Web search spam has seen a rise in the past few months due to websites that were able to circumvent advanced algorithms of search engines to achieve higher rankings. Google recognizes this deteriorating condition and has published steps it is taking to reduce internet spam.
In a recent blog post by Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer at Google, he discusses the current search quality and the changes they are planning to increase the quality of the search content. Google recently launched Caffeine which indexed more web content, including spam. Thus the search giant is focusing on developing a new classifier for web pages that will degrade the ranking of spam filled pages. "The new classifier is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spammy words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments."
Matt further explains that the "pure webspam" content has been almost completely blocked. The company now aims to discourage websites with low-quality and non-original content in the form of "content farms". He further mentions that, "We’ve also radically improved our ability to detect hacked sites, which were a major source of spam in 2010."
He also clears up some common misconceptions about website indexing and explains that the company takes actions against websites violating Google's guidelines even if it runs Google ads. The article rejects the notion that displaying or buying Google ads increases the search ranking of a website.
Google is certainly working hard to make web search cleaner for users. You can directly post to Google support if you've questions or comments about Google's search strategy.
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