What is Spam? - SES NYC 05

Well said Phil, I could not agree more...

[Gurtie]

<very much devils advocating>

The other reason is that no SEO, white or black, evaluates the top 10 to find out if the client's page is more relevant than some of the pages that are already there, before trying to get it there. Nobody even considers that. All SEOs are at fault in that respect, and nobody tries to achieve the best top 10. We all try to get our page into the top 10, whether it merits it or not as compared with the existing pages.

Isn't that what white hats claim to do though - make the site amongst the best 10 available so that it naturally floats to the top? If they can't do that they will refuse the client.....

Is the only reason for creating doorway pages when the client won't allow you to touch the site? What part of a doorway page couldn't be done to an actual page of the website equally well (even if it means adding new pages to the website as legit pages with no auto-forwarding?)

[PhilC]

Thank you Lots0

Hi Gurtie,

Some whitehats do recommend making a site the best it can be, or one of the 10 best sites out there, but what does that mean? Best design? Best content? Biggest? Best usability? What do they mean by "best"? But "best" websites don't float up the rankings just for being the best in some way. They only float up the rankings if they match the algo for the query's searchterm better than most other pages. The ugliest, least useful, and smallest sites, with little to no decent content, will get top rankings over "best" sites if they are optimized well.

How many scraped pages are reported to be ranking at the top these days? Plenty. How many pages with keywords stuffed in them so that sentences don't make any sense are ranking at the top? Plenty. The pages of "best" sites don't get top ranking because they are amongst the 10 best sites out there. If they get top rankings, it's because they match the algo for a particular searchterm better than most other pages.

My limited experience of mainstream whitehats is that they don't attempt to target searchterms if they are in any way competitive. In a conversation about competitive searchterms, one of the most prominent of them stated publically that (the person) doesn't even try for many 2-word phrases. So, yes, they do appear to decline work in the competitive fields.

There are various reasons why doorway pages are suitable substitutes for the 'real' page in the serps. One is as you suggested - the client doesn't want the site changed. Another is that the existing pages are simply not suitable for decent optimization. Time and expense is another; e.g. a single product can be searched for by using various searchterms, and ideally, each page should target just one searchterm. New content pages could be created to target each variation, but that takes a lot of time and expense when there are a lot of products, especially when you are trying to avoid duplications.

[WilliamC]

Originally Posted by PhilC

Some whitehats do recommend making a site the best it can be, or one of the 10 best sites out there

Yes, but now there is one less whitehat saying that, one has given up on seo altogether and now practices very general site marketing saying it is better to not get as many visitors but to make more of those few that you get buy your product.

I actually applaud her on finally realizing she needed to change her business format.

Edit: Excellant debate here guys. PhilC, as always you seem on top of your game mate

[projectphp]

Really? Can you point us to this information WilliamC? Or is this (thinly veiled)speculation dressed up as fact?

[WilliamC]

Originally Posted by projectphp

Really? Can you point us to this information WilliamC? Or is this (thinly veiled)speculation dressed up as fact?

check your PM.

[PhilC]

Originally Posted by WilliamC

Excellant debate here guys. PhilC, as always you seem on top of your game mate

I always enjoy a good debate

The thread is about "what is spam?" It was said earlier, but I'll repeat it. Spam is what each search engine says it is, and that's all it is.

Some techniques are thought to be instrinsically spam, but they are not:-

Cloaking is thought to be spam, regardless of the reason for it, but it isn't. Search engines cloak - they deliver different pages to different people according to certain criteria, such as the person's location in the world. That's IP cloaking. Google does it all the time because of AdWords. They also accept their spiders being fed different pages than people get if there is a good reason for it. One such reason is to get rid of session IDs in URLs on the page, so that the spiders can crawl further. So cloaking itself isn't spam, but it can be used in ways that the engines don't want, and it's those ways that are spam.

Auto-redirecting is thought to be spam, but it isn't. Again, the engines themselves do it from time to time - to the great annoyance of some of us. There have been times when we in the UK simply could not get to an engine's .com site - we were always auto-redirected to their .co.uk site. So auto-redirecting isn't spam in itself, but it can be used in ways that the engines don't want, and it's those ways that are spam.

Doorways pages, even auto-redirecting doorway pages aren't spam because they have valid uses, such as a site where almost all of its pages are locked in a database and behind forms, which spiders can't fill in. They are dynamic and are only accessible to people by selecting some choice or other - a form. Auto-redirecting doorway pages are used to allow spiders to get at all the pages, which is what the engines want them to do.

Even hidden text isn't spam, because it has genuine uses.

I could go on, but it can be summed up by saying that methods are not intrinsically spam, and that whatever each engine says is spam, is spam for that engine. Generally speaking, it includes everything that is done to improve rankings. The exceptions are making the site crawlable, and writing good content so that the engines can know what the page is about.

[projectphp]

Some techniques are thought to be instrinsically spam, but they are not:-

Some emails can be thought to be instrinsically spam but they are not:-

I mean, some men DO suffer from micropenis, and need any help they can get. If spammers can help just one man, it wasn't spam

I dunno Phil. I think we are just back to deifinitions. Are meta descriptiosn "hidden"? As most of can't agree on what cloaking is or isn't, or what even "hidden" is, I think we really can't go a semantic level up and use these words to defend any spam position.

Heck, we haven't even got a definition of what "competetive" search term is. My view would be a term with lots of business behind it like, say computer, which has the worlds two biggest black hat spammers at the top in Apple and Dell. Most people seem to usually mean "a business with small start up costs I wouldn't tell my mum I was in", like pr0n or gambling.

And I think Jill made a good comment about that way back when: Who cares what ranks well in these industries? As long as the white collar business terms have good results, like the white on white computers, who cares what is number one for {insert prurient term here}?

[PhilC]

I din't think there was any confusion about definitions.

Cloaking is what it's always been - serving different versions of a page to different requestors. I know that someone tried to redefine what cloaking is so that the engines weren't guily of it, but that idea fell flat on its face.

Competitive has always meant when there are lot of people competing over the searchterm. Initially some people think that the higher the number of results, the more competitive a searchterm is, but it's never been that.

[projectphp]

So this is the most competetive search, yeh

I still say there is confusion phil. Whether or not an argument "...fell flat on its face" that doesn't mean everyone agrees. Spam, as a copncept, isn't any tangible thing. It is a concept, and there will always be ongecture about conecpts.

But really, how much is there open for debate? Everyone agrees that a porn listing for disney is spam, no one thinks a page with Company name is spam, we are just arguing over the line inbetween. Or, to put it in historical context How Many Angels Can Fit On The Head Of A Pin?

[PhilC]

That search is interesting. I used to use it to give a rough idea of the number of pages that Google has in the index, but it's showing a much lower figure now.

Yes - spam is really a concept. No method or technique that I can bring to mind is intrisically spam. The uses that some methods/techniques are sometimes put to is spam as far as the engines are concerned.

[JasonD]

I do love a little irony in the morning, even if its 7 years on....

[AussieWebmaster]

yeah of all the posts to spam

[bhartzer]

Kind of reminds me of what SPAM really means:

Someone Positioned Above Me.