What Google KnowsAbout Spam

Matt Cutts

What is

?

What we know #1:What is the root cause of spam?

Welcome to our church!

We welcome all worshipers.

Daily Mass, 8 am, Monday to Thursday.Communion service at 8 am on Friday.

Weekend Masses: Saturday, 5:30 pm; Sunday, 10:30 am

101 Main Street, 555-4242

Welcome to our church!

We welcome all worshipers.

Daily Mass, 8 am, Monday to Thursday.Communion service at 8 am on Friday.

Weekend Masses: Saturday, 5:30 pm; Sunday, 10:30 am

101 Main Street, 555-4242

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CATHOLICISM CATHOLICISM CATHOLICISM CATHOLICISM CATHOLICISM

Trust and reputationhelp to reduce spam

Feedback, Ratings, Real-world Signals

Google has PageRank

Trust is harder to spam

• Build reputation or trust into your system• Make spammers lose time or effort. Frustrate them• Distilling trust out of noisy data is a great business model

Search engine optimization isn't spam

You can find whitehat SEOs to help you• Ask for references and check them• Make sure they'll tell you exactly what they're doing• Make sure the SEO abides by search engine guidelines• Big sites: Tweaking internal linkage, keywords on page• Smaller sites: Creative ideas for linkbuilding and marketing

If it sounds too good to be true..

Subject: "Amazing Search Engine Secrets"!!!Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2000From: Google Info [mailto:google@yahoo.com]

Drive Your Web Counter Ballistic!! “New” Information… Discovered By A Computer Illiterate Man in Massachusetts Can Practically Hand You the Top Search Engine Positions…And Add 2,350 Hits a Day to Your Web Site Overnight!”

Critical thinking skills

Spammers are human & make mistakes

Spammers leave footprints by accident

Simple steps preventmost spam

Get off the beaten path

Simple tests that almost any human can do• Type the word 'orange' below• What is 3 + 5?• Require a valid email to approve a comment• Reverse CAPTCHA: "Leave this field blank"

http://www.thepcspy.com/kittenauth

Spam will soon be more dangerous

Installing malware from a webpage• Keep your software fully patched• Use a hosted service instead of running software yourself• Look for cross-site scripting (XSS) holes

Takeaways

1. Build reputation and trust into your service.2. Get off the beaten path. Be less of a target.3. Make spammers spend money, time,

or effort. Frustrate them!

Register your site at google.com/webmasters/

and we'll alert you to hacks