Quality

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[Sarah Atkinson]

first off let me put my thumbs and forfingers together

as posted by djgreg:
rfgdxm1
for me SPAM includes also hidden text, hiden links, be a member of a link farm, or sign 10000 guestbooks with your domain. This gives the SPAM DOmain the chance to get a NR. 1 result through methods which are not fair. The user should be able to expect the BEST site for a keyword on nR. 1 position not the site with the most guestbooks backlinks

IF a person uses such unfair methods to get a high rank, yet has extremly relivent content.(basicly of the type the user most likely is looking for) Is this truly bad?(unfair maybe, and definitly against SE policy, but bad?) The end user finds the content they need(ok so it might not be yours, but SE's are for users not webmasters). IF the user finds the content he needs then the SE has performed it given task admerably.

[Perfection]

If a widget site is really relevent for the search term "widgets," then why would it need hidden text? For the site to be the most relevent widget site, then it should be about widgets, discuss widgets, explain widgets, show widgets, eat, sleep and drink widgets, therefore using the word widgets enough so that it wouldn't need to use it in hidden text. Hidden text basically means you want to rank high for a keyword that you haven't used much on your site, which probably means your site isn't the most relevent for that keyword.

[rfgdxm1]

All the above cited by djgreg are examples of cheating, not spam. Hidden text, hidden links, and being a member of a link farm are grounds for being bounced from Google as a violation of the TOS. Doesn't matter if your site is relevant or not. If guestbook links somehow slip through the Google filters, this is just an algo flaw at Google, because any competitor or enemy can do that to a site. Heck, Google is actually profiting from guestbook links: a guestbook spamming company actually is using adwords at this very moment to drum up business. Strange, but true.

However, considering the following hypothetical. While surfing the net, I happen to spot the home page of my cousin Kim, who I had almost forgot about. And, I notice that cousin Kim's home page happens to be a staggering PR8! I immediately get in touch with cousin Kim, and ask her as a favor to a family member to add a link to my site on her home page. Even though my site is on a totally unrelated topic. Based on this link from cousin Kim, my site soars to the top of the SERPs for all the important keywords and keyword phrases. Now, if my site has relevant content to those keywords and keyword phrases, am I "spamming" just because I happened to have a cousin who could give me a big, juicy high PR link? Quite literally with PR, sometimes it isn't the quality of your site that matters, but who you know. There is nothing in the Google TOS that says you can't benefit from links from kinfolk with very high PR pages. Thus, I say not spamming.

[ciml]

"spam" related discussion is taking place in over here [webmasterworld.com].