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However, the more time I spend here the more I realize that this just isn't the case. It's all about making money any way you can.
In another thread someone said that spam is only spam if it adversely affects the users search experience.
Using that logic, it should be ok to spam as long as you're delivering a good search result. Actually, why call it spam? Wouldn't that just be good SEO?
If I sell widgets, and get to the top of the serps using spam (good hardcore SEO), users looking for widgets probably don't care.
Hmm... interesting.
Anyone else have an opinion?
Just people who are at the top call it SEO, people who are at the bottom call it SPAM.
I would say it's wrong to optimize for one thing and show something else (porn sites did this alot back in a day).
But if your content is relevant and you don't make search engine's job any harder than it is - I would say it's just good SEO.
Hmmm... I find that interesting. I guess its always the underdogs that are going to moan instead of putting in the effort to learn how to spam effectively, er - I mean in a targetted manner.
I am one of those underdogs - but learning all the time...
Let's see, if I have 20 H1 tags on my page would it matter? Google may not ven take that into consideration. How about ALT tags stuffed with keywords?
Let's explore the many good (SEO) tactics that can be employed.
I'm not talking about redirects to porn or anything crazy like that.
USER:
Spam = pages in a search result that are off-topic to what I meant
SEARCH ENGINE:
Spam = pages that find a way to rank higher than we want our algo to rank them
WEBSITE OWNER:
Spam = pages that rank higher than mine and use any method that search engines say they don't like.
Why would the serach engine care? I mean if the algo place a page at the top, and the page is relevent to the search, why does it matter?
I like your breakdown. It makes a ton of sense.
Basically it is impossible to come up with a universal definition of spam. I might consider things like hidden text, stuffed alt tags, multiple H1 tags and the like to be spam but the next guy over might not.
Also keep in mind that spam isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on who you are talking to.
Yeah, that's the problem. I've been upset for month's about what I considered to be spam.
I thought that Google hadn't gotten to the reports I turned in. Now I think that they saw them and simply don't consider what this site is doing as spam.
I guess it's a matter of pushing the envelope.
I would like to know how far others have pushed.
The best policy is to keep your site as clean as possible and hope that your competitors don't report you as a spammer. (This is of course - if you are looking at the long term view for your sites)
Spam reports don't seem to work very well. I've turned in a ton of them on one group of what I thought were spammy sites.
Must be that I was wrong.
Clean seems to be a matter perspective at Tedster had outlined.
if the algo place a page at the top, and the page is relevent to the search, why does it matter?
Theoretically, it shouldn't, and it might not in some cases.
But most search engines, if not all, have a solid platform in academics. There is an assumption or theory underlying search algorithms that has an air of academic "purity" to it.
When search functions hit the commercial web, all those academic algorithms needed to cope with the fact that document owners were going to try "Search Engine Persuasion" -- something much more rare in the realm of an abstract collections of documents, whether internal to a business or purely academic.
In fact, the initial algorithms for web search engines were broken by various Persuasion methods faster than they could be patched.
So there is the ghost of an assupmtion hanging in there that some documents have inherently more relevance than others. Commercial search engines have learned to be MUCH more pragmatic, and today I'd guess that they think anything that helps THEIR visitors get the information they want, and helps THEIR search partners hold onto users -- anything like that is a proper algorithm.
When you think about it, the SE's have a very nasty job. How can they handle searches that "may be" informational, but also "could be" commercial? If they let the commercial information overwhelm the search results, then they've just blown it for all their informational searchers. But pure information sites are much less like to have the resources needed to "persuade" the algorithm.
Real information and valuable content is the best way I know to win search engine ranking without trying to persuade or manipulate the algorIthm. And even then, it pays to know a bit about how spiders and algorithms work, so you can organically make your content easy for search engines to assess.
And in some market segments, the competition is so intense that the SE's algorithms are still overwhelmed, and most people feel you've got to spam to succeed in those areas.
At least according the latest dance!
What does "succeed" mean? For me it means that the business gets enough targeted traffic to maintain financial health. That's it.
If a business is only #134 on a single word search, but they get enough traffic in other ways to maintain a healthy business, then why obsess about the position on one particular search?
I have one client who occassionally gets into an obsession about a particular single word search, even though their site is much better described by several 2, 3 or 4 word phrases. In fact, 95% of their traffic comes from a host of phrases, and only 5% from the single word search (for which they rank 28 out of 400,000). And they have NEVER had a single conversion from the one word search, not ONE. But they get lots of business from 3 and 4 word searches.
I find myself walking them through the logic of this over and over again. You've got to keep your eye on the ball - and the ball in this case is a healthy business, not world domination.
I understand what you're saying.
My point is simply this.
Without a just system, and definition of spam, webmasters will feel slighted by those sites they FEEL are spamming.
For now it seems that these complaints can be brushed off by Google.
No one likes to be slighted.
One of the big problems many people have when they think about Google is comprehending the vast scope of the web -- the sheer, overwhelming number of documents, pages, sites, and site owners involved.
3 billion documents in the index, and how many more looked at but excluded? That's just not the kind of number we can relate to easily or comprehend with our everyday mindset. So to deal with Google, we visualize things on a smaller, more human scale. But that scaled down mental model just doesn't do justice to the reality of the situation.
I can barely keep up with my own correspondence and the needs of our clients. And those people PAY us to take care of their interests. Website owners are not paying Google.
My experience is that Google does a solid job, and they continue to work to improve communication. That's more than a lot of companies do.
But of course, their job is done on such a scale that they must automate most parts of it. That means some people will not feel that things are just. The job can't be done hands-on, and just as every software program has bugs, no automated process can work without occasionally causing some problems. Even hands-on processes cause problems - just think about the prominent web directories.
For me, the wonder is that Google achieves as much as it does. We can't measure their actions with the same ruler we would use for our next door neighbors.
I agree that Google does a fantastic job with their SE.
If Google wants to go IPO, get larger, stay on top, etc..
They will have to do a better job on this.
toddb,
I see some gems in what you've posted.
