Spam Site: Guide for the Falsely Accused

A problem that we have touched on several times is the issue of being perceived by search engines as spammy. The good news though is that according to the top three search engines (Yahoo, MSN, and Google) the chance of being mistaken as a spam site is really low. Of course that doesn’t do the few sites that are mistakenly identified as such any good. What is good news to those that are viewed by Microsoft and Google as spammy is that you will actually be notified by these two search engines about the fact. Because of this you can immediately respond to these two. Unfortunately Yahoo does not give notice to sites just yet although they say they are working on it. If you do receive a notification from Microsoft and/or Google what you can do is to:

• Check your site – You might have been hacked or they may be some elements that are really spammy.
• Clean up your site – In case either of the two scenarios mentioned above apply to your site. If your site has been hacked read Hannah’s post on how to deal with a hacked site.
• Notify the Proper Authorities – Make sure that by the time you write to tell them that your site is NOT a spam site that it isn’t because you do not want them to spend time manually reviewing your site and get negative results. You can notify Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo via Webmaster Central, Webmaster Tools, and Site Explorer Suggestions form respectively.

By the way, if you have a spam site do not be surprised if neither Google nor Microsoft bother to even send you a notification since they do not waste their time with sites that are so obviously spammy.

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Spam Site: Guide for the Falsely Accused