Spam has been around almost as long as the internet. In the old days, spam was relatively easy to spot. It sat within a site loud and proud, the internet equivalent of that familiar blue can of processed, preserved meat product. Today, spam takes many forms. How do you tell the difference between spam and high-quality luncheon meat?

As time goes by, disreputable site owners find ever more sophisticated ways of spamming the internet. Some of the old ways have lasted, such as cloaking, keyword stuffing and hidden text. These are well-known and avoided by reputable businesses. There are other, less common forms of spam that are less in the common awareness.

IP delivery and tag spam

Anything which deliberately presents a different set of information to the search engines from the information shown to users can be considered spam. This is a tricky area in most ways, because some information, such as that contained in images, cannot be shown to the search engines. When it comes to IP delivery, however, is clearly spam. IP delivery involves sending one form of information to known IP addresses and another to unknowns. This allows spammers to send different information to search engines, which have known IP addresses.

This area of spam does present difficulties for reputable websites and it can be of help to get advice from an SEO expert. You can talk to us at SEO Consult if your site needs to present separate information to the search engines.

Link spam

Links are so valuable for search engine optimisation that many businesses will do anything to get them. This includes participating in link farms, which are commonly known to be frowned on by the search engines. Other forms of gaining links can also get you into trouble, such as participating in paid directories. From a search engine point of view, the only desirable inbound link is a completely natural one.

Redirect spam

Any site that uses a 301 or 302 redirect to steer users toward a page that is significantly different from the original is considered to be spamming. There are times when this will be obvious, such as redirecting traffic from a home and garden page to an adult store. Sometimes it can be done innocently, such as when a site wants to keep ranking from an old page.

Networking spam

Using your sites to boost each other’s ranking can be considered spam. This is particularly true when the sites are used as bait to draw users into a central sales site. The artificial link power created by networks owned by one person is something search engines fight against.

Social media spam

This is a fairly common form of spam, although its perpetrators might not realise it. Social media networks are highly intolerant of overt marketing tactics. This means that even mentioning that your company can provide a service could be considered as spam when posted in a forum. Usually, the social media network’s terms and conditions provide a thorough guideline. Posting a blatant advertisement is universally frowned upon.

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