In Google’s newly released webspam report, the company outlines how it addressed link spam in 2018.
Link spam is one of three types of spam covered in the report. Other significant issues include spam on hacked sites and user-generated spam.
Here’s more about how Google tackled these types of spam last year.
## Link Spam
Link spam refers to any type of link-building practice that violates Google’s webmaster guidelines.
Google emphasizes the importance of links as a search ranking factor, explaining why it’s crucial to combat link spam.
> “We continued to protect the value of authoritative and relevant links as an important ranking signal for Search.”
According to Google, egregious link spam is dealt with swiftly. Several link-building practices were made less effective last year.
Without going into too much detail, Google states it “made a number of bad linking practices less effective for manipulating ranking.”
Lastly, Google highlights its outreach efforts to webmasters and SEO professionals:
> “Above all, we continued to engage with webmasters and SEOs to chip away at the many myths that have emerged over the years relating to linking practices.”
To avoid getting penalized for link spam, Google advises against building links primarily as an attempt to rank better.
## Other Ways Google Fought Webspam in 2018
Here’s a quick overview of other key points from the report:
– Less than 1% of results seen by users are for spammy pages.
– An 80% reduction in the impact of user-generated spam on search users.
– In 2018, Google received over 180,000 search spam user reports.
– Google took action on 64% of the reports it processed.
– Google sent over 186 million messages to website owners about their site’s appearance in search results.
– Around 2%—or about 4 million—of the messages Google sent were related to manual actions.
