Google Cracks Down on Search Engine Spam

By Anna Johnson on January 30th, 2011

Google plans to crack down on search engine spam a.k.a. ‘webspam’ according to its Principal Engineer and search spokesman, Matt Cutts.

While Cutts says Google’s search results contain less than half the spam it had 5 years ago, a recent increase in webspam has prompted the company to increase efforts to eliminate webspam from the search engine.

Matt Cutts says Google has already introduced a redesigned ‘document-level classifier’ to identify webspam, which he defines as “junk you see in search results when websites try to cheat their way into higher positions in search results or otherwise violate search engine quality guidelines.”

Google’s new document-level classifier “is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spammy words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments.”

Meanwhile, Google has beefed up its ability to identify hacked sites, another big source of search engine spam in 2010, and is also looking at further changes that, for example, identify sites that predominately contain content copied from other websites.

Finally, Google is turning its attention to ‘content farms’ – websites containing “shallow or low-quality content.” According to Cutts, Google plans to heed Internet users’ demand for “stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content.”

Hear, hear Google – getting rid of webspam won’t just help Internet users find higher quality content, but will also help legitimate Internet marketers rank more highly for their targeted keywords.

Source: Matt Cutts, “Google search and search engine spam,” January 21, 2011

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 30th, 2011 at 12:45 pm and is filed under Feature, Search Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.