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2) My guess is they read the spam reports very closely. Googleguy has brought up in his posts a number of times to use the spam reports. I don't know why he would keep bringing that up if they didn't really read them. It's also interesting to note that he has suggested we put in there something about "Googleguy" or "webmasterworld" so they know the reports are coming from webmsterworld readers -- people who have a high probability of being SEOs, if not spammers themselves. You know the old saying, it takes one to know one.
A network of interlinked spam sites I reported was also dropped recently. It could be coincidence as a lot of sites have gotten dropped, but I suspect the spam report certainly didn't hurt.
I reported the site between updates, and the site's offending pages were removed before the next update.
It took about 1-2 weeks.
So, its my belief that YES, they do work.
(as long as you are reporting a legitimate spam issue, and not just trying to hurt your competition, I'd imagine...)
I posted about a report I made to google here recently, but for some reason one of the mods locked the thread
Anyway. I've reported a particular site to Google many times that has 3 domains (mirrors) all of which have entry doorway pages with hidden text, 1x1 pixel linked images, invisible links (in the form of dots) in a feeble attempt to increase PR.
All 3 mirrors are cross linked with multiple spam techniques and so far Google has not even acknowledged the problem.
I'd say those spam reports get to Google alright, but I don't think they get read, I think they go into one big account which hasn't been touched in months but only exists for the purpose of their records..
IMHO (which tends to be right!)
I'd say those spam reports get to Google alright, but I don't think they get read, I think they go into one big account which hasn't been touched in months but only exists for the purpose of their records..IMHO (which tends to be right!)
But is most likely wrong in this case.
If you read what GoogleGuy says on this matter, it is that they look at the reports and try to use them to fix the algo to automatically catch the worst offenders each month.
Only on rare occasions, when they cannot fix the algo to catch them and it is a major offender will they apply manual penalties.
Remember, google is still a very small company in terms of body count. And a large percentage of those people are not experts on HTML, secretaries, maintenance, management, legal, marketing, sales.
It may be annoying that they do not take care of each individual complaint, but I bet they so look at each site and they work their way through the queue.
Perhaps, but I doubt it. I used to be an IT manager. The more people you can have testing an application and reporting results, the better.
Sasquatch has a good point. QA staff cost money, especially in the Bay Area. Google is getting QA help from SEO experts with their spam reports free of charge. They may not read all of the spam reports, depending on their staff size and how many reports they get, but I bet they read a representative sample.
>Google is getting QA help from SEO experts with their spam reports
>free of charge.
Well, yes, make perfect sense. After all, we are the superusers. No group is in a better position to do that, probably not even google staff.
I hate to say this but the first post the spammer was called a 'target' which would indicate that people go out of their ways to look for spam.
May I ask what made you decide it was a link farm and not some innocent and not so educated webmaster with a far too healthy links page?
