NEVER file a spam report!

spam reports

[gehrlekrona]

If you are a little bit like me, God forbid, and have filed a spam report then you probably did it because you saw some site on the page where your site shows up, right? Maybe the site happened to be above your site and you want to get rid of it, so you file a report to Google.
Now, there is a reason that the spam site was on the same page as yours and the reason is that they all fit the algos. Yes, algos. My guess is that Google doesn't have one algo, but lots of them and the "lots" are the "spam signatures".
I have reported spam sites several times and I have written about it that the "funny" thing is that my site almost always gets hit also when the spam is removed!
So, this is my guess to what is happening. My site, and maybe yours, are too close to the spam profile (by the way, Google creates new spam profiles all the time but we just don't see it. Sometimes they don't get it right and that's when spam show up in the SERP's, just like the chinese spam sites a week or so ago. The are gone now and so is my site! Go figure!), and is removed or get a -950 penaly or a -30 penalty. The reason your site is not removed just like the spam sites, is that you have some clout left so you just get a penalty. Someone wrote that the penalites all about content, quality of content, validity of content and that is probably true and that is why you get some clout from the main Algo.
This thread could also be named: How to get rid of a competitor!

My conclusions are: Never file a spam report it you are even close to what the spam sites have been using to get into the SERP's (title and other meta tags, content etc.) because if you are you can be pretty darn sure you will be gone too!

[gehrlekrona]

So here's how to get a crappy site to be an authority site in Google.

Create a site, the most ugly site you can come up with
Create some pages and maybe some sub domains for states for example.
Use short meta tags, taken from the site. Put some home videos on the site and link them on YouTube. Write a book about how you created the site and have GOOG crawl the book so it gets added to their books.google.com
Now you have tons of blogs, press releases, Digg and other social networks and YouTube pointing to your site saying it is the most ugly site in the world and point to different parts of the site using the meta tags, including sub domains explaining why it is the ugliest site in the world.

Now you have an authority site according to GOOG and nobody can file spam report about that site.

[steveb]

"Other than that, please get off the holy bandwagon."

Pot, kettle, black.

The rants where people suggest other people follow their business practices really are just silly.

Search marketing is business. Some people spam. Others don't. In both cases reporting spam makes good business sense either sometimes or all the time. If you don't want to do it yourself, fine, but you better get a clue that it is part of doing business.

[whitenight]

I suggest you re-read my post (and the countless others with similar messages)

I could careless if people file spam reports (in fact, my OP doesn't even mention it)

People complaining about how their competition is killing them with
"Google says that's a naughty thing so I don't do it, but my competition does and gets away with it" cries
are absolutely laughable on an SEO board.

I can not say enough times do not listen to google about what they "prefer you do to rank".

Do whatever you want, and deal with the consequences.
Just be informed about...
what works...why...and how you can adjust it to your businesses' risk tolerance

------------
Personally, I find filing spam reports are huge waste of my ROI in terms of time, but hey that's me.

I would suggest it is for most everyone on this board.
(As Goog rarely deals with the offending site(s) individually. They program a "fix" into the algo which still may or may not affect your specific competition)

But again leave out the sanctimonious rhetoric nonsense.
If you're trying to kill your comp's ranking with spam reports, then that's a business move.

It certainly won't win you any gold stars for "morality".. join a charity for that.

[steveb]

"and how you can adjust it to your businesses' risk tolerance"

Saying spamming is "risk tolerance" on an SEO board is really too silly to go into. get into the right century please.

In terms of ROI, I would think making posts about your not filing spam reports is a lot more absurdly time wasteful than filing them!

"As Goog rarely deals with the offending site(s) individually."

They address issues in general more, which is more important (try to get that). But thay also do address specifics all the time, often within 48 hours. Perhaps you just need to learn to write more to the point, with more evidence.

[whitenight]

lol ok. u have fun filing spam reports. :)

[gehrlekrona]

OK guys :) I think we are back to where my thread started.
Filing a spam report is a waste of time and can be dangerous to your health (site). With Googles tweak to the algo to get rid of spam, you might be in danger too, white hat, black hat or grey hat! Just a little bit too much tweak and you're gone.
Filing a spam report to get rid of competitors is outright dumb and should be illegal, if they haven't done anything spammy, and who decides what's spammy anyway? GOOG does, and it changes from day to day, minute to minute since they are tweaking the spam fileters all the time, it's just that we don't see it.
The spam sites with cn domains that has invaded the SERP's seems to be a bit tougher to get rid of since they need an "infrastructure change" to get rid of them, and to me that means that they are too "clean" to get rid of, and since they are "too clean" it also means that real sites will be gone too in a matter of seconds. That's why they haven't got rid of them. These guys have come too close to the kernel of the algo and GOOG doesn't know what to do about it.

Thanks God for all the other SE's. If it wasn't for them right now I wouldn't get any traffic....

[outland88]

What’s unique about a spam report I filed with Google was about 50 experts became involved because of an exploit in .edu sites. This was serious spamming in Google. Most of the experts were either in charge of University computer departments or webmasters at the Universities. Some were professors. One even set up web pages at Wright State to alert other educational institutions and exchange fixes. About half alerted Google and one professor put together an extensive information packet containing fixes he mailed to Google. He felt Google would respond promptly and even alerted his secretary of a potential call from them. The poor fellow even delayed a week-end off waiting for a response from Google. He did this because he felt he had missed a previous call from them. None ever heard back from Google.

A few were upset with Google because, as I determined with time, they considered it a professional courtesy for Google to respond. The professor who sent all the information seemed to have for lack of better words “hurt feelings”. His final response was he had always been taught Google was composed of top professionals but this had changed his mind entirely.

Take a guess what was on those spam pages that Google never seemed to have any real interest in for nine months?

Its your time but quite frankly Google keeps me busy enough. I devote nearly no time to any other search engine because they index nearly everything I put out properly. As I said years ago Google created a spam machine with Adsense and eventually it will cripple many web sites rankings in Google. Google’s only way around it is to attack anything related to SEO and fix the results. Bottom line is results from Google Search will be unstable unless your spamming them or can generate large amounts of links to your site daily. Just look at a small part of the crap Google has created with people spamming your E-Mail daily trying to procure links. Google creates problems they don’t solve them.