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peace
I recently had an idea. In the main areas I've been focusing on, I've seen a lot of sites spamming guestbooks and getting very good rankings.
Here's my idea:
What would happen if all of the very spammy guestbooks suddenly had a few entries that pointed to link farms? It won't penalize anyone, it would just PR0 the guestbooks resulting in no value gained from the spammed links. It would sort of be a way for us vigilante webmasters to tag guestbooks for google to drop them out.
Just a fantasy on my part as it probably wouldn't work, but it's fun to dream.
Regarding spam reports, we've been putting more effort lately into scalable spam algorithms and less into individual reports. You should see that bearing fruit relatively soon, and then we can go back and do another iteration using newer spam reports as training data.
Regarding spam reports, we've been putting more effort lately into scalable spam algorithms and less into individual reports. You should see that bearing fruit relatively soon, and then we can go back and do another iteration using newer spam reports as training data.
I wait with baited breath, sounds promising!
On a side note Googleguy, how much traffic do www2 and 3 see about this time of each month? Does it increase a huge amount?
[google.com...]
Do these new algo's deal with image links that can't be seen against the page background?
I've only been interested in SEO for about 6 months now and this technique has been getting through your filters for that long at least. I'm talking about fairly simple stuff such as very small white images against a white background.
Could you give us some insight into what type of spam you're targeting with these new algo's?
But a good rule of thumb would always be to review our quality guidelines and make sure you're in good shape on those. :)
I've been developing software for 25 years now so fully understand the need for testing. I've also seen the difference from what the marketing guy says and what the product actually does.
Therefore forgive me for being cynical and assuming the next 6 months will be any different from the last 6 (or even worse now you are putting less effort into individual spam reports). I get the feeling there is a lot of verbal but very little action.
Seeing as you are happy to talk about live spam filtering, could you (or anybody else) remind me what major progress you have made in the last 6 months.
Can you tell us (at this point) if the next update will comtain any significant improvements to the spam detection?
If not, I do understand, but will you be able to let us know after the update has started/finished?
When people report cloaking scripts, and you ignore these, I fail to see how your comments fit. Sure, you can add more / tweek your algo for things like mirrored content, hidden links, and link farms, but not for cloaking.
When you find someone cloaking (as I have - I got different results from my bot them my browser). I reported this and nothing happens. Nothing. As cloaking must surely be a manual intervention thing for your guys, this shows that the report spam system at Google is just not working / being ignored.
Having written to Google also, saying I was going to follow suit with these other sites unless you told me not to. I got no reply, which means what? Go ahead or no-one listens?
GrinninGordon, there are automatic ways to spot cloaking.
I recently indexed quality non-spam pages in other search engines and got 0 referrals.
Upon investigation I found an enourmous amount of spam filling almost all first 30 to 50 results. My humble opinion is that other engines come nowhere close to how Google has been able to filter out spam. There may be plenty of room for improvement but learning about these other engines has changed the way I see Google's antispam efforts.
Almost everyone in here dodged the spam fact, and told me it's a copyright issue, and totally ignored the fact of what I was actually saying.
phish, I feel your pain, bro! I get the feeling that it's almost taboo to say anything that might seem negative about google in this forum. For example, (and even in the wake of the monster thread "Google seems to be getting hearder to use") the comments by BT that
Since Google has never detailed what it thinks are problem results or tactics, how do you know it's a problem?
just don't make sense to me. Can't one infer from googles submission guidelines [google.com] that spam is a problem tactic? But in reality, those of us who are squawking about the spam in google these days are not only squawking because it hurts our business, but it hurts google. And everybody here want's to see google continue to do well. We don't talk about it because we just want to slam google. Heck, if we didn't give a rat's tail about the "little search engine that could", we wouldn't be here in the first place.
I personally believe that Google is very concerned about the spam and is working hard on a fix. I think that not only is the Searchking issue a factor (Google may now have a *temporary* problem x'ing certain sites for potential legal reasons) but also, I don't think the spam issue played a big part in their original concept of the PR algo, at lease the spam issue as we have it today. I could be way out on a limb here, but I wonder if google spent much time at the "crystal ball", thinking about those who would put up thousands of links on hundreds of link farms to take advantage of PR. Who could know?
In the final analysts, all the dynamics, the technical issues, the legal issues, and whatever else issues they have to contend with, are huge. And they're going to take time to fix. Google is not going to sit on their duff and do nothing. There's way too much at stake for that. I believe google hates spam as much as I do because it does deteriorate quality so badly, and gogle want's a fix that will work over the long haul. I don't think they don't want to fix something that will need fixing again a month down the road. Consider that the greatest percentage of us here at WebmasterWorld have no real idea of the complexity of there system, and what it takes to fix what's become problematic. I think we all have to bide our time in faith that google will continue to improve, and again be all it's cracked up to be... and not be afraid to post our displeasure when it's not!
try it on FAST...it wont happen. The new and quickly upcoming searchengines are beating down spam faster than it arises resulting in more relavant inquiries.
-phish
Google doesn't want to check spam reports and remove or penalize BY HAND. They let their machines learn from the reports and build better spam detection BY ALGO.
Look, 3+ Bio pages is terribly much. You can't even start to penalize BY HAND or you'll end with a index mixture. Domains can expire, can be sold. IP's can change their owner. No way to stay fair and objektiv with a hand cleaned index!
Report spam once or twice a month, then forget and wait what happens. But don't loose your nerves if nothing happens even after 6 month. Use this time to work on your site and to beat the spammers by building a better site. BTW: if you take the #1 spots just because the "spammers" above were booted isn't a real challenge. A far bigger challenge is beating them BY BETTER QUALITY ... allthough it's tough and sometimes impossible.
IMHO, patience and strong work on your own projects is the clue here!
For me, i don't complain about spammers any longer. I accept that google is driven by machines NOT BY HAND!
.. and also not by pigeons. ;)
-phish
Disagree with you on this one. I don't think spam is hurting Google and I think this is why they aren't doing anything about it. Why would Google be bothered if 10 spam listings for 'widgets' are above 10 non spam listings? Searchers win, Google wins but honest webmaster lose.
robertito62 and phish,
Googles (and Fasts) ranking algo rely less on 'on page' factors than the 'old firm' engines and are naturally less prone to 'old style' spam. The problems for Google lie more with artificial linking.
Yidaki,
Are you basing your 'patient' approach on experience or blind faith. I'd be interested to know your opinion of which type of spam Google has managed to eliminate with its spam filters. I'm not saying there isn't any but I can't think of any, please enlighten me please.
Ive been reporting a site for the last 5 updates...I sent them the EXACT link to the site...when you do a search and this particular site comes up then you click on the "more from this site" link 360 pages of keyword stuffed junk pages come up, and they do nothing about it. BLATENT spam and google does zippo. Now I look thru some of these for about an hour so...and this guy is using text from competitors sites in some of these pages..actual company names and stuff. Why dont they listen? I read the thread Brett started last night and GG jumped in and asked what Google can do.."give us some suggestions" he said. Well if you look at Brett's original post it was that when he does a search on a certain phrase he really has to get deep into a search to find anything relavant. Why is this? Because of people like this.So if Google is looking for something to do instead of adding on more stuff..they should just take care of what they already have. Quit relying 100% on the algo, and do more human editing.
What you expected something sensible from 60 PHDS and a brain surgeon?
This is nonsense, google is making a nonsense out of a lot of things - they are too powerful and need to be brought down a peg or two. I have had better results from teoma and all the web recently, hope thos overture/fast/alltheweb
will stop the almightly party that is going on over at google. They are no.1 do you really believe they are in any rush to make things better - for me google has past it's peak.
But for some reason, even though I rank well, referrals are just but a few.
You can't even compare the two. Fast dreams of the day that they will have to deal with the level spam that Google has to deal with.
Google may have 60 PhD's, but they are competing against thousands and thousands of well funded spammers who no longer focus their time across 5 or 6 different engines. Spammers go where the traffic is, and at the moment, that means Google 24/7.
I'm not sure how anyone can really expect Google to police a database containing over 3 billion pages by hand. Spam reports identify general areas of weakness. Programmers then try to correct those areas of weakness without messing up everything else. That takes time.
So report it, don't do it yourself and then move on.
How does the Twilight Zone theme go again? Fast has enough spam to feed Ethiopia a thousand times over. Google is so much better it simply isn't even worth killing electrons over anymore.
I never compared FAST to Google, only to other search engines. I personally think Google does an awesome job containing spam for the amount of pages it has indexed.
Maybe you are lucky enough to be able to move on.
GG
I look through the archives here and see comments that you have operators that check spam reports on a case by case basis. Now it seems that is not the case. Can't have it both ways!
If link farms, hidden links, duplicate content and cloaking scripts are reportedly penalized by Google. And if many people here say they have been reporting such events / cases for the last 6 months without any joy. What is going wrong? If I can name sites that have employed these tactics for that 6 months, and have been reported to Google John Cleese knows how many times. How come the operators or the algos don't pick these up?
The rhetoric about "we are taking care of this" has been the same all along. In fact, Google's threshold for Spam is now infinitely higher then it was 6 months ago. It seems to me almost that someone won a court case or something against Google here, and anti-spam algos were removed.
I no longer bother reporting spam to Google. As I have said, I physically wrote to Google detailing a group of the worse Spammers and said "Put up, or put up from us all doing the exact same thing." It has been 6 months since this first started. Now I believe you can see enough people have had enough of the promises, and have absolutely no choice but to dish up their own Hormel as well. I have no doubt that nothing will change, and your words are just there to disuade others.
By the way, does Google have a staff canteen and what's on the menu (as in "What do you want with your Spam")!
While the smaller straight shooters will be empty.
I Hope I am Wrong
Your solution of reporting and moving on doesn't work. Do you actually believe Google are implementing filters? Do you have any examples? In theory it should work, why do you think it doesn't?
Googleguy said in an earlier post in another thread that 85% of spam reports are correct. Why can't they remove the site and build filters? How much more effort does it take to remove a site after investigating that it is really spamming?
If they removed reported sights then yes more will be reported but the disincentive will be there and the growing problem will slow down. Then they could tackle the sectors which are known for spam, this doesn't sound half as bad as having to police 3 bn pages.
Quick removal of sites will put doubt in spammers minds? Will I get a return on my investment? Most definately if Google takes more than 6 months to implement and test filters. Perhaps not if it's removed within 2 months.
If I was Google I'd do nothing too. What would they gain by cleaning things up? The thing that's pretty annoying is that people take in all the twaddle about how they're fighting spam and actually speak up for them.
I get the feeling that SEO's are scared of speaking out against Google unless they get blacklisted. The only way I can see them putting more investment into fighting spam is if the state of affairs becomes public knowledge.
