Google reacts to search spam critics

Cutts: "search results in Google is better than it has ever been"

Reacting to growing criticism that pollution of its search results with spam has increased alarmingly in recent times, Google has modified its search algorithm to keep spammers at bay.

The changes began taking effect at the end of January. A targeted approach is being used by the company, according to the leader of Google’s web spam team Matt Cutts. Slightly less than two percent of queries submitted to the system were affected by the initial changes, he wrote in his personal blog, but less than half a percent of search results changed enough for someone to notice.

Although Google acknowledges that it’s making some changes to thwart spammers, it’s doing so without admitting that junk has proliferated on its search results. Cutts, writing in the Official Google Blog on January 21, asserted that the quality of search results in Google is better than it has ever been.

“[A]ccording to the evaluation metrics that we’ve refined over more than a decade, Google’s search quality is better than it has ever been in terms of relevance, freshness and comprehensiveness,” he noted. “Today, English-language spam in Google’s results is less than half what it was five years ago, and spam in most other languages is even lower than in English.”

Cutts explained that Google’s success at weeding pure web spam from search results have forced spammers to resort to other tactics to pollute them. Pure web spam produces search results with junk in them. The results are so poisoned, most searchers wouldn’t even click on them.

Increasingly, spammers have been turning to other tactics to corrupt search results. If a website frequently appears in search results, for instance, Black Hats may hack it for nefarious purposes. A searcher expecting to go to the site may be redirected to a spam site or to a page that will infect their computers with malware. Spammers are also notorious for creating low- or no-content sites. A site might contain content “scraped” from sites producing original content or just be pages stuffed with Google AdSense ads.

The fact that Google may actually benefit from search results fouled by spam has provided fuel for criticism for some skeptics who believe Google has put less than 100 percent behind its anti-spam efforts. That’s because Google’s business model, they argue, is built on a conflict of interest.

The company provides search services for web surfers. A searcher gives the company some words and Google, through the secret sauce in its proprietary search algorithm, returns what it thinks are the best results. It’s been quite good at doing that, which is why it has been able to corral 70 percent of the search market. Along with its search services, the company also sells advertising that’s connected to the search results it finds. Websites can display advertising served up by Google and collect a fee when people click on it. That AdSense program accounts for about 30 percent of Google’s revenues.

What skeptics point out is that Google stands to benefit by placing sites displaying its advertising higher in its search result findings than sites that don’t display its advertising. The point is a sore one for Google and one that Cutts attacked in his blog entry.

“One misconception that we’ve seen in the last few weeks is the idea that Google doesn’t take as strong action on spammy content in our index if those sites are serving Google ads,” he wrote.

He claimed that:

• Google absolutely takes action on sites that violate our quality guidelines regardless of whether they have ads powered by Google;
• Displaying Google ads does not help a site’s rankings in Google; and
• Buying Google ads does not increase a site’s rankings in Google’s search results.

The problem with Google’s defense is that there’s no way to prove it, short of the company revealing the jewels of its business–its proprietary search algorithms.

Moreover, an aggressive campaign against spam websites by Google could be costly. Seth Weintraub, writing for Fortune magazine, estimated that if spam sites amounted to only one percent of AdSense revenue it would amount to $25 million a quarter, or $100 million a year. “That’s nothing to sneeze at,” he observed.  ”The dollar amount could be much higher.”

While Google critics are calling for Google to be more open about its search policies to ensure that it really is cracking down on spam, the proof will be in the search results. If Google’s actions produce a reduction in spam in search results that the average web ferret can discern, then the cries of those critics will become white noise on the Net. If not, then Searchzilla can be in for some trouble.