Join the SEMpdx forum discussion about this post - (6) Posts

SEMpdx is an “all volunteer” organization, and cleaning up comment and forum spam comes with the job. However, when these time sucking waste of pixel space comes from someone that is supposed to be “in the industry”, it really ticks me off.

Sifting through several hundred morning e-mails Thursday, I ran across two newly submitted forum posts awaiting approval. One was supposed to go in our Portland “local search marketing jobs” forum and one was slated for the SEM business forum.

Spam is content / techniques generated only for search engines and not humans in an attempt to inflate ranking. Intent / targeting is key. Look for? Page level - doing things useless for end-users. Link-level: in & out links. Deceiving end-users. Spammy behavior accounted for in rankings - can result in delisting.

Spam more about intent of technique and the extent a technique is used, rather than being a specific technique. Where is the fine line? Varies by industry. Is a user comfortable with the user experience of a site (excessive links, nonsensical text, etc.). Search engines can’t discose where the line is.