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SPAM Shrine by arnold | inuyaki, on Flickr
There’s been much debate in the search engine circles over the last few weeks about the quality of Google’s search results. Many leading SEO experts are criticising the amount of spam still apparent in search results despite Google saying they’re clamping down on it. I still notice spammy results in search engines (my bugbear is finding endless irrelevant directory or over optimised ‘landing’ pages), and it doesn’t help in keeping searchers using the search engines, particularly now there are so many alternatives (such as social networks!)
We’re pretty much down to only two search engines, Google & Bing, now that Bing are powering (or about to power) Yahoo search. So not a great deal of choice for those of us using the regular search engines to find information. Google and Bing therefore need to make sure they keep as much spam as possible out of their results.
However, spam has been around for years and is likely to stay whatever the search engines do. Certain types of SEO practitioners (known as ‘black hat’ in the industry), find it a challenge to constantly game the search engines, so as soon as the search engines clamp down on one thing, they’ll find another way of spamming. For those of us who help our clients to promote their websites in an ethical manner, it’s disheartening to see spammy sites outranking the good ones and of course, clients wondering why their site is ranking below much lower quality sites! It’s very frustrating for the client as well as for the consultant, whose advice doesn’t always appear to work.
And search engine spam isn’t the only problem. Email spam seems to be worse than ever, more and more of it coming from Russia and China. The more people who use the social networks, the more likely we’re going to run into spam there too. I’m sure those of you who use Twitter have noticed spam tweets and Facebook is having to deal with the ever increasing amount of spam and fake accounts too. You can read about the measures they’re taking here: Explaining Facebook’s Spam Prevention Systems.
Comment spam is a major headache for bloggers. Fortunately there are some good comment spam programs, which filter out the majority of comment spam, but it’s getting more prolific. Spam a big downside of the web, but in my opinion, it’s here to stay, so to some extent we have to learn to live with it and do our best to avoid it.
The recent criticism around the search engines does make interesting reading and you may have your own opinions on it. Here’s a pick of some of the posts I’ve been reading and how Google is planning on clamping down:
Google (and Bing) Love Anchor Text Link Spam – from Highrankings.com
How ‘content farms’ beat Google at its own search game – from WashingtonPost.com
Google search and search engine spam – from The Official Google Blog (Google’s response to recent criticism)
The Google Spam-Jam – from SearchEngineWatch.com
Google tries to crack down on ‘web spam’ – from InternetRetailer.com
Is Google stepping up its anti-web spam efforts? – from Econsultancy.com
Have you noticed much spam in the search engines? Is it affecting the performance of your website? Please share your views!
About Sam
Sam McArthur is an internet marketing consultant with 12 years in the industry. She helps professional service businesses with their internet marketing strategy, helping them to see significant results from their online marketing activities, particularly within the search engines. She also consults on the latest internet tools, technology and best practice techniques.
