I report CAN be fixed algorythmically or at least I can't see why not.
Just recently they threw SHOP.COM off Google Product Search - the premise being they are listing the prices of merchants who are already listed so their listings amount to duplicate content that doesn't help users. I agree. However, they don't seem to care that e-directory are doing exactly the same thing, but in order to do it they've simply bought a new domain name and created a new Google account. Not really fair on SHOP.COM. Don't get me wrong - I'd rather no comparison engines listed onto Google Shopping....less competition.
I'm not surprised Google are having trouble keeping up with SPAM in terms of it's sheer volume. I am surprised a company as smart as they are haven't come up with ways to combat it better - this is their bread and butter after all - I don't see them making much out of YouTube, Orkut etc etc for a long long time (if ever).
Penalties have become so much more subtle these days that it's a lot harder to say where Google has taken action. We definitely see a lot of these "Why hasn't my competitor been penalized?" questions in Q&A, and when I dig into them, I often find that the value the competitor is getting from their spammy links is questionable. In many cases, the competitor is ranking IN SPITE OF their link profile, not BECAUSE OF it. Sometimes, they've managed to scrape together enough autoritative links to offset the bad ones. Sometimes, they have an exact-match domain, great on-page SEO, or other elements that tip the balance.
Right or wrong, it's useless to whine about the competition (believe me, I speak from experience on that). Somewhere, somehow, our competitors are often doing something right, and if you can find out what that is, then you have a chance. Complaining about what they're doing wrong won't get you anywhere, even if you're right. Righteous indignation and $4 will get you a Venti Latte.
I think that's a great point. It's easy to let the green-eyed monster jade your view of your competitors and often overlook the finer points of why they're doing well as a business, jumping to conclusions that are usually negative. Examples of this can be that they are using black hat techniques, spamming etc.
I have a long-term client who always seems to worry about the competition and what they're doing rather than focusing on a strategy that will work for them. Unfortunately, it's getting to the point where they're getting advice from old-boys in the industry (guys who still use tables for layout) and undermining my somewhat educated advice - which I'm giving free-of-charge by the way. Needless to say, I'm trying to think of a nice way to say "I'm sick of it, please just find a designer you're happy with. This clearly isn't working."
I agree with you here Traxor: the best thing is to focus on a better strategy than just looking at your competition (just do it to see what they do better than you).
If what Dr. Pete adfirms is right (and I have no reason to not trust him), then the problem is: Google is not so good as a communicator.
So, dear Google, make it clear and loud that you are working daily against spammy sites and black hat tecniques... but don't say it just in your blogs or in tech/Seo/Devs blogs... the real Clients don't read those blogs... so they will still easily fall in the arms of the spammy guy simply because they ignore all the things we are saying here.
I'm sure all of us had the experience to see the wide open mouth of a client when we have said to him that all those SEO things done before weren't the reason of his site's success (or that were the reason of its unsuccess). Just imagine if it's Google itsself telling them the same thing from an unpair page of the the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times (pair better not... people usually pass them, as position 10 in the SERPs ;)).
for those of you that might not be aware, MOGmartin strongly recommends link buying.
When its appropriate to do so.
Biz dev - AKA acquiring links on any business deals that you arrange could be considered as link buying, but where you have a legitimate relationship with another company (be it customer, supplier, etc) is a valuable source of links and in my opinion at least you should leverage these deals as a source of valuable high quality links.
If that is deemed link buying, well, Im sorry, but Im all for it.
Ok so this is old, but you've drawn me out to comment again .... At SMX West 2008 I spoke (cornered) Matt over a 'meet the engineers google lunch', about how even if they could adjust the SERP landscape to be "fair" (a true measure of editorial impartial etc) the shake up would be so violent that users would be confused, webmasters through to blue chips burnt, and business bust. So I asked if - "if you could hit a switch and clean it all up tomorrow, would you?..." Matt ever a gent and a white knight fighting the good fight, gave me an answer Barrack or Gordon would be proud of! I carried on quizing having waited a good hour for my first direct question about how and why I had had to live a lie for so long! Kind of,,,My motivation was that personally for 2 years I was the guy wheeled in to defend a sound and ethical white hat only policy. However I watched big brands soar with on-page only, but then SME's fail as we knocked out more ezinearticle nonsense for big £ prices. Having spent much time with a co-team of around a dozen account managers filling in the regular spam report, I felt compelled in my slightly overly intense first time cuttlet state, to ask further "how many spam reports they see each month....?" and the answer I got was "hundreds." This was pre reports from within the console, however I scoffed slightly as I did the math that our team alone was close to 1/3 this number in a month. There are of course often two waves to most things at Google, from Google job applications to news inclusion, and the first is an automatic one. The second is the manual one. I suggested that if the quality score of a site isn't an issue, then the report gets "archived" (in the bin).
I am fascinated in the team dynamic of the engineers. The people, the interviews, the size of the team and how they refine and improve what they do. Anyway, It turns out that back then, possibly still now, the second stage internally, for those that have the power, is referred to as "blacking out" (links) and burning down sites (deindex). A rare glimpse that there is a second front line after automatic spam qualification. Filters in between are quality scored and automatic and post my "chat with matt"
How often (and dangerous) is fully banning a site automatically without approval? Sadly, it seems that there are still silver bullet sites out there, and a service you can hire, for some fairly hard core filtering.
Re links. We've heard it all - every link is paid for in some way. The web is HTTP and by nature links are the measurement for time to come. I'm with you on "5 years for links" anyway. An analogy I often use is about moving the gain line. It's the status quo for Google. Refine and improve rather than subtract is the new moto. Push the good stuff to the top. Hopefully Google will use the Firehouse to some success. 5. Pure speculation - keep fighting the good fight though rand, I'm with you - though the reality of some very well respsected SEO's is that they say they don't or stopped buying links, but actually do. Hopefully the firehouse and microblogging of all sorts from real people will further hone what is clearly by your and my mark a struggling process (just like the servers - oth crawl rate and spam reporting has been an issue since 2008)
Google are still the best! Though maybe we need a badge for SEO to 'fess up whether they are in to or out of buying links :D
I do hope they do roll something out soon. We've had a spate of clients lately who demand to know why Competitor A is ranking so well despite 1, 2 and 3, and it's almost invariable some kind of linking scheme. Which I then have to explain to them why it's bad and why we won't do it. Which leads to the inevitable, "So why are they getting away with it?" and "Can we report them for it?" It would be nice to see my standard "It's more likely to hurt them in the long run" answer actually come to fruition.
Is it a coincidence that Matt has posted a video regarding this subject yesterday?
https://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp#p/a/u/0/e2QapzGmMjI
"We look at a large fraction of those spam reports"...
What really comes through to me here is that they DON'T read all of them (not that I ever thought they did)... The leakier the sieve is, the more incentive spammers have to keep at it...
Rand, I've been doing similar spam report testing with Google, but just with local Google map listings.
Similar to your finding, the penalties are just not in place for people who abuse the system.
Sorry Google/Matt, but I think the SEO community is starting to see the lack of Google police at work.
I hope Google can get a handle on this soon, our we might see a trend of white hats no longer in fear black hat penalties.
I'm a little late to the party here, but, oh well :)
About a year ago, I reported a competitor to Google for link buying. Even provided a nice spreadsheet of all the spam links and a nice little argument.
Anyways, over the past year that competitor has steadily fallen in ranking. In almost all cases off the first page, and for most keywords they fell 10-20 spots lower than what they were ranked before.
This leads me to believe that they weren't penalized, but algorithmic changes were made to combat the issue.
Interesting post Rand. While I tend to believe that Google can't fix the problem of spammy sites anytime soon, just the remote possibility of being de-listed keeps me on the straight and narrow.
I'd rather let competitors be a couple spots above me than risk the big G's heavy hand (if or when they ever use it)
And I forget who said it above (the comments are too long to read through again and find attribution), but I agree with the strategy of rather than concentrating on what competitors are doing, concentrate instead on increasing the value proposition of your site.
It will pay dividends. Guaranteed.
I completely agree.
However, what if concentrating on increasing the value proposition of your site in an ethical way (see: not buying links) is not enough to overcome your competitors?
Back to square one... ;)
So Google are allegedly working on something big in the near future to combat paid link abuse. Ok, good, but what about the many other methods being abused? They'll still be effective?
Why have a webspam report form and urge the community to use it if it is disregarded?
Spam is not only Googles headache its for every good webmaster.
Just remove pagerank from the toolbar, this metric is one of the most abused indicators on the web and is often the first demographic a link seller uses as a demonstration of value.
im currently going through a massive competitor link analysis which will take me many many weeks and looking at some of the bigger players in the target industry its heading towards 95% paid links to 5% organic which is pretty shameful. i dont think mydeco.com has done anything BUT buy paid links looking at their profile.
Let me summarize this post:
Spammers big and small can and will always win. You just have to be a stupid spammer to fall in the Google filters.
I myself play ball with a white baseball hat, but it is VERY frustrating seeing some of the most obvious link spamming in the world continue to work for short-tailed keywords.
Being a white hat SEO can be extremely frustrating when you say black or grey hat SEOs ranking better that you. It's something that is said often but in the long run we'll come better off, but the short term stress is just irritating.
If you have a lot of URLs that look different and all feed your site. The goal would be to dominate results for a keyword. Is this this spamming? or just GOOD SEO. and how does google feel about this?
For those who may not be aware, SEOmoz strongly recommends against link manipulation and buying links (not on ethical grounds, but for practical, business reasons).
What you have suggested is manipulative, right?
So lets say you want to own the keyword "Dog Food" and you had a pile of Money. You went out and bought all the website that rank in the top ten. Mantained them looking like different sites, BUT really they were all "same Girl different dress".
Is this tactic Spamming? Does any one know how google feels.
Has this been addressed before. Clearly is only a game for the big rich companies not concerned with branding.
I would say it is spam, but I do not think google feels the same way. The largest vacation renatl business HomeAway.com is purchasing up all the top vacation rental domains and putting about 90% of the same information on all of them. Due to them being a huge player I am sure google is aware of what they are doing and I have not seen any penalty or shift in rankings.
Does anyone here use AdWords? Are you aware of the random acts of punnishment Google is meeting out on every kind of site for no apparent reason. Have you tried to call your AdWords rep recently to find that all extentions have been disconnected and you can no longer get routed automatically to support when you call?
GOOGLE has terrible customer support and its getting worse. This is obviously a conscious descsion on Google's part. Its a cost saving measure or side effect of their top level management's inability to empathise with customers and other stakeholders.
This is also happening in Google Local where listings are filled with inacuracies even after they are verified and updated. Google has no feedback loop with customers and they have no sense of a need for one. Google like Microsoft, parlayed a lucky strick into billions by building a "good enough" product.
Now its time for act II and there is nothing there, no vision, no management skills, no empathy, just a bunch of "super geniouses". Henry Ford's lack of intelligence was well known, Steve Job's coding skilles are sorely lacking, but these guys built empires because they knew how to attract and manage talented people. They were good managers, they loved thier products. They were passionate.
Google has no passion. Just a giant brain that spits out random bits of really good stuff but has no focus.
Ask yourself this. Why the hell is the Android Operating System Open Source? They have the best coders in the world under their roof. Open source software is a tool for proletarian revolt against a massive overlord. Its not needed when you have 100 of the top programmers on the planet in your cafeteria and you are 5 minutes from Stanford U.
These are the guys that just launched a new phone with no phone support. Just left China because of censorship but they don't allow canadian drug companies to advertise on AdWords.
My point is that these guys, although brilliant are clueless about managing a company. We are all trying to figure out what they are doing with spam. I will tell you what they are doing with spam. They are alienating good customers, they are making a god awful mess and they are in "irons" with no sail up, no rudder and a strong current takeing them into rocky shore.
They need new management.
I disagree. I think they probably have a really tough business to manage. I know I have submitted spam requests roughly a dozen times in a year and I run a small business. If I could contact them, I would probably have done that a dozen times.
The problem they have is everyone thinks their problem is important and there is no possible way for them to deal with them all.
Since they are established, a work in progress product such as Google Local gets thrown in front of billions of people. There are a lot of glitches like any new product and if they answered all of them that would be way to time consuming.
I take back my previous twitter statement. This is actually a fantastically written post and makes a lot of sense. Kudos.
A possibility that I personally think is remote but many more cynical webmasters argue is the idea that Google has decided in many cases not to take action when the results are still good from a user's perspective.
This has been going on for years with big brands.
On the same note I should say I reported a competitor after his site was down for over a week and he was still ranking above me. Two days later his site stopped ranking there and a week later when it went live again it was right back above me. Btw I reported them through the link at the bottom of the search results.
My spam team question is why don't they penalize MFA sites?
With regards to point 4 - many PPC advertisers from really big portals regularly spam results using the {Keyword} attribute and often make themselves look really stupid.
Not sure I want to buy:
Dogs Excessive Panting Large Choice of Dogs Excessive Panting Find the Lowest Prices. Shop Now.
Rand, judging from the conversation you have started, you can throw this topic into the "more of pile."
We are currently battling a couple spam users now, and have reported via google webmaster account. Multiple reports, screen shots and questions. Nothing.
Is it, they prefer to dedicate resources to prevention vs recovery?
I do not think #4 is too farfetched. If the results provided are given the user a good experience who cares as to how they got there. That is googles #1 goal....to get the user a good experience.
I think Google are right to remove the value of specific links in some cases instead of banning sites.
---I DO agree with that.
It's hard to indentify and penalize websites which really buy spam links.
I'm actually so p@#$%^ off with Google because of all the reports I have sent to them and the way they have dealt with the mis behaving websites in question.
I am not going to name any names, however - in the industry that I market, the amount of spammy websites out there is unbelievable. Most probably because people are so desperate for business they do not mind risking their company website and being known as cheats. One thing I have always, always stuck by is the webmaster rules of the major search engines, however I am beginning to wonder, is it really worth abiding by them when your competitors are clearing gaining a massive advantage by not doing so?
One particular website I reported no less than six times, on the fifth occasion Google finally did something about, however - the website owner removed the footer links and within two weeks his website was re-included into the SERP's and doing better than ever, though the guy is still up to his old tricks but in a different way! I've reported him again but nothing doing!
Then I look at way all of a sudden another one of my competitors is ranking so high, when clearly he had hired the services of an SEO company to give him a much needed boost. So I decide to study his website to see if I can get some ideas on what to do. Yep ... Through out his website he has dozens of <noscript> tags stuffed full of h1 and h2 titles along with all the phrases he is ranking higher for, there is no link building or content that has been added, simply the site has been touched up with spam tags throughout.
Now, from what has been drummed into us for years and years by Google, I would prefer people have relevant and good content search results, but on the other hand - I want my websites to benefit from the SE's and using black hat techniques seems to me to be the best way forward because nothing ever gets done about it.
Rant over, had to get that off my chest! Sorry.
Hello, first of all, thank you for the really intresting report.I would like to say that my opinion is that we are speaking just of one small problem. More then "buy link" i see a bigger problem for google to "clean" those page where peoples reach ranking 1 or 2 with dirty tricks, like for example "hidden div" in the html code. The most of cms need those div for a functionality webpage or for some feature like "search" form and more. What can google do about this kind of spam? I found online many many webpage that use tricks and are still since many years on top position. Many webmaster here in germany are complaing that google result are becoming always worst and google cannot manage that huge amount of spam. I think google is still working hard to the way to fight spam, and all those page that are using tricks or buying links, are already in google "black list" . May is google working to a new strategy and when he comes out with it, will come back to all thos page and penalize them. The question is.. how will it penalize them? I sow webpage folling down to search result page 10 and more, but still online with all them dirty tricks.
Antonio
So what's the latest with this now in 2014? We can still submit manual spam reports. Is Google doing anything with them? We have a blackhat competitor that is placing a handful of spammy sites above ours with hundreds of super low-quality profile backlinks that they've been building for the past two months...I submitted all of their sites to Google and we've really ramped up our whitehat linkbuilding strategies but aren't seeing much improvement on our site nor have the spam-linked sites been penalized. What's interesting is that they are ranking great on Google but horrible on Bing.
Great Article, Thank You for the info. I think at times its very hard to understand google.
Nouf Taraman
This is a very grey area...or is it definitely black!
How can I test a site to see if it's been penalised?
Google doesen't want to harm the business of small sites which sells link for their living. Thats the reason they remove the value of link.
:)
I can certainly verify the inactivity of webspam on major scraper sites etc even in webmaster tool spam reports. While I can appreciate they're aiming for ROI, and bot quality it makes sense to keep people on removing the spammers until that point is reached. There's always going to be pro spammers that can circumvent the algorithms out there, and for that reason people will for the most part always be required to monitor the web to some extent. Consider how long it took before Youtube Adsense was profitable.. a similar approach should be taken here.
Could it be, that as a tactic for Blackhat SEO Technicians, they are spamming Google Web Spam form with Legitamite sites, causing a slowdown in spam site discovery?
Is the Google Web Spam form automateable? Could someone have created a bot to auto submit under different usernames/ID's?
Even if not, to pay a few people to consistently look for top rankings, or sub ranking domain names, that are legitamite, and spam the spam detector, so to speak, could cause a bottleneck in detection.
Since spam detection cannot be automated currently due, not only to this idea, but to just general computational mistakes, this would overwhelm any team of detectors no matter how many hundreds there may be, due to the sheer ease of submission versus analysis and detection.
I recently noticed, for the term "health Insurance", a very competitive term, a website called hellz yea.com/health insurance that all the sudden ranked on the first page!! Yahoo Site Explorer said it had 1 page and 60,000 backlinks! It is insane.Clearly a example of link spam at work, and slow link spam detection on Googles end.
It stayed up about a week, and now its gone, but i was so suprised to see that ranking. Its almost as if the Google Bot just didnt get it, 1 page and thousands of backlinks = win?
I'm trying my hardest to learn how to implement and optimize in the most white hat way possible, but seeing these tactics work, even for a week, is disheartening. A week at that rank brings more traffic (and hence leads) to their site than has come to mine for months!
I suppose if you have the money to invest in link spam, you can se e near immediate results? Am I wrong?
Is that the new strat? Spam links to your site + spam the Google spam reporting form to create bottleneck = prevent detection and win at Google?
Please pardon my ignorance if none of this makes any sense!!
(Don't worry, I wont do it anyways even if it does work, this is terribly unethical =P )
Spot on I'd say, and especially:
Based on little signals and an interesting recent Twitter exchange between Cutts and White, I'd say their sending a few shots across the bow already around another swing at paid links.
https://www.shoemoney.com/2007/10/06/dont-make-google-look-stupid-period/
I like point 1. I think in a lot of instances when google does decide to change the way they look at a link they more than likely ban the companies doing it on a large scale and then give no weight to them in the future. This leaves a lot of people getting something from these links if they purchased them prior to google deciding they are spam.
The concept I find hard to understand is google attempting to discredit ALL paid links. Google gives weights to links because someone is vouching for your site. Really in any case where you have to pay for the link the site really is not vouching for you. Anything that is paid should be discredited, but I am sure directories, etc are a big part of the commerce of the internet and google would probably hate to put an end to that.
Google never took action against a site for buying links.
The most they do is devalue the links.
Google has no knowledge if the competitor or a disgruntled customer bought the links to make the site look spammy.
Further, I can have a site selling links and add some of my own links.
Many sites selling links have plenty of content with lots of links that they put out there.
I would love to be able to have some sort of effect on my competitors site or even against companies that just plain upset me.
I am human and feel pretty strongly against some companies and organizations.
There is nothing that I can do that has a remote chance of adversely affecting the rankings of the republican party sites, their candidates or companies that support them.
Wrong.
text-link-ads.com
do not appear in google's index, for buying (and selling) links.
several other high profile sites, like moneysupermarket, and even BMW have been banned in the past.
Many sites of my own that I have used to test stuff have been banned for buying links. (these sites are mainly throw-away domains that I have bought tonnes of low quality links for from various sources to see what works and what doesnt).
Google 10000% run an algorthymic measure on link growth over time, and punish those that buy/excessively build links.
QUOTE:There is nothing that I can do that has a remote chance of adversely affecting the rankings of the republican party sites, their candidates or companies that support them.
Thats because these sites already have a high amount of trust history and established links. It takes a high ratio of bad vs good links to trigger penalties.
I'm glad somebody responded to this. Unfortunately as I was about to write a reply a client walked through the door and I had to jump into a meeting.
no probs - couldnt let that one go either!
I think that's a very bold statement, and unless you're a Google employee you could not be aware of that. It's clear that Google's algorithms have treated sites - that are buying links and building links (unnaturally) at a high rate - negatively.
I am human and feel pretty strongly against some companies and organizations.
Say whaaaaaaaaaat?
I'd think that Google is probably using the spam reports to find ways to devalue the paid links algorithmically where they can; but more often than not those links weren't all that valuable in the first place.
It also makes sense to me that they would want to make link buying and other forms of manipulative activity less effective rather than outright banning sites that are doing it. They may have taken a more harsh approach for a while to set a precedent, but there comes a point where this approach could create an image problem for Google.
It makes people not want to take the time to report them. I have faith they'll catch up.
It reminds me of DMOZ (sorry for the purists)...
You can compare the Google spam reports VS webspam team members ratio to the amount of site suggestions DMOZ receive daily VS the tiny amount of *devoted* editors they have.
What do we have? The same questions are coming back; "Is ODP dead?", "Why they won't add my website? It's been 2 years now!", etc.
In the same order of ideas, even if becoming an editor for ODP can't be compared to joining Google spam team, it's still really difficult in my opinion, as most of these editor requests are ignored or refused. So they're stuck with the problem of lack of ressources to answer the increasing needs.
I agree with rishil; pigeons would be perfect to do this job, if trained adequately...
I think that a reason as well is that these sites could have some value themselves in the SERPs. What I mean is that even though they may be buying links and spamming, it's not to say that some of their information isn't useful.
So by removing the value of these specific links that are perhaps malicious, it allows the organic links to pass through authority and still allow any natural, less spammy pages appear on the SERPs.
I know that this isn't usually the case, but it certainly could be in some cases.
That doesn't justify anything... it would be like saying: Toyota is cheating its clients with this model but due to all the others it produces we won't punish Toyota.
I see exactly what you mean and I'm not saying that it's justifiable, it's just that it's not penalising every page on the site.
Nice article rand. I personally believe that it's highly possible that Google is silently devalue-ing links. Otherwise people would just go buy more links. Although they would buy more links anyway when they see a instant drop on their rankings so i'm not really sure what google does with the spam reports :)
Doesn't change the fact that none of my spam reports affected any of the reported sites so far :/
I'm sure Google has something up their sleeves and we can only wait to see what happens.
Personally, I haven't reported any website for spam before, I just feel there's still so much to learn and do before I start taking the SEO high road, IMO. I probably have this opinion because I haven't been in the industry for that long.
However, that said, I do believe in Karma! Site's that buy links and all will get what's coming to them, sooner or later, one day or another. So in the mean time, I'll just continue doing my thing...
Hi Rand!
here my 2cents.
Few years ago, when I start to work for an hosting company which offers SEO services too, what I've noticed was that all the "optimizations" done before my landing there where all (and I mean all) black hat.
Obviously, what I did was starting SEOing in white hat way the job done (something that took me months)... and all along that time I was quite impressed that those webs were not suffering any penalties.
What you say about the Google spam team can explain that experience I lived personally, but it cannot justify the fact that apparentely nothing is really done in that sense. Especially because it's really hard to explain to clients who saw their webs flash-going to number 1 in the Serps that all that job done is 'useless' as it is forbidden. In their business mentality that job was and is 'a winner one', because they obtained the results they were looking for.
When people blame Google of the apparent inaction, is because they see themselves as the honest ones doing the right things and see themselves won by cinic unethical 'seos'.
Therefore, I agree that the spam police is not enough to go after every spam report and that the best option for Google (and other search engines) should be to draw a "spam-recognition-algorythm" able to evolve almost indipendently also with a "social web help", but this is something that Google should do asap and giving a big sign as an example that they are preserving the integrity and "honesty" of their serps. And if that means to ban a web of the big ones, Google should not have no fear...
I mean, if China does what it does (in other fields) and Google reaction is the one we all are seeing, why if a big Corp is using unethical tecniques Google would not have to react? Is it China less useful to Google business plan than Amazon (as you I don't mean Amazon is using any unethical tecnique)?
Nice Article... and this happens to one of our client that their competitor actually spammed their site and reported to google and literally that site got penalised for that....
I'm very interested in how you determined this happened beyond a reasonable doubt. Also, who at Google told you that the competition reported your client? I would think that some privacy policy at Google would prevent that disclosure.
I think that Google takes all spam reports into account to define patterns and prepare general countermeasures that are eithere released on the fly, or are waiting for a bigger release.
In Poland there is a big problem with automatic link exchange or just one-way link systems installed on domains registerd for this purpose only. Many websites still use this kind of link building and seem to be successful with it. There have already been some countermeasures used such as dimminishing the value of footer links or false numbers in site-related queries. Though the big change is still to be done.
Bas van den Beld, Google aren't going to ignore the issue because if they did you are correct, their business depends upon the quality of their results.
What Rand is saying is that they don't seem equipped to deal with the issue manually (ie. human intervention). It would make a lot more sense for Google to monitor the masses of spammy sites and blackhat tactics and evolve their algorithms to effect a blanket solution to the issue.
For the time being Webmasters should continue to report sites and take some comfort in the fact that when they do report a site Google will probably be reviewing the ways the site is trying to manipulate their rank and using this knowledge for future algorithmic updates.
...I hope that is the case anyway!
I think Google prefer scalable actions, so they gather as much information as possible to figure out what the most common spams are, then lower the value of those actions.
I agree. Have the feeling Google is simply collecting data at the moment and when the time comes they'll release a change that will/should address most of the cases. I also tend to agree that it will be based on links loosing value and not URLs getting immediately punished.
Algorithm shift anyone? It's been a while it seems like since we've had a major shift, times are changing and maybe you shouldn't be so worried about your competitor's spammy links but what else they're doing ;)
Great post and great comments. On a very basic level, Google and other engines are looking to provide searchers with quality, relevant info. Of course, spam gets in the way of that. Whatever Google and others come up with, it's always going to be difficult to weed out the spam. As the algorithms shift, so do the tactics of the spammers.
Personally, I'm confused about many sites that Google seems to prefer in search results. My main concern with Google search results is the weight seemingly given to review sites and consumer complaint sites. Reputation management efforts on Google are an absolute nightmare because the engine treats sites like PissedConsumer and RipOffReport so well. Those sites are garbage and their practices are suspect, to say the least. Q&A sites are just as bad. How many times have you searched a "how to..." query and have gotten some really poor answers from anonymous posters. And those are coming up in the 1st or 2nd positions usually.
These are cases of Google completely dropping the ball on coming through on their core mission - provide quality information that is relevant to the search query.
Well... Oxclove... even if what you adfirm can be proved, can be proved also the opposite.
For instance, review sites can be really useful - at least for me - as they give you the taste of the real people about products and services. Yes, also there exist spam (but it's quite easy to recognize the 'self promotional' comments)... but people tends to be quite cruel when this is detected. That's why - i think - Google give a big weight to those sites (and Yelp is the best example of those sites).
About Q&A... yep, there too we find answers that are less than stupid voted as the one-that-helped-me-most, but there too there's the human factor playing and free will - also to mistake - is something you cannot forbid or judge. For sure cannot do it an algorhytm.
I'm not trying to prove or disprove anything, but simply provide a representation of my experience. I have found these sites to be useful, too, on occasion. But (and I think industry sentiment would agree), for marketing purposes review sites and Q&A sites can often act as frustrating obstacles when dealing with things like reputation management.
Hoping point 5 is true, though not a big fan of the social aspect there. I'd rather Google sorts its own problems out itself rather than relying on another setup that can be gamed to stop the original being gamed :)
I think 4 has some validity in it.
In the most competitive niches, I am confident that the majority of the top rankings sites are buying links, one way or another. But removing all the top ranking sites would not create better SERPS for the users. Quite contrary.
I agree with #4 also. Typically being #1 does not generate revenue for a company unless you have a useful site. If you have a useful site then you probably generate revenue somehow to pay for links.
The only way I see this could be wrong is if you have a site pull of google ads for a topic and you are maing money that way.
I am one of the suckers that has resisted buying links since I was an SEO foetus, but I can't help thinking that the big release for the "near future" is another desperate smoke and mirrors attempt on Google's part to buy them a bit of time as they see the threat of Bing growing.
I have to agree with Jonny that many well respected SEOs (not directed at you Rand!) say they don't buy links when in actual fact they do. Why would they want to appear as anything other than playing by the rules in Google's eyes?
This is my biggest frustration because it is clear that for highly competitive keywords you have no choice.... unless you're Amazon et al This again highlights that it will be the guys who can afford the expensive links who will rank well which suggests there may be some (indirect) truth in last year's caffeine conspiracy theorists view that Google was giving SEO preference to big spending AdWords advertisers... whether intentionally or not, this is the case.
I really buy into the collaborative approach which will see certain sites build up a reputation amongst the anti-spam army because this will be too easy to fudge and millions of sites will still slip through the net.
The long and now the short... it will take time, but it will never be perfect. As long as you don't over do the spammy link building (I, of course, don't do any of that sort of thing!.... seriously I don't) then you will probably go undetected for the foreseeable future and continue to annoy people like me who will either give in to temptation or will simply apply for a job in the anti-spam team and go after every site that has cheated me and my clients in the past! Got any jobs Mr Cutts? I will take great pleasure in sticking the knife in... at a price of course... that is superior to that which clients pay for link building :-)
Are we seeing the birth of a new kind of superhero? ASam... the antispammer guy :).
Just jocking, but I understand you and the frustration you feel about all this thing.
Of course white hat SEOs are using paid links - they're just much pickier about it. Best of the Web, anyone? It's blatantly obvious that Google favors it, and yet every link on the site is paid for. Yahoo! Directory as well. And frankly, if there is a local niche site, say a site that only lists Denver dentists with good visibility and link juice on which I can list a client for $10, I'm probably going to pay for it and not worry about it too much. But if it's the same generic directory template you see everywhere that takes anyone who comes bearing a $50 bill? Uh, yeah, that one's going to be skipped without hesitation. But that Denver dentist directory is relevant to my client's niche and location. And BOTW and Yahoo! Directory are very, very obviously considered authority sites. Do you really think that Google is going to be devaluing its favorite citation sources anytime soon?
What troubles me is that no one in any of these discussions seems to be making any kind of distinction here between authority sites like BOTW and common templated linkspam. Does anyone else have any thoughts on that?
I'm not defending them, but Google typically falls back on one main distinction - sites like Yahoo directory are pay-per-review, and not pay-per-play. In other words, you don't automatically get a link just because you paid - there is a quality control process.
Judging by Yahoo's international directories, though, it's not much of a quality control process. I'm amazed how many single-office U.S. sites I see listing themselves in every city in Asia.
Hi again Dr. Pete...
I'll try to explain the Yahoo Intl. Directories situation... just please remember that what I'm going to say is simply from an experience perspective as I do not have no direct implication with Yahoo! (apart my email account).
The Italian Yahoo! directory is not working anymore at least since 2 years. And it is not reachable. If you find somehow a link to it, you're redirected to the US one.
The Spanish Yahoo! directory is simply abandoned. Still online, even if right now the es.dir.yahoo.com link is redirected to Yahoo Search portal. I was somehow able in the past to 'suggest' something there, and there wasn't any payment to do... just to wait weeks or months (as Dmoz).
Talking about directory, your distinction is right. Business.com or BOW or Yahoo! Directory have the Trust of Google because of their wellknown editorial policy. But when it comes to other directories (especially outside of the US) the borders between the two start to be very glossy. It's quite easy to find website that simply have copied and pasted the Google specifications for the directories and then practically work on a semi-automatic way, with no real human based examination of the submission. They've received their € or $, then they insert you in their directory.
The trick to discover those kind of directories is to explore deep into their "who we are" pages... sometimes in an excess of promoting themselves thy start to talk of "link juice" "pagerank" "link exchange is not needed but it helps..." ... that's the sign that is better to push back on your browser.
Unfortunately, too many of our favorite Yahoo! properties are either going to disappear or just decay over the next couple of years. It's sad, but there's not much we can do about it, unless we can scrape together a couple hundred-million dollars.
Or really unleash hell (citing Leonidas in 300) and create a 10 million Yahoo! Directory fans club in Facebook or flood Twitter with "I'm against the Yahoo dir extiction"... this last method worked quite well against Cartago (when the Roman senator Cato was ending every speech with "and Cartago must be destroyed")... maybe it could work with Binghoo! ;-)
MicroHoo did say awhile back that they would be keeping the properties that were popular, so that gives me some hope on behalf of the stuff I use often, like the directory and Site Explorer. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Nice article! I think you've covered the reasons why google might not be responding.
Perhaps this will draw a reply from Matt Cutts himself.
I've certainly been experiencing the same thing - getting swamped by competition obviously using linkspam, paidlinks, and even hacking sites.
I don't know why google doesn't respond, but I was thinking there might be a way to spark some kind of action - create a more public 'wall of shame' where seo / webmaster types can at least vent in public, but anonymously, their frustrations with spam.. i.e. users could post clear examples to share with the community instead of reporting to google's 'secret police' ... maybe have a digg-style voting so the most interesting cases rise to the top. that kind of thing.
That could be an idea... but then it would probably need a spammy-police too... digg is not such a great model to use as an example.
#1 sums it up, it's just not scalable. Would be a good question to Matt on how many spam reports Google gets in a day.
Great info! I often wonder if maybe Google hasn't gotten so big that it can't handle all the spam complaints anymore. The volume must be overwhelming!
Antti
- Casey Removed Link
Whoa! Missed that somehow chenry! You're on board as an associate? Way cool.
Yeah if you like stealing web designs & copy =P.
@trax: Huh?? I was only congratulating Casey for being an SEOmoz associate. Although perhaps I should have offered condolences as he's got three jobs to juggle now.
Head over to copyscape and put in the URL to my site ;-).
That == not cool.
Ah. I thought you misunderstood me.
For what it's worth, it looks like a completely different site to me. :)
It's been taken down now, but it was originally pretty much exactly the same as mine. Even used a few of the same images stolen from my site, some stolen copy and so on and so forth.
Either way, he knew he was in the wrong as he took the site down. Still, I've had no response from the email I sent to him haha. He must be ashamed of himself!!
At first I was flattered, I thought it was an amateur web-user who was creating a site and had been inspired a little too much. Then when I looked into it more and more I realised that he was an associate of one of the largest SEO-centric sites on the web? Then I started to get really annoyed.
There are a lot of people who I showed before it was pulled down who were amazed by the similarities haha.
Hey Trax, this probably isn't the place to discuss this, but I'll just add one more point. You can PM me if you want to talk further.
I know you didn't ask for my advice, but today's your lucky day, as I'm going to share it for free :)
As of right now nobody's copying your site. So take that as a good thing and move on. I'd let old grudges go and live in the now.
One never really knows the why's behind anothers actions so think the best of them. And look at the bright side. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery :)
Pretty awesome eh!? Casey is my new best friend and lifesaver!
Awww, I love getting new best friends!
I believe Google’s algorithms are already very good at detecting paid links. If you can see them on a page, a bot is going to sniff them out no problem. By blocking the link juice passed on these types a links, it causes webmasters/SEOs a real headache in expensive, time consuming testing. This is the penalty and over time these sites will drop away as the links are nullified.
I sincerely want this to be the case, but my eyes tell me otherwise when I look at one of my client's competitors who have obviously paid sitewide links from under 10 unique domains, and nothing else to speak of.
The only way I think Google is already effective at devaluing paid links is if these spammy sites are getting juice some other way other than from the obvious link buys.
But in principle, this is the best way to hit the spammers: just make their stuff quietly stop working.
hopefully your clients competitor with only links from 10 unique domains is getting his but severely kicked by you. ten unique linking domains is frickin horrible.