How to report spam to Google & Co.
A real nuisance for search engines are webmasters that tryto deceive them to obtain high rankings (called “spamming”).
The following techniques are usually considered spam by thesearch engines:
- cloaking (the server returns different pages for search engine crawler programs and for web browsers)
- cybersquatting (using domains that resemble common domain names to get traffic from users that make a typo, for example, www.gogle.com)
- doorway pages or multiple domains with identical or nearly identical content
- invisible text (text in the same color as the background color)
- offensive content (e.g. hate views or offering illegal services)
- overuse of keywords
- overuse of tiny text
- stuffing pages with irrelevant words
- submitting to inappropriate categories (on directories)
- using deceptive or misleading links
- using irrelevant keywords in the title and in the Meta tags
What can you do if you discover that other web sites get better search engine rankings than you because they use one of the techniques above?
The search engines encourage reporting spam to them. We’ve compiled a handy list of addresses where you can report search engine spam:
* AllTheWeb/FAST:
Report spam by emailing spam@fastsearch.com. Use the subject “Spam Report”: http://www.alltheweb.com/info/spampolicy.html
* AltaVista:
Select “Spam Reporting” as the subject on the following form: http://help.altavista.com/contact/search
* Google:
Report spam sites by emailing spamreport@google.com or use the form at http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html
* HotBot
Use the form at: http://help.lycos.com/LycosHelp/hel…hotbot_form.htm
* Inktomi:
Before reporting spam by emailing reportspam@inktomi.com, read Inktomi’s spam policy at http://www.inktomi.com/services/web…mpolicyfaq.html
* LookSmart:
Report spam by emailing expsvc@looksmart.net.
* Lycos:
Use the form at:
http://help.lycos.com/LycosHelp/hel…tchdog_form.htm
* Open Directory Project:
If you think that an editor is spamming or promoting its own domains, send an email message to staff@dmoz.org.
* Overture:
Report inappropriate sites by emailing termsofuse@Overture.com (read http://www.overture.com/d/USm/about/company/terms.jhtml for more information).
* Web.de (popular German search engine directory) Use the form at: http://hilfe.web.de/eintragsservice2/Kontakt/
Always be fair to search engines and don’t try to cheat them. You’ll get the best long-term results for your web site by building good content and a thoughtful reciprocal linking strategy,
This is a very good topic Mitnik
Its good to see they are working on that spam problem
But its hard to get the sites that using spam out of the se´s even if you report them they are still there in the most of the case.
Well true, but by reporting a site as spam rather than trying to play them at their own game, eventually helps with the continiuity of a SE`s results..
The problem comes from the use of special techniques where a search engine see’s and ranks one page, but a visitor actually see’s another, also clever masking features help to trick the SE spiders, So really the only foolproof way to spot a spammer is using Human Editors (Like ODP.) But imagine the number of editors you`d haveto employ to cover the google database? *L* So, that`s why it pays to point out that kind of thing, it might not get sorted tomorrow, but it`ll get sorted eventually.. (I wouldn`t send a SE out to buy tea, it “might” be back in 6-7 weeks, but then again it could be anything upto 6 months?! *LOL*)
EXCELLENT POST..