April 21, 2005 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- While anti-spam organizations, government authorities and software developers have seen some success in combating email spam, search engine optimization companies hope to do the same with the growing epidemic of search engine spam.
For as long as the World Wide Web has been around, search engine spam has existed in some shape or form. Its origins can be traced back to the adult industry. X-rated Web sites would buy up hundreds to thousands of domain names, creating the same duplicate sites for each domain. These mirrored pages were then all redirected to one main Web site, allowing the company to achieve a higher visibility on popular search engines.
Back then search engines did not contain the complex algorithms and filtering that are in place today, so despite what keyword you include in your search, these same x-rated sites would appear among the most popular matches. This would prevent search engines from detecting such exploits and eventually led to the further congesting of the system.
Today, search engine optimization companies like Carlsbad, California-based SEO Inc. (seoinc.com) are helping to reduce these search engine exploits by advising their clients to adhere to the proper guidelines and techniques of avoiding search engine spamming.
Many Internet newcomers are unaware of the guidelines of search engine optimization, and as a result, unknowingly contribute to search engine spam. Garry Grant, CEO and president of SEO Inc, says this is an issue that arises with many of SEO's new clients.
"Some of [our clients] have no clue that it's bad," says Grant, "or that it's not within the terms and services of the search engines, like having multiple Web sites of the same content, or putting a ton of keywords and they think that's totally acceptable."
Sixteen forms of spam have saturated search engines in recent years. Among the more widely used techniques are the aforementioned redirect pages; unrelated keywords, where the site contains irrelevant keywords in an effort to gain a higher ranking on search engines; cloaking, in which the search engine will see an entirely different version of the site than the visitors; and link farms, sites that include various irrelevant links.
It is the responsibility of the search engine optimization company to educate their clients about the proper search engine practices and guidelines. Grant says SEO advises its clients on the safe guidelines and, in doing so, ensures that their clients will not be banned from search engines like Google and Yahoo!
"When [our clients] say stuff like, ‘my competitor has four sites up and they're all the exact same. I want to do the same thing,' we say it's just a matter of time before that site will be brought down," says Grant. "Stay within the guidelines here and we'll be okay, and it always works out. It sometimes takes longer to do it the right way but it's better to do it right than wrong."
Meanwhile, search engines themselves have taken a proactive approach to fighting spam by adding filters or pieces of algorithmic equations to detect any signs of spam. The search engine, for example, will run a search for Web sites containing hidden text or multiply mirror content before it updates the information to the public.
