Search Engine Spam

Most of us are using search engines. No matter it's Google, Yahoo or any other, a search engine helps us. When we're looking for information, a search engine will return sites that are matching with the keyword inserted. In some cases, the search is far from being accurate, the results displayed being different from the one we were looking for. These URLs are considered as spam and can be removed from the search engine's index if a user reports the site to the developers.

"Search engine spam refers to pages that are considered unwanted and appear in search results with the intent to deceive or attract clicks, with little regard for relevance or overall quality of the user experience," is the definition offered by Yahoo.

The company also offered some examples of sites that are considered as spam:
- Pages that harm accuracy, diversity, or relevance of search results
- Pages that seem deceptive, fraudulent, or provide a poor user experience
- Pages dedicated to redirecting the user to another page
- Pages in great quantity, automatically generated or of little value
- Pages using methods to artificially inflate search engine ranking
- The use of text that is hidden from the user
- Excessively cross-linking sites to inflate a site's apparent popularity
- Pages built primarily for search engines
- Misuse of competitor names/products