Over the last few years, Google has intensified its campaign against web spam to ensure that users will get reliable and useful online information. Just recently, it has released its annual report on how it fought spammy links and web content over the last 12 months. As a business owner or a web master, it’s important that you know how Google polices the internet so you’ll know what to do to avoid receiving a penalty from the search giant.
Google’s fight against web spam
Here’s what we can take away from Google’s annual report. About 5% of search queries were affected when the search giant released an algorithmic update designed to remove web spam in search results. According to Google, over the past year, it has sent more than 4.3 million messages to webmasters notifying them of manual actions for having spam-infected websites. Also, it has noted that there has been a 33% increase in the number of sites that have undergone a spam clean-up over the last 12 months.
Hacking
Hacking has been prevalent in 2015. According to Google, there was a 180% increase in the number of websites being hacked last year. It warned that hacking can take in many forms, but the result will still be the same. If your site has been hacked, you’ll be placed in quarantine and your site will either be flagged or removed.
To avoid being victimised by hackers, Google encourages webmasters like you to strengthen their account security by using lengthy passwords that are difficult to crack and keeping your site’s software, CMS, and plug-ins updated. You must also use tools, like Google’s Search Console, that will help you determine if you have hacked content on your site.
Sites with low quality content
The year 2015 also saw an increase in the number of sites with thin, low quality content. Google believes that a substantial amount of these sites are being provided by scraper sites.
In the event that your site has been penalised for having “thin content with little or no added value,” there are steps you can take to fix this problem. First, you should check your site for auto-generated content, thin content pages with affiliate links, scraped content, and doorway pages. If you find any, make sure to delete them. Once you have cleaned up your site of pages with thin content and you’re 100% sure that your site provide visitors with valuable information, you can resubmit your site to Google for reconsideration.
