Founder at M16 Marketing and a Forbes Agency Council member, Don is a leading marketing technologist on a mission to create success stories.
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It's no secret that Google hates spam. Ever since the search engine's launch over two decades ago, it has adopted a variety of safeguards to keep spam out of its search results. For instance, it evaluates websites' backlinks for signs of manipulation and allows users to report websites for spam.
Google even has an artificial intelligence algorithm, known as SpamBrain, that's designed specifically to keep spam out of its search results. If you operate a business website, you should take precautions to ensure that it's not targeted by SpamBrain.
A Deeper Look At SpamBrain
Not to be confused with RankBrain, SpamBrain works around the clock to protect Google users from spam-filled search results. It doesn't just devalue spam's rankings. If SpamBrain believes a website or page is spam, the algorithm will remove it from Google's search results. The website or page won't rank in any organic position for any search query.
Google doesn't want search users to encounter spam in its results pages. Spam websites and pages are low-quality at best and malicious at worst.
In a Google Search Central post, the company credited SpamBrain with helping it make more than 99% of searches spam-free.
Google still uses conventional algorithm updates to keep spam out of its search results. SpamBrain is simply a separate algorithm that's baked into the search engine's ranking methodology. As Google ranks websites and pages, it uses SpamBrain to determine whether they are spam.
The Origins Of SpamBrain
Google rolled out SpamBrain in 2018, but we didn't hear much about it until 2022. The company explained that it has been refining SpamBrain in the years since its release. Google says it was able to identify 200 times more spam websites and pages in 2021 than in the years prior, thanks to improvements to SpamBrain.
Google further revealed that it was able to reduce the amount of hacked spam in its search results by 70% with the help of SpamBrain. Hacked spam consists of websites and pages that a third party has hacked and used to display spam content.
Hacked spam is just one of many types of spam that SpamBrain can detect. It also can detect other types of spam, including user-generated spam, link spam, keyword spam and more.
More Than Just Spam
Contrary to what its name suggests, SpamBrain isn't limited to spam. It can detect and remove many types of manipulation and abuse.
Scams are a detectable form of abuse. Scammers may create phishing or malware-infected websites, and then users who visit these websites may unknowingly fall victim to a scam. Fortunately, SpamBrain can detect and remove scams from Google's search results.
What SpamBrain Means For SEO
With SpamBrain, you can't use black hat or otherwise spammy search engine optimization processes and expect them to positively impact your website's rankings. Black hat SEO is synonymous with spam.
As long as Google doesn't view your website as spam, you don't have to worry about SpamBrain removing your site from the search results. For example, keyword stuffing is a spam signal that can make your website a target for SpamBrain. You can always add SEO keywords to your website's content, but don't force them in places where they don't belong, and don't hide them within hidden text.
Automating certain optimization activities can be considered spam. Using content scrapers or spinners to automatically generate content, for example, can raise a red spam flag. Using software to automatically build backlinks can also increase the risk of SpamBrain removing your website.
Use white hat SEO processes to keep your website in Google's search results. These are safe, search engine-friendly optimization activities. Optimizing meta tags, adding structured data to relevant pages and creating top-tier content are all white hat SEO processes.
Your website's security, or lack thereof, can affect its risk of being targeted by SpamBrain. With poor security, your website could be hacked. Hackers could then use your website to display spam. Even if you didn't create the hacked spam, your website could still be targeted by SpamBrain. Google's AI could detect the hacked spam, and it could remove your website from the search results to prevent users from seeing it.
If your website has an administrator login, make sure it's protected with a complex password. Short and simple passwords are vulnerable to brute-force attacks. Hackers may guess them by using software that performs random login attempts.
You may want to add your website to Google's Search Console platform. There's a "Security Issues" tab available under the main menu. Navigating to this tab will allow you to check whether Google has discovered any hacked spam, malware or other security-related issues on your website.
Spam isn't going away anytime soon. There will always be hackers, scammers and spammers who want to leverage spam for their nefarious purposes. SpamBrain, however, will remain at the front lines. As new types of spam and manipulation emerge, SpamBrain will adjust itself to remove those threats from Google's search results.
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