Google fights against spam content on websites 24/7 handling most spam removal from its index automatically using algorithms, although they do still examine some questionable documents by hand.  The aim is to keep delivering its users the best, relevant, reputable search results.

There are 10 categories / types of spam Google look for:

  • Unnatural links from a site
  • Hidden Text / Keyword Stuffing
  • User generated
  • Parked Domains
  • Thin content with little of no added value
  • Spammy free sites & dynamic DNS providers
  • Cloaking / Sneaky Redirects
  • Hacked Sites
  • Unnatural links to a site
  • Pure Spam e.g scraping content from other website, or pure gibberish

As a business, if you are looking for sustainable, organic search engine results, so called SEO ‘black hat’ unethical practises which include buying links, doorway pages, keyword stuffing, invisible text or automated content generation should definitely be avoided.

In this recently released video by Matt Cutts, representing Google Webmaster Help, we hear about a website called ‘How Search Works’ which walks through a 3 stage ‘search’ process, starting with Crawling & Indexing, followed by Algorithms and lastly Fighting Spam.

Here are a few interesting statistics from the site:

  • The web is made up of 60 TRILLION individual pages
  • Over 200 factors make up Google’s Search Algorithms
  • ‘The Index’ is over 100 million gigabytes
  • The results for a user search are pulled from the index in 1/8th of a second
  • Google typically handles over 2 BILLION searches a day

Click To Visit Google’s Story: ‘How Search Works‘

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