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What is Web SPAM and why should I care?
There is a very good chance that you are familiar with E-mail SPAM - an
unsolicited email that you receive that can include ads, computer viruses,
obscene or other content.
Web SPAM is found on web pages that have been either computer generated or
designed to mis-lead the viewer. Such pages typically contain excessive
ads (from Google, Yahoo, MSN or any other provider.) Web spammers build
such pages to generate revenue from these ads - they typically do not offer any real
or relevant content.
If you find Web SPAM (WSPAM, W-SPAM) while using a search engine then
consider reporting it to the search engine - there are still limits to what any
search engine automated SPAM elimination process can do to remove such dross from
their search
results.
Why should you care about web SPAM?
- Branding! If you or your company have web content that is
used by Web SPAMMers then this could damage your site's search
engine credibility (this is an aspect of your domain - the longer
your domain has been online and the longer it has contained superior
content then it is more likely that your domain has some
level of credibility.) Many of the W-SPAM pages that I have
encountered are machine-generated pages that lift content from
good
web pages and then include it on the W-SPAM page(s). This
can result in your excellent content page(s) being dropped or lowered
in search results for any or all search engines while the W-SPAM page
climbs to the top.
- If you are a casual surfer then you can help improve the search
experience for everyone by assisting in the reduction of such web
pages/sites; report the W-SPAM and/or complain to the
advertisers.
- If you purchase ads from the search engines then you should be equally
concerned about this - you are paying W-SPAMMers for most likely,
little or no return on your ad dollars (in addition to perhaps, some
reduction in your brand value...)
How do I report Web SPAM in search results?
Each search engine provides some means to receive feedback from web users -
use the links on the menu above for the search engine where you have found W-SPAM.
Where can I find more information about Web SPAM?
- use any search engine and search for: "web spam
rating" (or some similar phrase.)
- Separating
Web Spam from Quality Content - What are the Metrics? - blog
posting about typical features of SPAM web sites/pages- How do you
know if the page is SPAM?
- SPAM
Causing Headaches for Legit Marketers (article in CIO)
- Video
lecture/presentation on Web SPAM Detection (9/2007) - this is a
technical presentation (3 videos with slides, ~80 minutes) that
covers a variety of topics about search; since Web SPAM can
significantly deteriorate search results this is good, relatively
current information on this topic. Web Spam (definition):
"... is any manipulation of Web documents in order to
mislead Search Engines to obtain undeservedly high ranking,
without improving the 'real' document information quality (for
humans.)" The first video provides an excellent
overview of both search engine technology and Web SPAM. The
second and third videos are very technical but may also be of
interest.
Which search engine presents the least amount of Web SPAM on search
results pages?
In early 2008, my very informal testing indicates that Yahoo!
search result pages contain the least amount of Web SPAM. Note that
this is my opinion based on results obtained (manually) using the same queries
on Google, Yahoo! and MSN/Live. Also note that I reported the SPAM
pages when I found them. :)
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