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Whenever I'm driving I carry with me a notebook and pencil. During the times I obey the speed limit, I jot down the plate numbers of all speeding cars that pass me and every day send this list to the police. I tell them it isn't fair that someone breaking the law should get somewhere before I do.
Of course when I speed, I don't report myself. Nor do I report fellow speeders as long as they don't pass me. In short, I'm entitled to be first because I'm more important than anyone else.
I presume it is currently pointless to point out spam on -fi, -sj, www2 or whatever - but I could be wrong.
On which servers and from what time should we start feeding back any specific examples, GG?
[didn't know these threads would be combined, sorry]
[edited by: HenryUK at 9:49 pm (utc) on May 6, 2003]
Hmm - I always keep reporting any spammy sites that are below me too. Hopefully by the time I get done, when someone searches on my keywords, mine will be the only site returned! ha ha ha
;-)
Henry
I guess that the normal email address for spam reports gets many many mails. Most of them are probably related to the www.google.com SERPS
Is there a way for google to pre filter -sj related spam issues?
Wouldn't that help them and us?
different email address, '-sj' in the subject line?
Right now normal google and -sj are quiet different, and I could imagine its different people working on both versions.
But maybe its only people that are reading webmasterworld that write spam reports?
You may have seen plenty of people moaning about sites ranking better than them but I think you should look before jumping! These guys keep stealing our designs and text, they rank 4 places below us for our major search term, I have contacted them direct before and they dismiss all wrongdoings and say that the nature of the internet is to copy other sites. This really pisses me off.
The spam report page is linked from Google's quality guidelines [google.com] page. Ultimately, Google will decide what they do and don't want to list.
needinfo, if someone has stolen from you then it goes far beyond a search engine 'spam' issue. I suggest you consider legal avenues, although jurisdictions can be a problem of course. Also, see Google's page on copyright infringement [google.com].
[google.com...]
The inappropriate place to report Google spam is:
[webmasterworld.com...]
You are spot on, but I was attempting to find out some sensible info about timing of reports - not actually trying to do any reporting here...
:-)
is that right?
Henry
There's nothing special about his pages (they're someone PR4-5, not sure how). The only things they have is:
a) <h3>'s with keywords including a link to an if.jpg (1x1 blank image) file within it.
b) Multiple Fonts
c) Insane inner-linking between his sitse (each of his 500 sites has links to 100+ others of his own)
d) Displays the URL of his site (Ie: "www.domain.com website")
e) Relevant <title></title>, relevant meta description, relevant meta keywords
f) ONE link to "enter" the site which goes to start.html which does a meta refresh to a program he's promoting
He does not have things that I thought were important (prior to this):
a) Content
b) Back links
c) Domain relevancy
d) Multiple pages (they're all just one page spam sites)
To sum it up, this guy's sites are complete trash and are continuously getting listed under whichever terms he desires. I used to think I somewhat knew what to do (aka create a quality site) but it seems as if this no longer matters. I hate to say it, but if ya can't beat em, join em? Seems to be the policy of the future.
I had filled similar “Spam report” many times but nothing happened - all Spam techniques possible:
1) Cross linking multiple domains (30+)
2) Duplicate content creations (1000+ pages)
3) Acquired links from XXX sites
Waited for long even posted in WebmasterWorld (Not the URLs / SERPs / specifics) Still my post was deleted from the forum.
Now think about this -
1) I am responsible for site rankings over the search engines.
2) I am not suppose to explain by boss that creating multiple sites and creating considerable amount of duplicate content is Spam because the question asked back is - if it does work for the competition why I am not following it?
3) Now I am force to do Spam when I its against my ethics and when I am working hard to make by site SE friendly with focus on users of the site.
Conclusion – Spam works / report it, still it works / forget it and join the club
I am going to file another report if it doesn’t work I am will follow Spam for my entire life because I can’t loose my job and die of hunger :(
Filled a report using [google.com...]
To googleguy - from Shaadi
But OTHO I like what ODP have done, you report Spam/ inquiry/ as for even submission status and you get it right within 24 hrs by their forum at resource zone.
Why can't we have a resource zone for Google?
Timing matters less, HenryUK--feel free to send them in now.You'll want to include your nickname and something like "webmasterworld" or "googleguy," and feel free to include "sj" as well. needinfo, the truly complicated reports like the one you mentioned might get used as testdata for newer algorithms. If there are ways to break it down into smaller, simpler spam reports, that might help. But feel free to resubmit--it doesn't hurt.
It doesn't hurt, but it does take some time. Should we still be in the 'relax and wait and see' state, or the 'go for it and report' state?
There's loads o' spam all around me and clients sites, but nothing too sophisticated - just hidden text using either hidden frames, divs, colored text, or no scroll bars.
I always find spam when doing web searches. Either I don't click on the link at all in the SERP's because I can tell it's spam just from the snippet/description or I immediately hit my back button upon arrival at a spammy site and continue on to the next result. Doesn't everyone do this?
Not trying to be a jerk; I'm just honestly wondering from reading the posts here if I should be out searching for spam to report.
IMHO, you have to take into account the lowest common denominator when designing for the web... and there are a lot of people who haven't got a clue what spam, in the SE context, is.
Now, you don't have to go looking for Spam. It's quite simple, build a site for yourself, or, if your in the industry, for a client. You or they want to finish near the top, so you optimize your content for maximum visibility. Then someone comes along loaded with Spam, or using some other technique that violates Google's TOS and they bump you outta sight. No searching to do!
There is a very fine line between optimal optimization and spam. I'm not saying spam doesn't exist as I have railed against such practices myself.
Build your site for the end user and to capture as many "relevent" browsers as you can. If Google feels your report has merit, you will soon see the spammer disappear.
There is a non-profit site that is far superior to mine, that deserves to be number one, which I beat out almost every update. Last month they managed to get ahead of me but so far this update I'm back ahead of them.
I'm not spamming; in fact I haven't even optimized this section of my site yet. I wonder if they hate me or if they've even noticed?
