Ads and Spam Pages
Many webpages have Ads. Pages with satisfying and helpful MC and Ads are not considered spam. However, we will consider pages to be spam if they have Ads and:
• No MC, deceptive MC, or unhelpful MC
• Copied MC
• Auto-generated MC
All of these pages exist primarily to get clicks on Ads.
No Main Content
Some pages literally have no MC. The only thing on the page is Ads and possibly links to other similar pages. We will consider these pages to be spam.
Parked (Expired) Domains
Here is a type of website which frequently has no MC: Parked Domains.
When companies go out of business and are acquired by another company, change their name, or fail to pay their domain registration fee, the website name "expires" and may be purchased by someone else. Spammers sometimes buy these websites and cover the pages with Ads. Such sites are referred to as "parked domains" or "expired domains."
Spammers also purchase the following kinds of domains, which are similar in appearance to parked domains:
• Domains which are close in spelling to real domains, hoping that users will mistype the domain name or URL and land on their websites, which contain Ads.
• Domains that users might type when looking for a website to use. A typical parked/expired domain contains some or all of the following:
• Ads
• Links to other similar pages on the website
• A fake search box
Here are some examples of queries that spammers have purchased domains for, hoping that users would land on the websites and click Ads.
|
Query |
LP of the Result Block, Result Block, PQ Rating, Utility Rating |
Explanation | |
[chairs], English (US) |
Link to landing page:
|
This result is spam. It is a fake search page. No Vital page is possible for this query because it is an information query and no one can claim ownership of it. | |
|
[knitting], English (US) |
Link to landing page: |
This result is spam. It is a fake search page. No Vital page is possible for this query because it is an information query and no one can claim ownership of it. | |
|
[huffintonpost.com], English (US) This query is a working URL, but it is clearly mistyped. The clear user intent is to navigate to huffingtonpost.com: LP |
Link to landing page: |
This result is spam. It is a fake search page. This result is not Vital. It is not the result the user is looking for. | |
Recognizing Parked/Expired Domains
• Look at the links. Typically, all of the links on a parked domain are Ads. There is little to no original content on the page.
• Look at the domain name (URL). On a parked domain, the domain name (URL) often has little or nothing to do with the content on the webpage. You may see the keywords, but the links are usually generic and the linked pages are not really associated with the query.
• Look at the page on the Internet Archive. Go to http://www.archive.org/index.php to enter the URL and view the page as it appeared previously, when its original owner maintained it. If the original site was different, it is probably a parked domain.
Parked Domain Examples:
Deceptive MC: Fake Search Pages with Ads
A fake search page is a page with a list of links that looks like a page of search results. You will see a "search box" on the page, but if you submit a new query in the search box, you just get a different page of links. If you click on a few of the links, you will see that the page is just a collection of Ads disguised as search engine results.
Fake Search Page Examples
Deceptive MC: Fake Blogs and Forums with Ads
A fake blog or fake forum contains fake posts that are either nonsensical, copied from another source, or are written purely to get clicks on Ads or affiliate links. Ads and affiliate links may appear within the text of the fake blog or forum entry, or on other parts of the page. Fake blogs and forums are deceptive and are spam.
Spammed blogs and spammed forums are different from fake blogs and fake forums. A spammed blog or forum is a real working site with real posts, but which has been spammed with posts that contain Ads and/or porn links. We do not want to penalize a real blog or forum because someone else has put spam on it. If you believe that the blog or forum is a legitimate site that has been spammed by someone else, please do not consider the result spam.
Fake Forum/Message Board Posts
Copied MC and Ads
Copying content from some sources is not necessarily illegal, nor is it plagiarism. Webmasters who copy content usually do not claim to be original content creators and may, in fact, assign credit to the originator of the content. However, even if they do give credit to others, it is considered to be copied content.
We will call a page spam if the entire MC is copied content and the page is created to make money from ads.
Copied Content Example
Original Cont
ent Copied Content
Auto-generated Main Content and Ads
Automatically generated (auto-generated) content is content that has been generated programmatically (not by a human). Often it will consist of paragraphs of random text that make no sense to the reader but which may contain words in the query. Some examples of auto-generated content include:
• Text translated by an automated tool without human review or curation before publishing.
• Text generated using automated synonymizing or obfuscation techniques.
• Stitching or combining content from different webpages without adding sufficient value.
• Text generated from scraping Atom/RSS feeds or search results.
Note: Web publishers (such as the BBC, CNN, Usenet, CNet, NY Times, Atom, and others) publish information online that is readily available to users through RSS (Really Simple Syndication). RSS feeds appear on many pages. However, we will call a page spam if the entire MC is auto-generated and was created just to make money.
Computer-Generated Text Exampl
e Computer-Generated Page Example
Unhelpful MC and Ads
Some MC is created just for the purpose of putting ads on the page. If the MC clearly has no other purpose than to get users to click on Ads, the page should be considered spam.
Unhelpful MC Examples
In other cases, the MC quality may be poor and unhelpful, but you may not feel the page is spam. These pages can still be rated Lowest PQ even if the page is not technically spam.
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