What if... I was working for Google Web SPAM team ?

That's the question I ask myself when I start some blackhat-ish operations (link building, content, social signals) using automated software.

Most of the time, the answer is "looking for patterns" and "looking for footprints" in order to differentiate humans and robots.

The concept of this thread is to post some basic theories, starting with "If I was Google, I would..." and follow with your thoughts.

Some examples:

If I was Google, I would compare the user agents of one IP, if more than 20 user agents go through this IP, I would consider it's a proxy.

If I was Google, I would try to surf on BHW to discover the new techniques and see how to fight back ! =)

Your turn !

If I was google I would randomly ban everyone using adsense so that I could keep the money they earned.

But really, Google just needs to compare the number of links pointed to an x time with the topic x by the average amount of links sent to sites about x topic, and the amount of traffic searching for x topic.


So say there is a term "Lama Farm"
On average it gets 2000 searches a month.
On average there are 20 links built to sites about lama farms per month.

If someone jumps in and has 100 links pointed to their site that month it is like hey... usually there are only 20, this month there is 120, and 100 are to one site. Black hat.

If 5 links were built, its would be like, hey there is an increase, but not a huge one, so it is not likely blackhat, no need to look into it.

Then say there was 120 links again that month, but also for some reason instead of 2000 searches there were 10,000 searches for "lama farms" that month. Then the increase in links is possible, and assuming the page with the 100 links is the most informative and highest quality it makes sense.

youtalkmedia said:

If I was google I would randomly ban everyone using adsense so that I could keep the money they earned.

Click to expand...

Lol! True story ^

If I was Google, I would check the time spent on a site after a click. This way I would find which sites offer real content and which ones are just there to make you download some exe file.

Think they already do that !

futureland said:

If I was Google, I would check the time spent on a site after a click. This way I would find which sites offer real content and which ones are just there to make you download some exe file.

Click to expand...

If I was Google, I will redirect all clicks from searches to my money site.

If I was in Google Team, I will use my own unmatched SEO knowledge to dominate SERP for my own website with anonymous name. I would make thousands of dollar by deliberately create a system hole that only known by me. Oh, and I will create fake Google+ account and spam my coworker.

youtalkmedia said:

If I was google I would randomly ban everyone using adsense so that I could keep the money they earned.

But really, Google just needs to compare the number of links pointed to an x time with the topic x by the average amount of links sent to sites about x topic, and the amount of traffic searching for x topic.


So say there is a term "Lama Farm"
On average it gets 2000 searches a month.
On average there are 20 links built to sites about lama farms per month.

If someone jumps in and has 100 links pointed to their site that month it is like hey... usually there are only 20, this month there is 120, and 100 are to one site. Black hat.

If 5 links were built, its would be like, hey there is an increase, but not a huge one, so it is not likely blackhat, no need to look into it.

Then say there was 120 links again that month, but also for some reason instead of 2000 searches there were 10,000 searches for "lama farms" that month. Then the increase in links is possible, and assuming the page with the 100 links is the most informative and highest quality it makes sense.

Click to expand...

and then a news story about lama farms or a cute viral lama farm video goes viral and a whole bunch of civilians get google slapped.

Google knows everything we do, and much much more besides, 50.000 well paid university educated geeks who have a job for life with google are better funded, and smarter than 99.9% of BH SEO's, ..... HOWEVER the only problem they have is: how to keep the BH community on a short leash WITHOUT nuking a bunch of innocent/viral/news topic sites or opening up a whole new problem of NEG SEO on an industrial scale.

I believe it is that (false positive/neg SEO) single fact alone that lets us do what we do, and it is that fact alone that will keep BH tactics alive for many more years to come.

who the fu** needs a lama farm anyway?

If I was Google, I would scare marketers with anti-spam techniques that don't exist and avoid talking about the operating ones. In other words, Matt Cutts is a disinfo agent to make us all scared

I had a website I couldn't get on the top of SERPs with legit techniques, then I was pissed off and bought some nasty link farm links and boom! First page. And this story happened after the Panda update !

If i was google i could mark as spam all links coming from free web 2.0s,blog comments etc and value direct links from authority website content areas like articles from news sites and niche related sites as it is difficult to manipulate and get links from them

If I was working in google, I'd kick Matt Cutts from his job.

We Already Have Matt Cutts Here.
He's A Close Friend To WizGizmo
But I Say He's The Matt Cutts...

If you were working for Google webSPAM team,

I'd say you're doing a good job in flying under the radar and collecting some good methods as to how you can do your job a little more effectively. Possibly may even get a raise.



Why would anyone answer this?


But then again, you won't be getting real answers in here as those are well kept, some even from me..


[twist]
..but then yet again, who am I? I'm just a person who works for Google's webSPAM team.

I have thought about that viewpoint often as well - if I were google, I would be watching inbound links to websites, where the links came from, if those sites were related, if those sites were good quality established sites, if people on social platforms where talking about the site.

then of course I would be looking at what happens when people land on the sites - how long do they stay there and so on - then I know the content is of interest.

I would probably categorise queries as well - like informative queries where people are expected to stay on a site a long time as they are reading, buying keywords, where people probably wont stay as long, question/answer keywords - where people are likely to go to the site, read the answer and leave.

then I would also be looking at content on the sites, and also matching that up to different types of keywords.

then I would probably also compare a radius of sites within any particular niche or keyword - and look for anomalies - like if I have 1000 results all with an average of 1000 backlinks to the site, then one site with 500,000 back links, I might want to think of a way to analyze what is happening there.

It is quite interesting to think like that, and it does make you think about it from the other point of view, and therefor gives you a better idea of waht sort of stategy you should be employing.

But theres no point spending too long thinking about it, because everything I just mentioned and probably everything mentioned in this thread, we already know about google anyway.

And what it all comes down to really is thinking about a real popular site in your niche, that everyone IS talking about, and trying to replicate that and make it look as natural as possible.

I would put tacks on Matt's chair every morning.

If I would work at Google, I would read this thread and tell someone with more responsibility some of the ideas I have found here

So I don't like to see good post's on this type of thread...

Nice topic for Google staff this is.

I don't think google will change anything based on one forum post. I'm sure they are fully aware of what blackhat marketers do, but they aren't interested in stoping individuals are they, they're interested in working out patterns and how to better determine what's real interest and what's machined.

davids355 said:

I don't think google will change anything based on one forum post. I'm sure they are fully aware of what blackhat marketers do, but they aren't interested in stoping individuals are they, they're interested in working out patterns and how to better determine what's real interest and what's machined.

Click to expand...

Oh so thinking about patterns and giving a hint doesn't fit in OP's question ?

^^ ah it's to late at night and your confusing me