5 Things Google Isn’t Doing To Eliminate Spam
There’s no question that black hat SEO and search engine spamming is becoming more mainstream everyday. There are more tools, forums, and blogs (this one included) than ever before, and even more telling is the number of spam sites in the SERPS.
However, it would be very easy for Google to wipe out 99% of this spam by implementing any of the 5 strategies outlined below.
1. Scrutinize .info domains
If you’ve ever landed on a spam site, chances are it was a .info. Now let me ask you this, when was the last time you visited a .info that had worthwhile content on it? I know they exist, but there are easily 1,000 worthless .info sites for every legitimate one and that ratio is probably closer to 10,000:1. I realize cracking down on .info domains is only a temporary solution (spammers would just move to .com if Google started this practice), but it would at least show that Google is serious about stopping search engine spam.
2. Remove pages with Adsense IDs guilty of spamming
I estimate that at least half of all search engine spam is funded by Google itself, through its Adsense advertising program. Once Google’s spam team uncovers a spam site it would be easy for them to link it to all the sites using the same Adsense ID and remove those from the index as well. I can tell you from experience they do not do this.
3. Ban Adsense accounts of known spammers
When they find a spam site showing Adsense ads instead of just removing the sites from the index, why not cut off the spammers’ income source and ban their Adsense account as well? Despite what you may hear from people at digitalpoint, Google does NOT ban Adsense accounts for building spam sites.
4. Registrar information
Google is a registrar, which means they “gain an extra level of access to the DNS system.” I don’t claim to know more than your grandmother about being a registrar or what type of information they are privy to, but I do know that Google could probably connect the dots on several spammers through publicly available WHOIS information alone, allowing them to identify huge networks of sites very easily.
5. Discount guestbook, blog, and wiki links
Nobody willingly links to a spam site, which is why these sites typically acquire links from guestbooks, blogs, and wikis which allow (and in some cases encourage) visitors to add links. If I can take a couple of minutes and write a program that identifies the footprints of the most popular guestbooks, blogs, and wikis, I have to believe that the PhDs at Google can do it too. I don’t have any proof that they’re not already doing this to some extent, but I can tell you that you can rank for competitive keywords using parasite hosting and guestbook links exclusively (take a look at the buy viagra SERPs for hundreds of examples).
If stopping spam is so easy, why isn’t Google doing anything about it? The truth is that they want need these spam sites to keep impressing Wall Street.
These spam sites allow Google to not only monetize their own organic search results, but the search results of MSN, Yahoo, Ask, and all the other search engines out there. Google is making money when people use their direct competitors’ products, and I can’t think of any other business that has this luxury.
Google would be crazy to throw it all away now.
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SpamOrNot: John Chow dot Com
Best post yet. Google is very shrewd about how it makes $$ from its competitors.
I think Google would rather keep spam on a very tight leash and profit from it, rather than eliminate it all together. I just don’t see them trying to completely eradicate something that brings in a lot of revenue.
I think cdc does too many drugs. Gees, a spammer advising the search engines how to catch spammers and take the bread off their table.