What is Spamdexing?

Spamdexing is the practice of manipulating search engine rankings through deceptive and unethical SEO techniques. Het wordt ook wel genoemd webspam of black hat SEO and is accomplished using content creation and link building techniques that violate search engine guidelines.

In the case of Google, content that ranks through spamdexing typically violates Google’s Search Essentials guidelines. Such pages usually offer no benefit to visitors and are only intended to trick Google into thinking they are helpful when they aren’t.

Importance of Spamdexing

Spamdexing is unimportant to SEO. Bloggers should avoid it because it violates search engine guidelines and can lead to severe penalties, including loss of rankings and deindexing, which is the complete removal from search results pages.

Spamdexing is dangerous to bloggers who intend to sustain their blogs long-term because it creates a false illusion of gains. Sites that rely on it may rank on search results pages. However, these rankings are usually temporary since the blogger will likely lose them once uncovered.

Google even periodically releases algorithm updates, such as Panda en Penguin, to penalize sites that engage in spamdexing. Google has also added some of those algorithms, including Panda and Penguin, to its core algorithm.

Google also uses an AI-powered system called SpamBrain to identify sites engaged in spamdexing. It also has dedicated anti-spam teams staffed with human reviewers who manually check websites suspected of spam and issue them a manual action penalty when uncovered.

Examples of Common Spamdexing Techniques

A typical spamdexing campaign is typically executed using a combination of black hat content creation and link building techniques. So, it is pretty normal for content and sites engaged in such to violate multiple search engine guidelines. That said, some spamdexing techniques include:

1 Trefwoord vulling

Keyword stuffing is the practice of overloading a webpage with excessive keywords or phrases. The excessive trefwoorden are placed in the visible content, alt text, image titles, meta tags, meta titles, en meta descriptions. Keyword stuffing is sometimes implemented with other spamdexing techniques like hidden content.

2 Hidden Content

Hidden content refers to content that is hidden from visitors but visible to search engines. These contents are hidden using techniques like tiny fonts or matching their font color to the background color.

3 Hidden Links

Hidden links are a variation of hidden text. However, instead of hiding keywords from visitors, they hide links. The links could be embedded within the hidden text or placed directly on the site. Like the text, the links are hidden from visitors but visible to search engines.

4 Paid Links

Paid links is the practice of purchasing links to point to your site. The links could be paid for in cash or using some other product or service of monetary value. Google requires paid links to be marked using the sponsored link attribuut rel="gesponsord" , otherwise they would be considered spamdexing and black hat.

5 Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are low-quality pages created solely to rank for specific search queries and then redirect visitors to another page. Doorway pages exist solely for search engines and typically offer little to no benefits to visitors.

6 Artikel draaien

Article spinning is rewriting someone else’s content and publishing it as if it were yours. Article spinning is usually executed with rewriting software and AI tools. However, it can also be done manually. The spun article is also often poorly written, incoherent, and stuffed with keywords.

7 Scraped Content

Scraped content refers to content stolen from one site and published on another. The theft is usually executed with specialized web scraper software, though it may be done manually. The spammer may also edit the content before republishing.

8 Dunne inhoud

Thin content refers to pages with little or no helpful value. Such content rarely satisfies the zoekintentie and offers visitors a poor user experience. For clarity, thin content is not restricted to low-volume pages, as even unhelpful long-form content can be considered thin.

9 Verhulling

Cloaking is the practice of showing different content to visitors and search engines. That is, the webpage ranks on search results pages for a specific keyword but then redirects visitors to a totally unrelated page. Cloaking is typically used with other spamdexing techniques like keyword stuffing and hidden content.

10 Parasite SEO

Parasite SEO is the practice of publishing SEO content on high-authority sites. It used to be considered a grey hat SEO procedure but effectively became a spamdexing and black hat SEO technique after Google released the site reputation abuse update to penalize publishers involved in such practices.

11 Private Blog Networks (PBNs)

Private blog networks (PBNs) are a spamdexing technique involving a group of websites that link to one another. These sites are usually owned by the same person or organization and are intended to inflate the backlinks pointing to the individual sites.

12 Link Farms

A link farm is a group of low-quality sites created solely to link to one another. The pages in the farm rarely contain helpful content and are created solely to improve their rankings, trick search engines, and manipulate search engine results pages.

13 Expired Domain Abuse

Expired domain abuse is a spamdexing technique wherein a blogger purchases expired domains with existing authority and populates them with content or redirects their inbound links to another site. It used to be considered a grey hat and somewhat unethical link building technique but became a black hat SEO technique after Google included it in its search essentials spam policies.

14 Aggressive Link Exchanges

A link exchange occurs when two or more sites link to one another. While typically considered a white hat SEO technique, it can become spamdexing and webspam when done aggressively. In such instances, the sites exchanging the links are only interested in improving their rankings and do not care about the relevance or helpfulness of the content containing the links.

15 Aggressive Reciprocal Linking

Reciprocal linking occurs when two sites link to one another. While typically white hat, it becomes a black hat SEO technique when executed between irrelevant and unhelpful pages.