Forum Moderators: open
As a community we have shown a great deal of interest over the past few years regarding the topic and in fact a search for the keyword spam results in 466 discussions. This like many other topics here at Webmaster World is interesting to me. I thought you might want to join me in revisiting a few of the more pertinent and sometimes interesting or clever discussions I found. There may be something here that’s helpful or raise questions. Perhaps you are able to contribute to a past thread with new knowledge or advise.
I believe none of the following discussions point directly to a specific company or site and I am counting on anyone who comments here or in any of these discussions to keep it that way :)
Webmaster World is of course NOT the place to report what you think is spam or call a site or company into question but it IS the place to discuss the issues surrounding the topic.
Search Engine Spam is: [webmasterworld.com] What is search engine spam?
Hormel Earnings Rise on Spam Sales [webmasterworld.com] Someone is making money with spam!
E-mail harvesting [webmasterworld.com]
How to spam the spammers [webmasterworld.com]
What exactly is Spam? [webmasterworld.com] Is a spammer just a better SEO than you?
Spamming [webmasterworld.com] How often can you repeat keywords?
Web Rings [webmasterworld.com] Are specific Web Rings Spam?
optimization - hidden layers [webmasterworld.com] hidden H1 tags
What Do They Want?! [webmasterworld.com]
Where do I report spam? [webmasterworld.com]
Spam Faxes [webmasterworld.com]
SPAM and Doorway pages [webmasterworld.com] A quick, dumb question
Spam Rationale... [webmasterworld.com] it's so environmentally friendly!
Clean site versus Spam - What to do? [webmasterworld.com] Do the directories care about hidden text?
OK, How do we stop the e-mail spam? [webmasterworld.com] E-Mail Spam how to avoid it and where to start?
Keyword density [webmasterworld.com] How much is too much ?
Font Size [webmasterworld.com]
Need info on ISP E-Mail Filters [webmasterworld.com]
Need advise! [webmasterworld.com]
Traffic Magets - More Spam? [webmasterworld.com]
Mass Mailings? [webmasterworld.com] I heard they're bad...
SPAM or emailing? [webmasterworld.com] A dilemma...
Comment tags [webmasterworld.com] Could this be considered as spam?
I think it is interesting to note how our perceptions have changed over the last year. Things that didn't seem acceptable before, are now mainstream. The opposite is also true.
1. It doesn't make any difference to me what a man does for a living Godfather
2. Everything I do is spam
Here is an interesting Schrodinger's Cat type conundrum:
Search engine A accepts pages with text the same colour as the background if it is related to the page's subject. Search engine B will ban you and all sites it believes are associated with you if you use such a technique. Both will ban you if they catch you cloaking.
Are you dead or alive?
Thanks NFFC, sounds as though we all ought to develop two web sites with identical content and use robots text to exclude this or that engine from site A and exclude this or that engine from site B! By expanding the web by 100% ... think of all the extra revenue the SE's could pry out of our cold dead fingers.
Any attemp to alter or obtain rankings that causes end users to complain about the quality of SERPS.
What Spam Has Become:
Any attempt to alter or obtain rankings that does not directly involve cash payment to said search engine.
Yeterday's Spammers are Today's "Partners"
Oh how I live to be just like you. I think I will run that across my desktop and ponder on it daily.
So, I suppose this will lead us again to ponder what spam is. Maybe though WG has figured that out:)
<added>Wait! What's this about cash payment? Step me through it because I'm feeling dense.
Example 1:
Company A operates an extremely large dynamic online store. They want search engine traffic so they go out and hire a consultant. A few months later, their programmers finish work on a new system that removes all the spider road blocks.
Search Engine Spider A shows up an crawls the site. Over time, several thousand pages get indexed. Someone from Search Engine A notices all the pages from the particular site, and decides that the site is "over represented" and removes the majority of pages.
Shortly after Company A notices the drop in traffic, a sales rep from Search Engine A contacts them and tells them about a program that will enable them to get all their "deep content" included. They sign up and begin paying $.25 per click. Suddenly the same bunch of pages goes from being "over represented spam" to "valued content."
Example 2:
Company B pays a design firm to build them a cutting edge site with all the latest bells and whistles. After the fact, they realize that the way they are presenting the content makes it impossible for search engines to index their pages, so they hire a consultant. Not willing to completely rebuild the site they just paid for, they instead decide to use IP delivery to provide spiders with descriptive content they can index.
Search Engine B discovers what they are doing and kicks them out because showing a spider content that differs from what a human sees is the ultimate form of spam. A week later, Company B signs up for Search Engine B's new program and begins delivering the exact same content via an XML feed. All of a sudden, Company B goes from being a spammer to being "trusted."
Example 3:
Search Engine C actively tracks those who spam them. This leads to several large SEO firms getting complete C blocks banned from Search Engine C's database. The number one violation committed by these companies is cloaking hundreds of pages that deliver all uses to one page. Search Engine C doesn't like this practice because users get upset when they click on what appears to be a different listing, but they end up on a page they've already visited.
A few months later, Search Engine C announces they have some new partners. Most of the new partners are SEO firms that seem employ the same type of methodologies used by many of the companies on Search Engine C's spam list. The only difference seems to be that the partners are paying Search Engine C, and the companies on the list are not.
For the lack of a better term, I'm a content spammer. My core interest is in real estate, but back in 1995-6 I had a site declined in the old [city.net] directory (click that, see where you end up now.) -too commercial. So, I rewrote everything focusing on travel and local history and 'sponsored' the site. It went in.
So, content spamming is KING ?
For me, it's the only way to go. It may require more investment of time and, perhaps, money up front but it's an incredibly stable form of SEO.
It was just like fighting windmills. The whole SE placement budget was spent on meetings where everyone was trowing the hot potatoe elswhere. Nothing was done.
I found starting from scratch to be so productive, not to mention you can stay clear from heavy SPAM techniques.
Web agencies are the best clients we can imagine, they talk the talk and walk the walk.
In relation to Spam, i'm definetly a content spammer, but work on the principles, that if the searcher makes sense of it, then its ok, i.e. i write pages, like the national law's are written.
What do you think now, nearly a year later ;)
yes, content spamming is king.
quoting Mackin and Go60Guy in a recent thread [webmasterworld.com]
Put on another hat Nick ;)You are building a content site!
I love it. Now I have a genuine identity - "Content Spammer". After struggling, researching, reaching for that right turn of phrase, writing, writing, writing and all that entails, at last I have the respect I deserve. And Google loves my spam too. Otherwise, it sure as heck wouldn't be greening me on that little bar.
Yeah, I've been thinking about developing another "content spamming" site myself just to be on the safe side.Do you think Google will ever get sick of content?
No directory editor or SE algo can determine intent and that's the only thing that separates the spammer's content from "pure" content sites.
And it works.
i'm just remembering googleguys classic comment that they were going after "optimisation" with their filters..
1 year on, things have changed, but what still remains is that you can "optimise" a site and get it higher. maybe you don't use so many redirects, invisible links/text etc. but now you pay a copywriter for 50 pages of dross, link them together, optimise them, do a bit of link building.. voila!
I guess one year on it seems to me as if google at least have tried to stamp out "optimisation". But what has become obvious is that as long as you have search engines, online businesses, and people with technical knowledge, there will always be "optimisation".
