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A broadly accepted definition of spam would be any web page that falls outside Google's published guidelines. A more tangible definition of spam would be any page that contains items that are designed to appear more relevant to a search engine algorithm that would not be considered more relevant to a human editor.
Most of us know why spam sites exist. It is safe to summise that the primary motivation is monetary. Either through affiliate relationships, or self-deployed expansion, spam is used to attract more usership and ultimately greater financial rewards for the spammer.
It is clear that the above stated goal of spammers can only be successful achieved if enough users are clicking, buying or taking some relevant action which produces a profitable action for the spammer. Any successful affiliate knows that in order to entice a user to perform the required action, an appropriate target sponsor must satisfy the following three properties
The above three properties all surely must constitute worthy aims for webmasters, particularly those who do generate income from their sites, to aspire to. There is of course some content that whilst of high quality and relevance, would be difficult to market successfully as commercial content due to standards of the surrounding publishing community (such as university research), or the common-good responsibilities of the publisher (such as government sites), or due simply to insufficient interest amongst users.
Consider a site that does not possess all of the above three properties and does not fall under the definition of spam above. Most SEOs would know that in order for such sites to be highly ranked in Google, these sites would need sufficient respect through links from other sites. Apart from links of a commercial nature (such as through Yahoo's or other paid listings), these links would typically come from other sites who believes the linked site contains relevant free information useful to the linking site's audience.
The vast majority of free information on the Internet is not subject to community or commercial standards, comes from a mixture of personal experience or opinion, or the public domain, or is sydnicated content or content that has been "adapted" from other copyright content. The first two sources whilst sometimes useful or at least "entertaining", yield content that is often prone to error, heresay, obsoloteness, rumor or simply rewords widely available content. The use of the third source implies duplication of non-unique content and the fourth suggests illegal activity. This information is subject to no commercial, and often no legal standard having been offered for free with no guarantees to users. Anybody who has used one of the popular file-sharing systems on the Internet knows very well that relying on the content traded through these systems is prone to major reliability, security and legal problems.
How is this free, unregulated content superior to highly successful commercial content? Is the goal of search engines to be a sort of unregulated Kazaa of the web?
In summary, below is a collection of benefits to the user and the Internet community as a whole of "spam sites" as compared to free content not subject to community standards.
I think webmasters who complain about spam need to take a cold, hard look at the content they offer on their websites and evaluate how their content and/or their clients' content compares in terms of benefits to the Internet community as a whole against that of commercially successful sites who are the destination of many affiliate sites the call spam.
If a spammer can direct a user more quickly to a quality commercial site than a site offering less-than-quality content, which site is providing the greater service to the user community?
[edited by: Bottler at 12:10 am (utc) on June 4, 2003]
True, a website that is nothing more than a series of affiliate banners, using some clever trickery or PR gained from 1000+ guestbook links to get huge volume is not really adding anything.
However, as I argued on one of the other threads, affiliate marketing does have a role to play in integrating sets of related services together, aiding a user in the buying process (by adding in some home grown tools) and providing pointers to other web resources and references.
Obviously I am talking about the kind of sites I run, but I try and put myself in the consumers shoes and think how to best present the information to the user. I don't use pop-ups, flashy banners, redirects, etc. I try and give the user lots of relevant textual information for the user to make a reasoned choice.
There are now some really good affiliate programs with lots of sophisticated active content and tools. Choosing a set of programs with correct synergies, mixed in with some home grown stuff allows you to build sites that are differentiated - not just tired old cut & paste sites.
The future of affiliate marketing lies in its ability to increase eCommerce revenues (by adding value), not by fighting for a larger share of the same revenue (by adding spam).
Now, that'll change the nature of the industry.
I think it is a shame that affiliate marketing is becoming synonymous with spamming.
1. Spam doesn't only affect affiliate marketing (I know you aren't saying this, but this thread is quite focussed).
2. Google must provide results for more than just 'the market'.
Great points Bottler, I do find it difficult when my competitors spam, yet they are relevant for the results.
And - "Welcome to you who has come to WebmasterWorld."
I was trying to keep my post focussed on the theme of this thread. In quite a few of the prior posts, reference (mostly negative) was made to affiliate marketing in relation to spam.
I was trying to make the distinction between affiliates which spam and affiliates that attempt to build useful services.
I mentally split it up into affiliate sites ((generally cookie cutter sites that give no additional value) and sites that are affiliates (truly help you with the buying process and offere additional information). Sometimes I fail to make those distinctions when I post.
Like you said, it's too bad that the minority of good sites are lumpped in with the lousy sites.
If you believe that most affiliate pages, doorway & mirror pages are high quality, then I would suggest that you have not looked around much.
Or maybe it's the case that you're looking around too much. Irrelevant spam does get through on occasion. But you have to weigh up the frequency of this occurrence to get a balanced view of the overall effect to the user experience. Also see below.
Some spammers just want traffic in volume. They will target traffic from any and all keywords in an attempt to drive traffic. The prevailing mentality seems to be that a small conversion from a lot of untargeted traffic is better than higher conversions of targeted traffic.
I acknowledge this does happen. However with techniques like Google's Pagerank, such use of Pagerank by a webmaster is an extremely unwise use of an important resource. The more pages the spammer generates, the less Pagerank each page receives. Not surprisingly then, such techniques are successful in search topics where the leading SERPs are weak in terms of competitive Pagerank anyway. Alternatively, the spammer is missing out on using his Pagerank in more effective, targetted ways.
The system isn't perfect, agreed, but Google does have algorithmic safeguards which protect against this sort of technique dominating the user experience. Moreover I consider the vast amount of hackneyed pseudo-content generated by webmasters trying to get traffic to their pseudo-commercial sites out there a FAR bigger problem affecting quality of user experience. Poorly targetted spam is instantly recognisable. Trashy pseudo-content requires some painful, time-wasting perusal before identifying it as little user value. In addition, there is a lot more of this low value pseudo-content out there dominating SERPs than poorly-targetted spam.
I return to my idea of Google renting out Pagerank. A topic area that has low competitive Pagerank, by definition, lacks quality content in the first place. However, it might still be a high traffic area. A spammer may try to exploit this low quality/high traffic area using the volume spam methods you describe. If Google were to allow Pagerank to be "rented", this low quality content area might suddenly justify the efforts of a webmaster who could effectively utilise traffic from this topic area by providing quality, relevant commercial content. The "spammer" with the most relevant content would then have the best-converting traffic and would hence be able to afford to pay more for the Pagerank in this weak topic area, thereby reducing the effects of this problem and improving the overall quality of the user experience.
[edited by: Bottler at 9:58 pm (utc) on June 4, 2003]
Isn't this theory already being applied by the use of Adwords?
Isn't this theory already being applied by the use of Adwords?
Not quite. There are many topic areas where non-commercial content is superior to commercial content (perhaps still even the majority of areas). University research, government information, some non-profit organizations, just as examples, still publish much that should clearly rank above any available relevant commercial content in certain topic areas. Pay-per-click models are weak in strongly informational areas.
Renting out Pagerank would be a way these informational and commercial forces could operate in a dynamic equilibrium to the benefit of all users. High information content sites would still be awarded enough Pagerank for their rankings to exceed the ranking of the highest commercial potential of this traffic.
Who is renting out the page rank?
Which site is picking up the page rank?
Renting out Pagerank would be a way these informational and commercial forces could operate in a dynamic equilibrium to the benefit of all users. High information content sites would still be awarded enough Pagerank for their rankings to exceed the ranking of the highest commercial potential of this traffic.
To poorly paraphrase BigDave, one man's commercial site is another's information site. Last time I looked, Google couldn't divine intent.
This is the bottom line.
Agree whether affiliate or nonaffiliate site.
And affiliate programs and associated web pages are not going away regardless of the screaming and scheming and
the self appointed technological purists.
Who is renting out the page rank?Which site is picking up the page rank?
Exactly how it would be implemented would require a lot of empirical experimentation but let me have a wild first crack at it.
Google says "Ok this month we have available for rent to the highest bidder, 5 PR7s, 25 PR6s, 125 PR5s, 1025 PR4s etc". Webmasters bid in a PPC-type auction and their sites, once approved, are given the PR they bidded on.
The way I have proposed above is not very efficient or scalable but it would provide the basis for a useful controlled experiment for Google. Over time Google might simply nominate a price for a Pagerank level based on market conditions and perhaps topic area, and webmasters can simply rent the PR for that month for their site. As an example I would estimate that a typical PR7 could cost thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars per month.
Hope this makes it a bit clearer.
What about the guy who has a great website and product, but relatively new business and can't afford to compete with the guys with the big wads of cash? Does that not turn the internet into one big glossy magazine full of adverts?
Great post and interesting thread Bottler - welcome to WW. You certainly arrived with a splash!
TJ
What about the guy who has a great website and product, but relatively new business and can't afford to compete with the guys with the big wads of cash?
He scrounges around dark alleys like all of us little guys do when starting off. When he is convinced he really has got something, he speaks to his bank manager about a loan and really starts to scale his business. Scaling would happen almost immediately and he could pay back his loan in no time.
Does that not turn the internet into one big glossy magazine full of adverts?
It turns the informationally weaker areas of the Internet into one big glossy magazine full of adverts offering exactly what many users were looking for.
What exactly do you meann by your statement:
"And affiliate programs and associated web pages are not going away regardless of the screaming and scheming and
the self appointed technological purists"
Thanks.
I can come up with a huge number of reasons that this idea would not work for google as a program like this would cost them far more in lost revenue than they could ever hope to gain.
As you have obvioulsy given it some thought, could you enumerate the advantages? Because I just do not see any.
Could you also explain how to keep the PR that is created within the search areas that the site is "approved" for?
So are you are suggesting that the guy with the (purely) informational site buys page rank to boost his site?
It turns the informationally weaker areas of the Internet into one big glossy magazine full of adverts offering exactly what many users were looking for.
So what do the users that are not looking for that get?
If you're talking about splitting the internet down the middle between commercial and informational sites, would it not be better to simply have a google-information and a google-commercial?
TJ
Google is already going down that road with Adwords. But I suggested that and Bottler has something different in mind. I'm trying to understand exactly what Bottler means.
I think (could be wrong) that Bottler is suggesting an alternative to AdWords that is SERPS based. In other words, AdWords gets ditched.
Although the title of the thread is pro-spam, I think what he is suggesting is actually a way of combatting the *problem* of spam in a way where AdWords does not succeed.
TJ
No matter what, it would kill google's popularity and therefore kill adwords revenue.
Like I said, I might be reading it wrong, because I really am not sure that is waht he means.
But you have to weigh up the frequency of this occurrence to get a balanced view of the overall effect to the user experience...
As I understood your original post, you are arguing that search engine spamming is justified since affiliate sites just direct people to (supposedly) highly relevant and quality sites. In this regard, affiliate sites are equivalent to doorway pages. I disagree that having affiliate sites occupying the top twenty SERP results for a given query which all point to the same base target page is in any way beneficial for the end user of a search engine.
If the end target of the affiliate (or doorway) pages were truly relevant and high quality, there would be no need for spamming techniques. The end target should have no trouble achieving good SERP results on its own.
From your original post (emphasis mine):
There is of course some content that whilst of high quality and relevance, would be difficult to market successfully as commercial content due to standards of the surrounding publishing community (such as university research), or the common-good responsibilities of the publisher (such as government sites), or due simply to insufficient interest amongst users.
Can you provide any example where this is currently true? I believe that anyone that has relevant, quality content can compete. If one cannot get sufficient quality links to compete with other sites, it is probably either not as relevant or as high quality as presumed. I maintain that your arguments are based upon flawed assumptions.
The vast majority of free information on the Internet is not subject to community or commercial standards, comes from a mixture of personal experience or opinion, or the public domain, or is syndicated content or content that has been "adapted" from other copyright content. The first two sources whilst sometimes useful or at least "entertaining", yield content that is often prone to error, heresay, obsoloteness, rumor or simply rewords widely available content...
All information, whether on the web or in print, whether commercial or non-commercial, stems from someone's personal experience, creativity or opinion. If the information (whether commercial or educational/free) is superior, it will have no trouble attracting inbound links. Whether or not it is more relevant to a particular search engine query than another site needs to be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Is the goal of search engines to be a sort of unregulated Kazaa of the web?
The goal of search engines is to make money. They do this by offering a quality product for free and getting advertisers to pay to reach their audience (and/or offer paid services to complement the search facility). If the search results were not good, people would not use them and they would not be attractive to advertisers.
Google must be doing something right, or they wouldn't have the dominant position that they currently enjoy. And that is probably the best evidence anyone can offer to prove that your argument is wrong.
So are you are suggesting that the guy with the (purely) informational site buys page rank to boost his site?
Depends. What is he trying to achieve? Traffic for vanity purposes? Traffic for profit? Ok well in either case he has three options
So what do the users that are not looking for that get?
If you're talking about splitting the internet down the middle between commercial and informational sites, would it not be better to simply have a google-information and a google-commercial?
No not really. I'm talking about letting the two forces naturally "fight it out" to decide what's most useful to users. It can't be called a "split" because the market and information conditions evolve.
For example, let's suppose this PR rental option was available in early 2001. At this time SERPs for the search term "anthrax" would have been dominated by University and purely informational sites because it was not a very commercially valuable term at that time. As user moods shifted in late 2001, more interest was created for buying gas masks and vaccination. At this time, commercial sites would have dominated as conversion rates (and users' desire to buy personal protection) increased. Many examples like this exist.
Will explain myself more soon. I am actually trying to run a business here at the same time ;)
(I think) You want a mechanism that encourages affiliates who put in sufficient time and effort to integrate information and products together, allowing users to move around, not only in the product space but also in the space related to that particular product. The affiliates who do this best will be the ones who acheive not only better conversion rates but may also benefit from extra revenue as some users, after learning about the technicalities of particular product (via the information sources your site offers) realises that it would be a good idea to buy a particular product accessory; this acessory purchase would not have taken place had the user bought the product via the "spammy, affiliate banner list, no related information" type site.
This same site may also be visited by non-commercial traffic as well - this traffic just looks at the technical (historical, financial, etc) information that is integrated into the site.
In short, a system that encourages affiliate to increase eCommerce revenue (by adding value), not one that simply leaves affiliates fighting for the same revenue (by adding spam). Yes, I have paraphrased myself from a previous post!
Of course, I may have missed your point entirely!
(The old trick of give something a dishonourable label in an attempt to capture the moral high ground, without necessarily having proved the validity of the label first)
Amen!
If the end target of the affiliate (or doorway) pages were truly relevant and high quality, there would be no need for spamming techniques.
I wouldnt agree with this. Many search engines including Google favor individual optimized pages for keyword areas. This sort of deconstruction is either against the navigational objectives of many important sites' structures or these important sites simply generate enough organic traffic of their own to worry too much about optimizing for search engines. One example is Ebay. The word "auction" is far more popular than the word "marketplace" yet they don't bother to optimize for it. Other examples of important sites that don't heavily optimize for search engines are CNN (news is not in the TITLE), IRS (tax?) or Amazon.com (shopping, buy?). Affiliates (even spammy ones) can provide a useful service by making important commercial sites more accessible to search engine (and other) users in low quality information areas.
Google must be doing something right, or they wouldn't have the dominant position that they currently enjoy. And that is probably the best evidence anyone can offer to prove that your argument is wrong.
My post isn't aimed at Google. Google is definitely doing many things right. However, the standard of success is not measured against their degree of perfection, but rather the degree to which they're doing things better than their competitors.
I'm not trying to steal your thunder - just trying to understand where your coming from!
I'm actually half expecting someone from Google to come on and say "Yes we looked at Pagerank rental in 2000 and decided to reject it at that time. We may or may not re-examine this some time in the future" ;) I'm sure that as a timeless issue like spam becomes more prevalent and important, most ideas will have a tendency to converge to a "most sensible" solution.
In short, a system that encourages affiliate to increase eCommerce revenue (by adding value), not one that simply leaves affiliates fighting for the same revenue (by adding spam).
I agree with some of your earlier remarks but I do not believe spam is worthless at all if it is targetted. A site that has 1000 pages of low value content is worse (for users) than a "sneaky redirect" to a relevant product-rich site for example. I think it is clear that spam does increase ecommerce activity overall (to some people's chagrin)
But a site that has great content, great respect, great products and knows how to sell effectively, as you described, should certainly outrank all individual spam sites every time. No question. But if that can't be achieved, spammy sites which encourage users to visit quality commercial sites are often a very good option against the alternatives, contrary to the beliefs/actions/propaganda of some webmasters.
Free content is usually not quality content
Rather a presumptuous statement isn't it? Almost all of my searches involve free content. The internet is a lot more than a giant cheesy stripmall.
I think you have over generalized not just the difference between informational and commercial sites, but between different types of commercial sites.
If the end target of the affiliate (or doorway) pages were truly relevant and high quality, there would be no need for spamming techniques.
You wrote:
I wouldnt agree with this. Many search engines including Google favor individual optimized pages for keyword areas. This sort of deconstruction is either against the navigational objectives of many important sites' structures or these important sites simply generate enough organic traffic of their own to worry too much about optimizing for search engines. One example is Ebay. The word "auction" is far more popular than the word "marketplace" yet they don't bother to optimize for it. Other examples of important sites that don't heavily optimize for search engines are CNN (news is not in the TITLE), IRS (tax?) or Amazon.com (shopping, buy?). Affiliates (even spammy ones) can provide a useful service by making important commercial sites more accessible to search engine (and other) users in low quality information areas.
I've read your reply three times and still do not see your point.
Are you saying that eBay, CNN, IRS & Amazon should not be ranked highly for the untargeted, blanket terms you listed? You know of some affiliate target sites that are more relevant for these blanket terms?
eBay, CNN, IRS, Amazon are important and do NOT need spammy techniques to be visible in the SERPs. They do just fine because they have thousands of quality incoming links with appropriate anchor text. If the end target of affiliate sites were equally important, they would also attract quality incoming links. No need for spam if they are truly worthy.
I'm rolling my eyes at the part where I added italics. Either a site offers relevant content or it doesn't.
Please elaborate on what you mean by "low quality information areas". I still don't buy your argument that spamming techniques are necessary or morally justified.
My post isn't aimed at Google.
Sorry. How is one to know? You posted in the Google forum and singled Google out in your initial post.
If you're talking about splitting the internet down the middle between commercial and informational sites, would it not be better to simply have a google-information and a google-commercial?
That sounds good to me too; I wouldn't have to be sharing the same index with spammy .com sites like some have been defending here lately.
