You can help Google eliminate spam from Search: Details here
What's the story
After taking action on nearly 90,000 user reports of spam in Google Search results last year, Google has now asked for user feedback to eliminate spam. It's widely known that the tech giant uses artificial intelligence (AI) to detect and remove spam, and while that system is pretty effective, Google wants to do better this year with users' help. Here's how you can help.
Information
Difference between website spam and email spam
Unlike email spam, which is generally understood as unsolicited mails sent for commercial or malicious purposes, website spam comprises sites that try to game Google's ranking system, and also includes phishing sites and legitimate sites that have been hacked to deliver malware.
Public participation
How to help Google root out spam in Search results
Juan Felipe Rincon, the Global Search Outreach Lead at Google, clarified that the tech giant's AI system is working round the clock to clear spam from Search results. But, he has also invited public participation in rooting out spam. He urged users to report "spam, malware, and other issues" via the "Send Feedback" link at the bottom of the Search results page.
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Rincon's request to users
"Reporting spam, malware and other issues you find helps us protect the site owner and other searchers from this abuse. You can file a spam report, a phishing report or a malware report," said Rincon in a blog post, urging users to participate.
Spam removal
Google sent millions of notifications to website owners last year
Meanwhile, Google hasn't been idling. Reportedly, the company had sent over 45 million automated, and 6 million manual notifications to registered website owners in 2017 alerting them about possible problems which could affect their search result appearance. Additionally, Google also conducted over 250 webmaster meet-ups with over 2.2 million website owners to inform them of guidelines last year.