Defining Spamdexing or ‘spam’ as it is generally known

Spamdexing occurs when selective unethical methods are used to index web pages. These pages have been positioned as extraordinary high ranking by search engines and it allows the spamdexer to obtain an objective by sending users unsolicited information.

This is usually most annoying or repulsive by both the search engine providers as well as users. Other terms used for this practice are search spam or search engine spam. Spamdexing is in many cases used to increase website trafficking and this can turn out to be very profitable. With more and more sophisticated technology being introduced into the search engines; combating these illegal activities has become very sophisticated as well.

Types of Spamdexing

The 2 classes of spamdexing can be categorized in to content and link spamming.
Content spamdexing happens when a searched engine is ‘fooled’ by what appears in the content of a page and what the actual display of the page is. Example of these spamming techniques is keyword stuffing, mega tag stuffing, invisible and unrelated text and scraper sites.
Link spamming is designed to create links that will increase website ranking. Example is hidden links, spam blogs, and cookie stuffing.

Sophisticated Spamdexing

Google bombing was the term used when the use of hyperlinks were made to create an unusually high search engine ranking. Bloggers used this method to display offensive or distasteful messages. The Google bomb fortunately had its ‘final’ explosion when Google introduced algorithms to put it out of play.

Algorithms are frequently used by search engines to determine how relevant the website and its contents are and therefore increase the quality of the information. Search engines can pick up or spot spamdexing and immediately remove the suspected pages from the site. During the late 1990′s the Page Rank link analysis system put Google on the map as the search engine that could best produce search results and eliminate keyword spamming.

Cloaking is a technique used by spammers to display content on the search engine that is not the same as when displayed on the user’s browser. Also known as a black hat search engine optimization technique, the hidden content is sent through a script to the web page of the user. This method of ‘fooling’ search engines has also been used to push websites in to higher rankings. If this form of deception is reported, the sites will immediately be delisted as the guidelines have been violated. These serious offences sooner or later become exposed as the growth and evolving of search engines are expanding at a tremendous rate. The perpetrator could lose his ranking and kiss his entire hard work goodbye or simply face having his website permanently banned.

URL redirection is another form of black hat spamdexing. The user is clicked on to site that is not asked for where more often than not pornographic material is displayed. Mirror websites used for spamdexing are now more than ever successfully combated by search engines.

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