What is spam?

[SPC2]

Ah, the risk factor. Yes, there's a risk factor, but that doesn't come into this discussion. If people are content to take the risk, then it's their choice. What I can't see it that there is anything wrong with using certain methods to get those top rankings, and yet it's ok to use other methods to achieve the same thing.

You want it to be like vs like, and I'm more than happy to have an advantage. We won't come to an agreement about that.

[brian.mark]

Originally Posted by hoptoo

Wow at least I know im not crazy, I almost typed this same thing Brian.

MSN yes definately, Yahoo - Yes 3 months ago, but not now. Google no.

but on the other note, your mention that something with a city name doesnt really warrant first page billing for individual results, may show as facts in the serps, but its a fact that is flawed.

I think a "miami hotel" or "charlotte restaurant" that can never seem to find themselves buried below, magicyellow.com,about.com and other useless garbage may feel that their search is important, and this is a flaw.

These searches are maybe 2% of all citysearch traffic, but they are 100% of a hotel or restaurants traffic n that city, and they are more relevent to what was searched.

How many sites listing the address and phone number do we really need?

Not 10.

I'd agree to a point there. At some point, I think there is going to be a shift where we'll no longer see 10 blue links when doing the local searches and we'll see listings from Google Local results... top 10 / 20 businesses in that area that match the query... just like product results will shift to Froogle results when when they know for certain it is a product query and not just a general web query.

That should help considerably with spam - using results from trusted feeds. Then everyone will be scrambling to figure out how to SPAM Froogle, Google Local, Google News, etc. Some are already trying it, and I'm slowly seeing those vertical searches evolve to fight those techniques. I'll be happy when that occurs, because we'll be sitting pretty.

Brian.

[jackson992]

Originally Posted by SPC2

Janeth recently asked "what is spam?" She asked several times, but she only managed to get one answer. Mel wrote that spam is "Sites Positioned Above Mine" - a nice answer, but not exactly accurate :)

Search engine spam is whatever the engines think it is, and they don't need to say it publically. If an engine does not think that hidden text is spam, then for that engine, hidden text is not spam. Whatever an engine doesn't want, is spam for that engine. That's pretty much what spam is.

Some of the engines have been kind enough to tell us some of the things that they think of as spam. Unfortunately, some people are blind, and treat what the engines say as dogma. For instance, Google refers to "sneaky redirects" as being spam, and I've come across people who insist that all redirects are, therefore, spam. But it isn't true. Some auto-redirects make a site function properly, and they are not seen as spam by the engines. I have one such site that was examined by Matt Cutts, and he found the auto-redirects to be fine.

Doorway pages and cloaking are two other spam things that Google mentions in their guidelines, but they too have valid uses, and are not always spam in the engines' eyes.

So there is no definitive statement as to the spam methods - not even in the engines' guidelines. Perhaps the best way to decide if something is or isn't spam is to ask whether or not the thing is done for people/site or for the engines, but even that isn't foolproof. We all optimize page Titles for the engines, rather than for people, and we all tailor anchor text for the engines rather than for people, even though we keep in people in mind with both of those things.

OMG I hope you are not in the SEO business. Saying that just because a search engine doesn't penalize for something doesn't make it any less spammy. Everyone knows hidden text is Black Hat and all sites using it deserve to be banned. Doorway pages and cloaking are always spam, there's no need for them unless you are trying to trick the search engines.

[jackson992]

You guys also need to watch what you say about affiliate sites. Calling all sites spam is just plain ridiculous.

[ctabuk]

There have been 3 reports of 'bad postings made' during this thread. The original thread was 'What is Spam' - I have read the entire thread, I think there has been some 'sniping' but not unequally, I think those who intend to set a thread running in 'A certain Direction'have achieved their goal. So can I ask you all to stay on topic please.

So - if I see a site above me in Google and Lord knows there are enough of them - and I see one with the keywords repeated 20 times or whatever 'spamming' tatics have been employed do I
1 Copy it and hope it does not affect me on the other SE's
2 Hope to God that they get caught.

General Question for all SEO's Have any of you ever 'Spammed a SE for financial gain? And Did it work? And for how long did the SERPs last?

[Faglork]

(ctabuk beat me in posting)

[SPC2]

ctabuk. Unless I missed something, the sniping was in the first few posts, and then it stopped. I don't see any point in bringing it up so much later. Please don't start from side issues in this thread.

Originally Posted by jackson992

OMG I hope you are not in the SEO business. Saying that just because a search engine doesn't penalize for something doesn't make it any less spammy. Everyone knows hidden text is Black Hat and all sites using it deserve to be banned. Doorway pages and cloaking are always spam, there's no need for them unless you are trying to trick the search engines.

I certainly am in the seo business, and have been for a very long time, so I've had plenty of time to form my views.

I never said that some things are not spam or spammy just because a search engine doesn't penalise for it. I haven't tried to suggest that spam doesn't exist, or anything along those lines. What I've said is that there is nothing wrong with spam. I think you misunderstood what I wrote.

You say that, "Everyone knows hidden text is Black Hat and all sites using it deserve to be banned", but you don't say why. Everyone knows that not all hidden text is blackhat, and I don't think that anyone would disagree with that, but why do you think that sites that spam with hidden text deserve to be banned? Please explain your reasoning.

You also say that, "Doorway pages and cloaking are always spam, there's no need for them unless you are trying to trick the search engines.", but you are mistaken. Cloaking is often used by search engines themselves, including Google, and it is used by most forums with Google's blessing, so it isn't always spam. Doorway pages are not always spam, but it depends what you mean by doorway pages. However, cloaking and doorway pages are often used to spam the engines, but why do you say that it's wrong? Please explain. Why do you suggest that trying to trick the engines is wrong?

Your statements are fine, and your opinions are shared by many people, but I'd like us to get to the bottom of it and discuss what it is that makes those things wrong, and makes you think that sites deserve to banned from the engines. The statement that you made doesn't explain anything, and we need explanations/reasons if we are to accept it.

[greeneagle]

ctabuk:

"There have been 3 reports of 'bad postings made' during this thread. The original thread was 'What is Spam' - I have read the entire thread, I think there has been some 'sniping' but not unequally, I think those who intend to set a thread running in 'A certain Direction'have achieved their goal. So can I ask you all to stay on topic please.

So - if I see a site above me in Google and Lord knows there are enough of them - and I see one with the keywords repeated 20 times or whatever 'spamming' tatics have been employed do I
1 Copy it and hope it does not affect me on the other SE's
2 Hope to God that they get caught.

General Question for all SEO's Have any of you ever 'Spammed a SE for financial gain? And Did it work? And for how long did the SERPs last?"

This was a reasonable MOD request for EVERYONE to watch getting heated in the debate. It was addressed as a general appeal.

It's more than a reasonable request with as many threads MODs & ADMINs have had to step into, quaranteen and lock down lately.

Everyone loses when that happens.

It was obvious that this thread was most likely going to get heated, but I think everyone is getting tired of the sniping from thread to thread.

IMO - Spam is better fried, anyway!

Can we carry on?

Ken

[greeneagle]

jackson992:

"You guys also need to watch what you say about affiliate sites. Calling all sites spam is just plain ridiculous."

You are right about that jackson992. We have a very good "Affiliate Discussion Forum" here at WPW.

Having said that though, I think part of the bad rap is due to the reputation some affiliate marketers have made for the rest of the industry using Spam Techniques.

The more professional "Performance Marketing" websites and members comprise a valuable "Pay For Performance Marketing" outlet for a host of well known companies, such as Dell.

Most of the well managed affiliate programs have very strict Spam guidelines these days, already helping reverse the negative reputation established in the past.

Professional organizations such as LinkConnector have also contributed well to the better management of affiliate programs for Merchants.

Ken

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by SPC2

Ah, the risk factor. Yes, there's a risk factor, but that doesn't come into this discussion. If people are content to take the risk, then it's their choice. What I can't see it that there is anything wrong with using certain methods to get those top rankings, and yet it's ok to use other methods to achieve the same thing.

You want it to be like vs like, and I'm more than happy to have an advantage. We won't come to an agreement about that.

I'm happy to have no rules as well. Either way is fine with me. Same playing field with the same rules enforced the same way. Any advantage would be due to knowlege and ability and not being able to beat or circumvent the system.

If the SE's going to have things that are considered unacceptable then enforce them. A person willing to risk having their site banned should not have a "relevancy advantage" over one who does not. Risk does indeed play a factor.

Dave

[kgun]

kgun wrote:

SERP Spam:
By SERP spam we mean any thechnique, not related to content, that results in a manipulated position on the SERP's of one or more SE.

pemburung wrote:

SERP Spam:
pages on a SERP that are not relevant to the search term, have been manipulated to artificially raise their SERP rank over that which would be achieved normally through content, relevancy, and good design, or serve no useful purpose for a searcher. Also, the use of techniques, legitimate or otherwise, to achieve this.

Any other?

[pemburung]

"There have been 3 reports of 'bad postings made' during this thread. The original thread was 'What is Spam' - I have read the entire thread, I think there has been some 'sniping' but not unequally, I think those who intend to set a thread running in 'A certain Direction'have achieved their goal. So can I ask you all to stay on topic please. "

"General Question for all SEO's Have any of you ever 'Spammed a SE for financial gain? And Did it work? And for how long did the SERPs last?"

This is off-topic.

"Two mods. both trying to take the thread off topic, why?"

Really only one mod was, but it's still a reasonable question, and not rude.

"Let me explain in simple terms that even you two should comprehend."

This is flat-out rude and undeserved.

"Now for the last time.
Have any SEO's ever spammed a search engine for financial gain. Did it work? And if so for how long?"

This is aggressively insisting that posters, who have been doing an excellent job at staying on-topic through this, go off-topic.

I'm pretty even-handed, I think, and have no iron in anyone's fire, but IMO the majority of the heat in the second section of this thread (the first section stopped, actually due to SPC2 pretty much insisting that it did, and would everyone stay on topic) is due to ctabuk's post, which may have been a bit late, but after SPC2 response probably not knowing that, could have ended. SPC2 is the thread owner; if he requests posters to stay on topic, to my understanding of forum etiquette, that's fine.

[ctabuk]

How about the old fashioned mis spelling of keywords hoping for that one off (or sometimes often)hit on site?

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by ctabuk

How about the old fashioned mis spelling of keywords hoping for that one off (or sometimes often)hit on site?

Interesting. Is optimising for mispellings/alternate spellings spamming?

Not neccessarily in my book. An example might be jewelry, jewelery, and jewellry.

However, mispelling "car" to "cat" because "t" is next to "r" on the keyboard would likely have the vast majority of searchers finding a site not related to their search.

Dave

[ctabuk]

Dave, you've hit the nail straight on the head. Jewelry is just about the biggest subject matter that I get site requests to do, and there are always different spellings.

[pemburung]

I don't think optimizing for misspellings is any more spam than any reasonable technique to get visitors to your website. It's no different to using the correct spelling, just accounting for user errors that do occur. In another couple of years we're going to have to include text message spelling, as there's going to be part of a generation who know little else for some words. Think "nite" instead of "night" today.

If "through" were a product, would it be spam for an UK-based company to also including "thru" to attract the US market? I don't think so.

[mike]

I've done some substantial clean-up in this thread. We should be able to discuss this without implicating/involving anyone's personal businesses or sites.

Let's play nice.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by kgun

kgun wrote:

SERP Spam:
By SERP spam we mean any thechnique, not related to content, that results in a manipulated position on the SERP's of one or more SE.

pemburung wrote:

SERP Spam:
pages on a SERP that are not relevant to the search term, have been manipulated to artificially raise their SERP rank over that which would be achieved normally through content, relevancy, and good design, or serve no useful purpose for a searcher. Also, the use of techniques, legitimate or otherwise, to achieve this.

Any other?

This pretty well sums it up for me.

I would however like to comment on an line of thought that SPC2 brought up in this thread and Mel in another that as long as a result is relevant and/or useful for the searcher, then it shouldn't matter how that result got there.

Let's suppose SE's adopted that principle...

"We don't care how it gets there as long as it's relevant to the querie and useful to the searcher."

What do you suppose would happen? I have to believe that the SERPS would become far less relevant and useful. There'd be so much more useless drivel being pushed to the first pages that all searchers would likely find would be paid links to click on. Likely be nothing but chaos as most anything without rules/guidelines.

Dave

[greeneagle]

"I would however like to comment on an line of thought that SPC2 brought up in this thread and Mel in another that as long as a result is relevant and/or useful for the searcher, then it shouldn't matter how that result got there."

The issue here though fundamentally demands that someone determine what is most relevant, most of the time.

There are suppositions that desktop integrations may be fed in at some point in the future, personalizing search to a greater degree, and there seems to be a great deal of research going that direction. However, there is also a great deal of public resistance there citing privacy issues.

Ken

[ADAM Web Design]

"I would however like to comment on an line of thought that SPC2 brought up in this thread and Mel in another that as long as a result is relevant and/or useful for the searcher, then it shouldn't matter how that result got there."

So when sites use Javascript redirects, hidden text/links, doorway pages, and other tactics which have a negative impact on the overall user experience, then this is okay?

This is one of the fundamental flaws with search engines: they haven't yet figured out how to take the user experience into account and make it a primary, if not the primary, factor.

If they can ever figure that out, the spam issue will be a lot less prevalent than it is now.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

So when sites use Javascript redirects, hidden text/links, doorway pages, and other tactics which have a negative impact on the overall user experience, then this is okay?

<>

If the user lands on a page that matches their querie and they find it useful, how is their experience negatively impacted?

</ >

Dave

[jackson992]

The reason I posted about Black Hat hidden text etc was because it is something not visible to the naked eye. Hidden text there is no reason period to use. It benefits noone. I'd much prefer "spam" to something like this. Cloaking is only of use if you are trying to trick the search engines.

[williamc]

Originally Posted by jackson992

Cloaking is only of use if you are trying to trick the search engines.

That is not true at all. As was shown earlier in the thread, many forum software uses cloaking in an acceptable to the engines manner.

[pemburung]

Originally Posted by crankydave

<>

If the user lands on a page that matches their querie and they find it useful, how is their experience negatively impacted?

</ >

Dave

Users lands on a SERP, not a "useful page." They then have to decide which link to click on. A spammed SERP may show 10 links, but they can all be to the same site, reducing the user's ability to choose. This could obviously extend to several pages, or more, but still only involving one or two sites. A well-constructed doorway page spamming effort could dominate the top 10 or 15 pages, virtually locking out all other sites. Each page could look totally different, appearing to be different suppliers, virtually negating the usefulness of the www marketplace for both users and many websites.

[tobyd]

Come on guys can't we all get along. This forum is becoming entertaining but not informative. WebPro needs to get a hold of the squabble and direct attention to useful information. It obvious this thread does not have useful information. But it has been as entertaining as Jerry Springer.

[DrTandem1]

I want to try and encapsulate what spam is. Firstly, we must distinguish what type of spam. I'm talking about spam that is on web pages, not email spam.

Spam is any repetitive use of a term for the sole purpose of artificially increasing SERP ranking.

Some will want to draw lines, but I think the qualifier "sole purpose" limits those lines.

One good example would be a Google-bomb. Repetitive anchor text pointing to a URL that really has nothing to do with the anchor text.

Another example of spam on a page of the web site itself would be repetitive terms (hidden or otherwise) that are of no value to the visitor.

[kgun]

kgun wrote:

SERP Spam:
By SERP spam we mean any thechnique, not related to content, that results in a manipulated position on the SERP's of one or more SE.

pemburung wrote:

SERP Spam:
pages on a SERP that are not relevant to the search term, have been manipulated to artificially raise their SERP rank over that which would be achieved normally through content, relevancy, and good design, or serve no useful purpose for a searcher. Also, the use of techniques, legitimate or otherwise, to achieve this.

DrTandem1 wrote:

Spam
is any repetitive use of a term for the sole purpose of artificially increasing SERP ranking.

This may end as a very informative thread if we could get some more constructive proposals. Then we may agree on a synthesis.