Webspam is a term used to describe content created solely to manipulate search engine rankings and thus violating Google’s webmaster guidelines. They don’t provide any value for searchers.
A few examples of webspam include keyword stuffing, cloaking, excessive links, thin content, and more.
Google does its best to fight spam with its algorithms. But the number of spammy web pages is still astronomical.
In 2019, Google was discovering 25 billion spammy pages on a daily basis. In 2020, that number rose to 40 billion.
Spammy websites and pages that passed Google’s algorithm are handled by Google’s Webspam team. The team does manual content and link reviews and can impose a manual penalty on a website or its portion. Note that the Webspam team is not the same as Google’s quality raters.
Understanding webspam is important for SEO. Despite Google’s war against webspam, there are certain Black Hat SEO methods that still work. Following those practices is risky. They might give you quick results but chances are high that Google will catch on to what’s going on eventually.
Google can then penalize a website by demoting its rankings or even completely removing it from the search engine results.
It’s also important to know what goes against Google’s quality guidelines. This helps you avoid those tactics. This is especially true if you’re outsourcing your SEO to an agency or an SEO specialist.
Here are some basic tips on how to avoid webspam and protect your site.
User-generated spam mainly refers to blog comments and forum threads. Most often, user-generated spam is used for excessive black-hat link-building.
There are several things you can do to protect your website from user-generated spam:
Automatically-generated content is quite popular nowadays, especially in the era of AI writing. There are many tools and services that can provide you with this type of content.
It’s true that AI writing tools can save you time. But the content they produce won’t provide your users with any real value. Not to mention, it’s unlikely that such content will ever meet Google’s quality requirements.
A link scheme means obtaining links with the purpose of manipulating search results. This includes:
Note that the above criteria don’t mean you should refrain from guest posting. A few guest posts aren’t large-scale or excessive and can be safely used for building quality links.
Even Google can’t block 100% of webspam. Black hat SEO tactics still exist. They might promise quick results but they are not the proper way to optimize your site for SEO. It’s much safer to use white-hat SEO tactics.
For example, you could focus on producing quality content on your website. High-quality content is better in the long run. It improves the user experience and it helps build your authority.
This tactic is known as Negative SEO. Google is smart enough to ignore such attacks. You shouldn’t waste time trying to fight back against them. Instead, focus on creating quality content or technical SEO.
Yes, you can. You can report spam, paid links, or malware using this link. But you should note that webspam reports only help Google adjust their spam detection algorithms. They won’t result in any direct action against violations.
Spamdexing, search engine spam, black-hat SEO are synonyms for webspam.