SEO Tycoon

**vangogh** · 11-05-2007, 04:49 PM

It seems like a simple question, but I think the answer is more complicated than it appears on the surface.

I thought it would be interesting if you could define what you think is and isn't spam. Are there specific things that automatically define spam for you?

You might have noticed I posted this in the SEO Forums. I could have posted it anywhere, but I'd like the discussion to mainly focus on seo and marketing tactics and what constitutes a spammy site in general.

For example is any MFA (made for AdSense) site automatically spam?

Are all cases of hidden or invisible text on a site spam?

Those are just examples and I'm sure we can find many more. What is it that makes you decide a website or a marketing tactic is spam?

My own feeling is that like beauty, spam is often in the eye of the beholder. My definition of spam is probably different than yours, which is probably different than the person who posts above or below you. We'll all likely agree on many things we see as spam, but we'll all likely disagree on some as well.

So what is it that makes one site spam and another site legit? What seo tactics are always spam? Where is the line between marketing and spam?

**Learning Newbie** · 11-05-2007, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

My own feeling is that like beauty, spam is often in the eye of the beholder. My definition of spam is probably different than yours, which is probably different than the person who posts above or below you. We'll all likely agree on many things we see as spam, but we'll all likely disagree on some as well.

Spam is a very bad thing. Much like obscenity, I think it's impossible or at least impractical to try and enumerate beforehand every possible type of spam. It's poison in the well - with finite storage and bandwidth spam is a dead waste. Like with criminal crimes, I think spam needs to be minimized to help (online) society function smoothly. Just as click fraud is a serious obstacle to advertising and phising is a major obstacle to online banking, spam stands in the way of all legitimate online success.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

Where is the line between marketing and spam?

Now this seems like the answer you really truly want an answer to, right?

**ADAM Web Design** · 11-05-2007, 05:36 PM

My rule of thumb is that anything put onto a website that has negative or no user benefit and is strictly self-interest is spam.

For example, link exchanges = spam. Users don't benefit from these. I don't care if they're "related"; there's not enough of a benefit there, and the vast majority are abused.

Any site that offers no original content is spam. I'm not talking about sites that have feeds as part of their content. I'm talking sites that are just article dumps and things like that.

Hidden/invisible text isn't spam if an average user can't get to it. Otherwise, it is.

Buying/selling links for SEO purposes = spam. The links don't work for the advertiser since they don't send traffic to the end user, and the advertiser is screwing with a search engine, which affects the user as well.

Basically, what makes a site legit is someone who can market while still providing user benefit. You cross over that line, you're spamming.

**fastreplies** · 05:42 PM

Are you talking about spam in general or based on personal level?

The reason I am asking, because to me there are 2 types of spam:
a. directed at me in form of email, pamphlets in snail mail and phone calls from marketers
and
b. sites that try to sale to me snack oil.

Which one a or b you want us to discuss?

fastreplies
OOPS, not fast enough

**vangogh** · 06:50 PM

John I don't really have a specific question in mind for this. I know the one I asked is somewhat vague. I'm not looking for a list of everything that is or isn't spam.

The way Adam answered is the kind of thing I was hoping for. I shouldn't speak for Adam, but I think the theme is that for a site or marketing tactic to not be spam it has to offer some kind of value to the end user. Adam correct me if I'm misinterpreting, but that's the general impression I get.

fastreplies I was less thinking about email, but feel free to discuss email.

The main reason I started the thread is just so we can try to come up with some general ideas of what is and isn't spam.

Assuming I've interpreted correctly I agree with Adam about the idea of providing value and benefit to users as important in defining what is a spam site and what isn't. What I think is harder to define is what is value and how can you tell if a site does or doesn't have value.

A lot of people might say that MSN Live Search has no value, but I don't think any of us would see it as spam and there are certainly people who do find it valuable.

On the marketing side of things I think it gets a little different. I'm not sure you could say that anything you do to promote your site is adding value to your users other than it might be calling attention to what's a valuable source (assuming your site is a valuable source). When you focus in on the marketing tactics you could argue that it's all spam since the specific tactic is really benefiting you. When you pull back and focus on the big picture you could say it's all just bringing a valuable resource to someone.

Take link exchanges for example. Say I have a site selling shoes, but as bizarre as it seems I don't sell shoe laces. You happen to sell the laces, but don't sell the shoes. I happen on your site and know it's valuable to tell my customers about your site. I also think your visitors would be interested in my site. Obviously I could just link to your site on shoelaces and provide the resource helping my visitors. Is it wrong though to point out to you that your visitors might be interested in my site and ask for a link?

I don't think that's spam, but I know others might see it that way.

For an offline example I think most people are aware that when you see a burger on tv it might look good, but it's probably not the one you want to eat. I think they use vaseline or something similar to make the burger look better. I know there are all sorts of things they do to make food look more appetizing for commercials.

Is that kind of thing spam? You could certainly argue it's dishonest. On the other hand TV is going to distort things anyway so maybe you can argue you're only compensating. If TV adds 10 lbs is it wrong to edit out those 10 lbs after the shoot?

What if instead you took 100 pictures of real burgers you made and served and selected the best picture for the commercial? Is that spam? It is a burger you served, but it's probably not representative of the one someone will get when ordering? What if you kept taking pictures until you found the one in a million burger that looked perfect?

With seo tactics I don't think the specific tactic is or isn't spam. It just is. It's how you use it that makes it legit or spammy. I'd even argue there aren't as many clear cut absolutes as it first appears, but instead most everything falls somewhere in between. Something might lean closer to the spammy side of the equation instead of automatically having crossed the line.

I wonder if there really is a specific line. I tend to think each of us would place that line in a different place.

**Learning Newbie** · 11-05-2007, 07:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

The way Adam answered is the kind of thing I was hoping for. I shouldn't speak for Adam, but I think the theme is that for a site or marketing tactic to not be spam it has to offer some kind of value to the end user. Adam correct me if I'm misinterpreting, but that's the general impression I get.

I think that's what Adam was saying, and regardless of that point, I would agree with this summary.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

Take link exchanges for example. Say I have a site selling shoes, but as bizarre as it seems I don't sell shoe laces. You happen to sell the laces, but don't sell the shoes. I happen on your site and know it's valuable to tell my customers about your site. I also think your visitors would be interested in my site. Obviously I could just link to your site on shoelaces and provide the resource helping my visitors. Is it wrong though to point out to you that your visitors might be interested in my site and ask for a link?

I don't think that's spam, but I know others might see it that way.

If the person has never heard of you before and you send them an (unsolicited) email asking them to place a link on their web site going to yours, I think by law and by definition this is spam. I don't think an email between two parties that have no prior relationship in which one party asks the other party for something (money, a link, a Russian bride) can be seen as anything but spam.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

For an offline example I think most people are aware that when you see a burger on tv it might look good, but it's probably not the one you want to eat. I think they use vaseline or something similar to make the burger look better. I know there are all sorts of things they do to make food look more appetizing for commercials.

I'm almost sure this is illegal. It's a subtle form of bait and switch, but I'm certain the US Congress changed the truth in advertising laws to cover specifically this issue. (Not specific to hamburgler, but to unobtainable goods.)

With your 1 in 100 or 1 in 1,000,000 burger, I'm not sure how the law is applied.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

With seo tactics I don't think the specific tactic is or isn't spam.

I think that's a cop out. And I think we're good enough friends that you will realize I'm criticizing an idea you're putting forth, and not you personally. And that I'm doing it to advance our knowledge through debate. That said, let me return to the point.

"Spam" is a label. So are white and gray and black hat. So is illegal and immoral. I don't think it's valid to say a thing is special enough that labels can't be applied to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

It just is. It's how you use it that makes it legit or spammy. I'd even argue there aren't as many clear cut absolutes as it first appears, but instead most everything falls somewhere in between. Something might lean closer to the spammy side of the equation instead of automatically having crossed the line. I wonder if there really is a specific line. I tend to think each of us would place that line in a different place.

I heard a Viet Nam veteran on NPR talking about a Viet Cong solider he had killed many years ago in the heat of battle. He took the man's journal, forgot about it for some 30 years, then found the book and decided he needed to get it to the man's family. As he was telling his story, he mentioned that one of the commandments says "Thou shalt not kill" and that no exceptions are listed. The man he killed was already reaching for his gun - the American was just lucky enough to be first. If he didn't kill this enemy soldier, the man would surely be dead himself. In other words, he had precious little choice.

Is that murder? Probably not, but some people would say it is, including the man telling his story. Is abortion murder? Is it in the case of rape or incest? That's a question that's right now left up to a woman and her doctor to decide, but I bring it up because I'm reminded of a quote

"there aren't as many clear cut absolutes as it first appears, but instead most everything falls somewhere in between."

**vangogh** · 11-05-2007, 07:24 PM

John unsolicited email is not the legal definition of spam. It needs to be sent in bulk. If I send only you an email regardless of whether or not you want that email it's not legally spam. Most people assume it is, but there's more to the definition than unsolicited.

Otherwise most of the people I know are spamming me since I didn't explicitly ask for their email.

I'm not sure the legality of the burger thing, but I don't think that's illegal either. I used to work for a company that would advertise a tv for sale. Next to the ad was a drawing of a large and beautiful tv along with the words 'artist rendition' The actual tv for sale looked nothing like the one in the picture. Yes it was highly unethical, but I don't think there was anything illegal about it. Don't hold me to that. The laws may have changed since I worked there. I think most food in commercials is still made to look better than it actually is.

I don't think that's a cop out at all John. Here's a question. Is hidden text spam?

It depends on how it's done and why it's done. There are legitimate uses for it and there are spammy uses for it. The specific tactic is neither until you see the implementation. The specific idea of using hidden text is neither legit or spam. It only becomes one or the other depending on how and for what purpose it's being done.

I'm not saying you can't apply a label to something. I just think labels are often applied to things too liberally. What's moral or immoral to you may not be to me. Neither of us is automatically right or wrong.

Your last point is in many ways what I'm getting at. I'm sure everyone has very strong opinions about some of the things you mentioned, but whether those things are right or wrong each of us has to really decide for ourselves.

While I wouldn't consider something like hidden text as the same kind of things as murder or self defense I think in the end the same concept applies. We each have to decide what is or isn't right.

**ForrestCroce** · 11-05-2007, 09:10 PM

Just about all ads make the food look better than it really is. If it looks worse, someone's head is going to roll! For one thing the food is 3D, and if that sounds purely semantic, how many times have you seen fast food printed up a couple of feet wide? It's not that huge in real life, and people are trained that bigger is better. That's why you'll see a little disclaimer about "not actual size" or something along those lines ... probably explains your artist's rendering, too. I should know more about advertising and photography since this is my domain ... maybe I'll get back to you on that. Probably not.

I use plenty of hidden text on my sites. People who haven't been to my blog before, or have cookies disabled, get the links under "meta" hidden - register, log in, admin, rss. There's an elipsis ( ... ) you can click on to unhide them. Another link, [hide], collapses them out of view again. This generally only happens on the first visit because I use a cookie client side to determine whether to show a set of links or fold them up. This lets me use more categories to organize my stuff. I haven't been to the Rockies since launching the blog, but I'm planning to, and will need screen space.

So it's probably about the intent. Hidden text isn't wrong if there's a way for the user to display it. When I click into something from the serps because of text that's highlighted in its entry, and then that text isn't there on the page, that's pretty sleazy, and I won't come back to a site that does that to me. Experts exchange is a good example; they show googlebot the answers to their questions, but only show these to paying customers. They're cluttering up my search results trying to sell me something I'm not interested in. I'll find the answer in Google's cached copy of the page, and then go on about my day. Until I realized what cloaking was, I would get frustrated and then find the info somewhere else. I'd absolutely consider that spam; it's deceptive, it annoys people, it makes it more difficult to find information.

**chrishirst** · 11-06-2007, 08:35 AM

There is only one thing that separates design techniques into legitimate or spam and that is intent.

**Sandman420** · 11-06-2007, 09:01 AM

Spam is content that only benefits its originator. For everyone else, it is just a waste of time.

Come to think of it, I guess it is really not that black and white. I have seen people find a legit site from a made for adsense page and end up placing an order on the legit site.

**vangogh** · 07:36 PM

Forrest and Chris, the intent thing is where I'm coming from. A thing isn't automatically spam or not spam. It only becomes so based on how and why it's been implemented.

Sandman I'm not sure I'd agree that if something only benefits it's originator it has to be spam or that it's automatically a waste of time for everyone else. I collect analytics on my site. That benefits me, but it's not really helping anyone else on my site or having any impact on them really.

The idea that it's not really black and white is also part of my point. Here's an example that will stretch things for some.

I think many people hear the term AdSense arbitrage and immediately think spam. However suppose there are people advertising through AdWords on the content network for some general keywords and don't know enough to bid on longer tail keywords. Suppose there are people searching for long term phrases that would find the sites of those advertisers useful. They probably won't find the advertiser's site though because what they're searching for and what the advertiser is bidding on don't align.

Say someone comes in and sees that and bids on the long tail phrases and has a site with AdSense on it driving traffic to the original advertiser. So searcher searches long tail and clicks on arbitrager's ad. Finds ad for original advertiser on arbitrager's site, clicks and is happy.

Searcher is happy because they end up on the page they want, though in one additional click.

Advertiser is happy because they got the click they paid for.

Arbitrager is happy to have taken a cut.

Now you might argue Google isn't happy because they have to pay arbitrager, but would they have ever gotten the money for the click without the arbitrager? And didn't the arbitrager spend some money as well?

I admit that example is a stretch and I've certainly cited a very specific case in an attempt to prove a point. It typically doesn't happen that way, but I'd say that what I just described does happen. So is it spam?

**Learning Newbie** · 11-06-2007, 08:09 PM

I would call the arbitrage situation you described spam, but of a different sort. I'm not keen on unnecessary middlemen lining their pockets while not producing anything of value. And while I agree in the specific situation you described, the middleman is actually providing a service, at least to the 2 end points you described. In reading about the Farm Bill, I heard a song talking about the farmer breaks his back in the fields and feeds us all, while the middleman makes the money.

I guess I can probably get behind the 3 of you saying it's all about the intent, whether something is or isn't spam. That's borrowed from law. If a construction worker 200 feet above the ground looses his balance and drops his hammer accidentally, but it falls into someone's head and kills them, a crime has not been committed. The only intent was for the construction worker to regain his balance and not fall. If he wants to see what might happen if he drops his hammer and it kills somebody, he's guilty of a lesser crime than murder. Typically malicious mischief, wanton disregard, reckless endangerment, something like that, most likely the last one. If he knows his wife will be passing by on the sidewalk at a certain time and tries to hit her, then it becomes murder. They have a bad TV show called Criminal Intent, and that's because without intent there is no crime.

I would personally say hidden text is spam, or at least generally spam. I'd go further and say what Forrest described really isn't hidden text at all. If you have a mechanism to show it, it's not hidden. Maybe "out of view" is a better term? But I do tend to think it's at the wrong place to call a particular tactic good or bad, it's all in how that tactic is used. Just like how driving past a red sign with 8 sides isn't immoral in and of itself. Morals come into play if not stopping for the stop sign puts another's life and limb in danger.

**vangogh** · 02:22 AM

I won't try to convince anyone one way or the other about whether or not the arbitrage example is or isn't spam. It's obviously very contrived on my part for the sake of the larger philosophical debate. I doubt any arbitrager would look at it with the idea that they're adding a service. They would more likely see things as an opportunity to make money.

I think intent is very important to deciding if someone is a spammer. I think value also plays a role, but it's hard to determine what does and doesn't have value. That's more in the eye of the end user. We all think things have value that others see as a waste of time.

Out of view is probably a better way to describe the hidden text that isn't spam. Though you could look at html comments as spam or not based on the intent and there is no mechanism to view there. The source code doesn't count and this isn't meant to say your html comments will have any effect on search engine results.

I thought of another example. Say you have a page on your site that you discover is ranking for a phrase you didn't intend. You also notice that visitors arriving through search results for the phrase end up buying something from you.

So you go back to the page and add a few instances of that phrase to the copy, a heading, maybe an alt attribute. The pages still reads well. You're a good writer and still make sure the words don't throw off the reader, but you add an extra sentence here, create a new paragraph there, and find ways to change a couple of phrases to get in your keywords.

Have you spammed or optimized?

**coolslko** · 11-07-2007, 07:46 AM

Well......in my opinion everything done to attarct search engine that is not user friendly or to attract user that is not useful for him or to create site just to make money by posting adsense ads etc. are spam.....

**vangogh** · 11-07-2007, 11:21 PM

What about something like a 301 redirect to fix canonical issues? It's only done for search engines. A user couldn't care less if your site displays as www.domain.com or domain.com. They only want to know it displays when they type one.

Also why would you ever add a nofollow to a link. Users don't see them. They don't know the nofollow is there or even care if it is. It's only done for search engines, in particular one search engine. So if you add a nofollow are you now a spammer?

**ForrestCroce** · 11-08-2007, 12:35 AM

Some users might care whether your site is at www, just domain, or something else. I can't really say why that would raise anyone's passion, but I'm not using www because it really doesn't make sense as a default subdomain. Still, I might have been wise to use www so that when I hand type my url lazily and don't include the protocol declaration, if a word starts with www. it automatically becomes a link. Even in an email message hidden from search bots; half the friends you send your new site to might not copy and paste a url into the address bar. That's as twisted as the arbitrage example, but ... there's a difference, even if it really isn't important enough to care much about.

Good seo advice is that your server logs are a treasure trove. I spend more time looking into what search phrases I get traffic for and how it performs, than all the rest of the reports together. Somebody found my blog by asking Google "what type of art is involved in photography?" You'll see a post with exactly that for a title when I'm running low on ideas. I've got a lot to say on the matter, somebody out there is looking for an answer ... I'd say that example is the opposite of spam.

**vangogh** · 11-09-2007, 01:41 AM

I'm not sure a user would care. I think they only care if it works the way they type it. As long as your hosting is set up properly it will work either way. Most people will type it the way they want and if it works never realize it could work the other way.

I agree that's not spam. But did you write that post with your end user in mind or did you write the post with in the hope it would bring more traffic to you? I assume both actually and I have no doubt you wrote the post thinking of your visitors and wrote a useful post. But what was your motivation for writing it?

I'm playing a little, but my point through this thread is to try to get people to see that line between what is and isn't spam is gray and hazy. I dislike spam as much as the next person, but I think we all sometimes make quick judgments about people and sites that aren't always as clear as they first seem on the surface.

**chrishirst** · 11-09-2007, 07:48 AM

Quote:

but my point through this thread is to try to get people to see that line between what is and isn't spam is gray and hazy

Amen to that!

I have never gone in for the black hat/white hat idea being a definite line drawn, it just isn't practical. There are things that can be definitely put into one camp or the other. But as with redirects for canonical and dupe content issues, yes, it's purely for SEs, BUT it is done for the benefit of the site. A similar thing exists with using a 302 to get over the problem of moving an existing site to a new hostname, it's in the grey area.
Where is the harm in maintaining the sites visibility? The intent is not to "fool" the SEs, it is simply to maintain the pages in the SERPs so that customers, existing or potential are not inconvenienced by not finding those pages.

**Learning Newbie** · 11-09-2007, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

Also why would you ever add a nofollow to a link. Users don't see them. They don't know the nofollow is there or even care if it is. It's only done for search engines, in particular one search engine. So if you add a nofollow are you now a spammer?

Actually, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Wikipedia and blogs didn't adopt nofollow to curry favor with the search engines, they actually did it for their users. To remove harmful spam. It's actually, well, it's true generally that "Users don't see them." but the nofollow was aimed squarely at the users who do see them, and act on them. To not be such low hanging fruit.

**vangogh** · 11-10-2007, 12:52 AM

I agree Chris. You just can't draw the line down the middle. In fact the whole ethical/unethical seo debate began more as a marketing tactic than anything else.

I see marketing as something that either works or it doesn't and having different levels of risk. There are certainly some tactics that cross my personal ethically threshold, but more often it's that I'm not willing to take certain risks with my site. When it comes to many seo tactics that get labeled as spam to me it's more that the tactics aren't effective.

John I think Wikipedia added the nofollow because they believed people were creating content designed solely to gain links to their sites. That definitely is search engine related. People still add their links to the content though because those links can drive a lot of direct traffic. nofollow isn't an effective way to stop spam. It wasn't for blog comments and it isn't for Wikipedia.

But no follow was absolutely created with a consideration for search engines. The thought was that people left comment spam on blogs because they wanted the links for the seo benefit. I'm sure some did, but the real reason they leave comment spam is for the people who actually click on the links.

It's a numbers game. Someone sets a program to run all night and leave 1,000,000 comments while they sleep. They know a lot of those links never make it through. Let's say 5% do. That means the next day they have 50,000 new potential avenues into their site. Assume each page is visited once and a 1% CTR on the links. That's 500 visitors. Now assume another 5% CTR to an affiliate site. That's 25 people who hit the affiliate site and we'll give the affiliate site a 10% conversion so 2.5 sales. Pick the right affiliate product and that's decent money.

Also consider I made the assumption of one page view per link. Odds are it's a lot more, particularly over time. Granted I made up the CTR all the way through, but I'd bet it's actually higher than what I used. And remember the spammer spent a little bit of time setting up an automated program and went to sleep and can do the same thing tomorrow or from several computers each night.

There are some who think Wikipedia added the nofollow in order to hoard all their link juice and keep it all their linking power internal to the site. My guess is it was more to combat the perceived manipulation for search rankings.

When you think about it though, it says that while Wikipedia would claim they are an authority and a site you can trust for good information they don't actually trust any of the links leaving their site. What does that say about the trust you should place in the Wikipedia?

<aside>
Oddly enough I've actually noticed some sites ranking well in Google for a phrase that was only used as the anchor text in nofollowed comments.
</aside>