What is 'Pure Spam'? 10 Examples From Google

Like a hot dog, one does not often associate the word "pure" with "spam". In fact, one is generally best not to think of what it's made of – unless you're Google, of course.
Since 0 AG (After Google), Google has had to contend with pesky webmasters and SEO practitioners looking for ways to rank sites as highly as possible as quickly as possible, often regardless of what that actually did to the search results.
Any decade-plus veteran of SEO will remember the "Wild West" days of SEO and, if they were trying to stick to pure white hat strategies, their frustration.
For years Google told the SEO community that buying links was bad, content scraping and spinning was trouble, blatant link schemes would get you penalized, and that you should focus on good content that people will want to link to naturally.
The problem? The algorithm they had couldn't compete with what are now deemed "unethical practices". Webmasters and SEO professionals who "cheated the system" tended to do well.
Fortunately, for those who want to actually create a good user experience (including Google), they've figured a lot out over the past few years.
To illustrate the point they launched a page earlier this year on fighting spam that actually shows real-time examples of pages they're kicking from the index for being "pure spam". I've got to admit, the first time I heard about this manual Google spam action I half chuckled and thought, "Well that's a pretty bold explanation."
The question then becomes, "What does this mean?" The this end let's take a look at a few of the real-time examples of pure spam that Google was displaying (as of the writing of this article) and think about what they might have seen there that qualified it as "pure spam".

10 Examples Of 'Pure Spam'

On the page Google notes of those listed, "These pages are examples of 'pure spam.' They appear to use aggressive spam techniques such as automatically generated gibberish, cloaking and scraping content from other websites."
Remember, this is a manual action and so a human actually looked at the following pages and deemed them to fit this criteria. Here is what they're seeing:
Example 1: NorthCarolinaPhoneLookup.com

This page, with a copyright date of 2008, is a brief blurb of repetitive content at the top with a simple list of numbers below in hopes of ranking for queries for those numbers. For anyone who's ever looked up a phone number you'll know the frustration caused by such sites and why Google wants them gone.
The service isn't unique to this site and the site itself is a duplication of other sites that are likely to be hit soon. Simply substitute the words "north carolina" in the into text for any other state and run a search for it and you'll see what I mean.
Example 2: Cuzb.com

One need only read the content to understand why this page was marked as "pure spam". The site is English but the writer clearly is not. In looking for other pages from the site in the index, this penalty extended across the whole domain. Thanks, Google.
Example 3: QuickPayDay.Tripod.co.uk

I had to include this one simply because it was a bit of a head scratcher. The question isn't whether it's spam or not (one can't argue that it's thin on content) but rather how it even got to the point of a manual review. Sure it's got some spammy links but even the archives couldn't find content so one might think basic SEO factors would take care of it.
Example 4: DMMmovie.biz

To determine why this site was classified as "pure spam" simply read the following sentence with me:

"Gru is a modified man. No more a super-villain who needs to be the baddest of the bad people, he's now trained, with his three lovely children, his very funny gobbledygook discussing, Tic-Tac-looking minions, a creepy dog and an wicked researcher associate (Russell Brand) whose concentrate is now creating jellies and jellies."

Enough said.
Example 5: AntiquesHeaven.info

Aside from the only purpose of this site being to act as an affiliate site generating revenue by pushing people to eBay and Amazon, the content near the bottom of the page is copied word-for-word from Yahoo Answers.
Oh, and useless keyword stuffing such as:

"great north western telegraph company glass insulatororiental fish bowl tablesdresden lampsgeneral fireproofing co wood file cabinetart nouveau alabaster bustprimitive folk".

Example 6: PacificRimWatch.MetroBlog.com

I'm not sure what's in the water they drink while building sites that sell illegal copies of movies or maybe more, what the people who would purchase from this site sprinkled on their morning oatmeal but let's read the following sentence together:

"Brendon has been displaying Off-shore Rim upset love on this computing machine relating to weeks currently. It's safe to mention this individual desires it."

Clearly not human written and if auto-translated and not spun, they're using the worst translation tool on the planet.
And it doesn't help their case that the site language setting is Spanish as is most of the navigation.
Example 7: DC.CCJ.in.ua

There are two very clear reasons why this page has been deemed "pure spam" and we're going to even ignore the fact that all the images are broken:

• They've taken content directly from Facebook – and right in the first paragraph as well. 
• The horrible spun content (for example: "Facebook password finder.The Stages of the of the certain stage. It is the smell rumour.").

"Pure spam"? Definitely.
Example 8: CouponCentral101.com

Ah, coupon sites. Admittedly, my first instinct as I saw this site was that the "pure spam" classification was due tot he fact that pretty much every link on the page is an external link to an ad site.
But then I realized that the copy on the page was taken directly from an Ezine article. How do we know it wasn't duplicated on Ezine after? The archives show us that on May 29, 2012 the site had different content and the article was posted on February 20, 2012.
So – thin, no value content, and even the content that is there is duplicated.
Example 9: HowWeightManagement.com

First look it seems that, while a little heavy-handed with the ads and footer links, not "pure spam". That is, until you read the content which contains such gems as:

"the benefits calorie burning is the only benefit of Pure Barre. According to Pure Barre, the technology to protect your joints, because it does not involve any rebound or jump. Each followed by stretching create long bulk, muscle exercise intensity part."

Thank you Google for removing this rubbish.
Example 10: RkwVik43.biz

The note I've had to add to the picture probably says enough. Google isn't a fan of content that's difficult to read. And if you read the text you'll see it varies from Minecraft to pay stubs to pubic hair. Not exactly tied together by relevancy.
There is a full litany of issues ranging from missing images (and by images I mean all of them), text such as:

"... Minecraft Force Op 1.5.2 which is finally released today and using that you can. O maior servidor de Minecraft online do mundo.Mais de 15 servidores download media de 4 mil jogadores ..."

Switching from English to Portuguese mid-paragraph isn't particularly helpful outside of a language site.
On top of that the site's content is extremely poor quality (even outside of the mix of language) and there is no focus. In short, the site would be a disaster for users.

So What is "Pure Spam"?

We all have our own definition of "pure spam" but what's more important is understanding what Google means by it. At this time and after reviewing literally hundreds of example of what they consider it to be, the focus of this penalty seems to rest on content.
There doesn't appear to be a crossover into links in what they define "pure spam" to be. Websites with this penalty should focus their attention on their content and user experience.
With that said, websites prone to a penalty such as this one likely have serious issues in their backlink profiles as well. I'm not suggesting that webmasters ignore reviewing their links in the event of this penalty, simply that links don't appear to be a major tying factor in the sites receiving it or even how Google themselves define the penalty. Best not to wait for an "unnatural links" warning however.

Additional Reading

I pondered writing a section of this article on what to do if you receive this penalty. Heck, on the same page they list the sites being penalized they also list a number of spam strategies they're going after so it's pretty clear what's covered.
That said, I couldn't cover the subject better that fellow SEW writer Kristine Schachinger did in her article Pure Spam: What Are Google Penalties & What to Do to Recover. Well written and covers the recovery subject point-by-point.

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Source : http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2286153/What-is-Pure-Spam-10-Examples-From-Google

Link Building A-Z Guide – Definitions & Terms

When those of us in search marketing talk and write about link building, we tend to use terms that we think are very commonly understood. We bandy around phrases like "CTR on page 1 of the SERPs is better than on page 2" and "god help me if my content gets deindexed."
However, for the new guys and gals out there (and that includes people who are both learning about building links and clients who seek link services) this link building guide will help define and explain some of the more common link building terms, from A to Z.

A – AC Rank, Actual PageRank, Anchor Text

AC Rank [A Citation Rank]
Majestic SEO's measure of a page's importance, on a scale of 0 to 10. It can be considered an alternative to Google's PageRank and is used in various link tool programs. The AC Rank stands for A Citation Rank.
The Actual PageRank
Google's value for your page, and it's not what you see on a tool or your toolbar, as that isn't updated frequently enough to reflect the true value.
Anchor text
The content inside of the anchor element ( < a>anchor text < /a>) and is designed to give you an idea of what the content you are pointing to is about. The anchor element contains an href attribute where the target of the link is designated. The anchor element is, many times, called an anchor tag.

B – Backlink Profile, Bait, Bing, Blekko, Blog Network, Broken Links

Backlink profile
A term used to describe the links coming into a site from sources other than the site itself.
Bait [link bait]
Content that is specifically designed in order to naturally attract links.
Bing
The most popular alternative to Google's search engine at the current time, owned by Microsoft.
Blekko
Also a great alternative to Google and prides itself on being a spam-free search engine. It has some great features that can help you when link building.
Blog networks
Exactly what they sound like: networked blogs. Their importance in link building has recently been compromised as several high-profile and large networks (e.g., BuildMyRank) have been devalued.
Broken link building
The process of finding links that hit 404 pages on other sites, contacting the sites with those links, and asking to have the link pointed to your own resource.

C – Content, Conversion, CTR

Content
The subject matter, in text and images, of your site and its pages. Content is also used to describe anything that your brand produces, whether it's a guest post on another site, an article that you distribute, a press release, or an infographic.
Conversion
A term used to describe an event where a user performs a certain action that is valuable to you as a site owner. Some webmasters view a contact email as a conversion, for example, while others simply view an actual sale as one.
CTR [click through rate]
A term associated with PPC but becoming more popular in the general SEO vernacular as some speculate that it may become more important in ranking. Your CTR is the number of times your listing is shown (triggered by a search and referred to as impressions with PPC) divided by the number of times it's clicked upon, calculated as a percentage.

D – Deep Link Ratio, Deindexed, Directories, Drain Rank, Disavow Links

Deep link ratio
The percentage of links that go to your subpages vs. just your home page. Many different views abound about what number is ideal.
Deindexed
Refers to being thrown out of a search engine and removed from their database.
Directories
One of the most consistent ways that people have built links throughout the years. There are paid and free versions, directories that accept all submissions and many that are quite picky about what they'll accept, and while they have fallen out of fashion somewhat recently, they are still a valid source of traffic.
Disavow Links Tool
Use this to tell Google or Bing which links you want them to ignore in your backlink profile. This tool came about after an outcry from webmasters who were punished for incoming links that hurt them but that they could not control.
Drain rank
This refers to the idea that linking out to other sites drains your PageRank.

E – Equity, External Link

Equity
The group of links pointing to your site at a point in time.
External links
Links that go from your site to someone else's site. Some people nofollow them in order to prevent them from receiving any link juice.

F – Followed Link, Footer Link, Footprint

Followed links
Links that are allowed to send link juice to their targets. For ranking purposes, these are the kind of links that you want. A link without a rel=nofollow is a followed link.
Footer links
Links that appear in the footer of a site, generally on every page. These were originally so abused that many SEOs now consider a footer link to be very poor. However, there are still legitimate footer links.
Footprints
Ways of identifying patterns that you're using to build links. For example, if 75 percent of your links come from non-U.S.-hosted sites and are all on blogrolls, that's a big footprint. A "natural" backlink profile should not have many obvious footprints due to its organic nature, therefore having easily identifiable footprints is a potential bad sign for your site. However, you can have a good footprint too (such as if you had a lot of great and authoritative links from respected news sources because your site was constantly being cited there.)

G – Google, Guest Posting, Graph

Google
So powerful, it's now a verb. No matter what anyone says, almost all of us market to what Google wants.
Graph [link graph]
Generally speaking, the link graph is a representation of links for sites. It can be thought of as being the "normal" for a niche of sites but may also refer to links for a certain market sector/keyword/locality/etc. You can use a link graph for competitive research to define what everyone else is doing and see where you stand in relation to that. A complicated thing to define, as it's not a discrete concept.
Guest posting
A popular way of building links and creating new content. Many sites actively recruit for new guest posters and some are amenable to the idea when contacted. The whole idea of a guest post is to raise exposure for a brand on another site, but it's quickly becoming a spammy and abused method. However, when done correctly, guest posts can bring you some fantastic traffic.

H – Hashtag, Hidden Link, Href

Hashtags
Widely used on social network platforms in order to associate a tweet/comment with something. They begin with #. On Twitter, hashtags are used to help trend certain ideas. For link building purposes, hashtag searches on Twitter are useful for finding good potential link targets.
Hidden link
A link that is intentionally coded in order to not appear as a link. It can be hidden using a text color that is the same as the background, placed inside an irrelevant image, font size 0, etc. These are viewed as manipulative and deceptive and can cause Google to remove your site from their index.
href
An HTML attribute that lists the target of a link. An example is <a href="http://www.w3schools.com">Visit W3Schools </a>.

I – Image Link, Internal Link, Inbound Link

Image link
An image that is linked to a target. Image links are part of a natural link profile and can pass link juice, but they do not include anchor text as regular text links do. Instead, they use an alt text (which is also used by screenreaders) to give information about the link target.
Inbound links
Links coming to your site from a site other than your own. The anchor text of an inbound link supposedly tells the search engines what your page is about, thus helping you rank for that term.
Internal Link
A link from one page of your site to another page on your site.

J – Juice

Juice
A term used to describe the benefit received from a link, also referred to as link juice.

K – Keyword

Keywords
Words or phrases for which you want to rank in the search engines. They should be present in your copy and in links pointing to your site.

L – Link Profile

Link profile
The collective group of sites that link to you.

M – MozRank

MozRank
A method of measuring the link popularity of a webpage by SEO software provider Moz. Becoming a more important metric by the day, almost akin to PageRank.

N – Nofollowed Link

nofollowed link
These are indicated by placing a rel="nofollow" into the link code. A nofollow is designed to tell Google that the link should not pass value to the target. Nofollows are also used internally for PageRank sculpting and to indicate that a link is sponsored/paid. Nofollow links are not good for ranking purposes but they can be good for traffic.

O – Outbound Linking

Outbound linking
The practice of linking from your site to another. Many people nofollow these links in an effort to conserve link juice, but that practice is becoming a bit more frowned upon recently.

P – PageRank, Paid Links, Panda, Penguin

PageRank
Google's measure of a page's importance. There's a difference in what you can see as your PageRank and what Google thinks it is.
Paid links
Refers to links that are bought and placed on a website, with the intention of helping the buyer's website rank better. When not indicated as such, are a violation of Google's guidelines and are a risky tactic. Paid links can be problematic both for the site selling them and for the webmaster buying them as both practices can get you penalized. If a link has been purchased, it should be indicated as such with a nofollow according to Google.
Panda
A Google algorithm update that can make grown men cry. It first struck fear into our hearts in February 2011 and was an effort to force higher quality sites higher up in the SERPs. After the first update, we've seen several more. There's way, way too much to go into here but you can read all the SEW articles about it here.
Penguin
A new search algorithm designed to detect, and boot out, spam. Like Panda, it made us cry and several sites were "accidentally" affected by it, so badly that there's actually a form to fill out if you think you're one of those accidental cases. Again, there's too much to go into so read about it here.

Q – Query

Query
Simply a question that you ask a search engine or a database, whether or not it's in the form of a question. We refer to queries in terms of how many times someone searches for a keyphrase, and in manners related to seeing where you rank in an engine.

R – Rank, Reciprocal Links, Referrer, Rel, Robots, Rot

Rank
Where you show up on the SERPs.
Reciprocal linking
The process of linking to someone who links to you. It's a common way of requesting a link (i.e., I'll link to you if you will link to me).
Referrer
In link terms, a referrer is something that sent a visitor to your site. That could be a search engine or a link from a website. It's the previous place a user was before they hit your site.
Rel
An element that gives the role of a link. Current uses critical for link building are to say whether a link should be followed (the default) or nofollowed (rel=nofollow).
Robots
Search engine bots, but robots can be slang for the robots.txt file, which gives instructions to engines about what to do with your site. If you don't want certain pages to be indexed, you block them in the robots file. There are also meta robots tags ( < META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW">) A robots.txt file is also found at url.com/robots.txt.
Rot
A term used to describe what happens when there are links pointing to pages that are no longer available and not properly redirected or handled.

S – SERPs, Sitewides, Social Signals, Spam

SERPs [search engine results pages]
The pages Google, Bing, and others show you after you've performed a search.
Sitewide links
Links that are on every page of a site. You commonly see them in sidebars and footers, and while they once were a pretty easy way to get good rankings quickly, they're no longer viewed so positively. You do tend to find them in almost any backlink profile though, as they are part of a natural profile.
Social signals
Signs that your site/post/article is doing well socially, on the main social network platforms. Social signals are thought to be an ever-increasing method of measuring importance in the search engines and may become a bigger part of algorithms.
Spam
Jokingly referred to as being "sites positioned above mine", but is defined as being anything that clutters the web and makes for a poor user experience. Spam links are considered to be links that are irrelevant and low-quality but pursued simply to improve rankings.

T – Toolbar Pagerank, Twitter

Toolbar PageRank [TBPR]
The number from 0 to 10 that you can see that reflects the most recently updated idea of how important your site is to Google. It is not Google's true value of your site.
Twitter
A social media platform where users communicate through 140 characters or less. It's becoming more and more useful for finding good information as it happens.

U - Underline, Unnatural Links, URL

Underline
To signify most links, the linked keywords will be underlined. Links are commonly coded with underlining; style manipulations that do not underline a link can be considered to be a hidden link.
Unnatural link warnings 
Like lice, nobody wants to see them. They are messages received in Google's Webmaster Tools that indicate that some potentially unnatural links have been detected for your site.
URL [Uniform Resource Locator]
URLs have several elements that are important for SEO purposes. The domain name can give clues about the theme of your site and your brand and should be chosen carefully, as overly-optimized domain names were supposedly downgraded in the EMD update. File names should also be named carefully so that your URLs are SEO-friendly.

V – Velocity

Velocity
Your link growth speed. It can be measured with Link Research Tools.

W – Webmaster Tools

Webmaster Tools
Top search engines Google and Bing offer a free platform that you can use to keep an eye on your site. It can be a first line of defense when you notice any negative changes with rankings and traffic.

X – Xenu

Xenu's Link Sleuth
One of those old-school things that anyone who's been involved in SEO for more than a few years probably loves. Xenu's Link Sleuth identifies broken links on sites.

Y – Yahoo

Yahoo
The other search engine. Many link builders will refer to being listed in the Yahoo Directory, which used to be one of those things that we all recommended. Today, Bing provides the search results you see on Yahoo.

Z – Zzzzz

Zzzzz
Sleep, which you definitely need if you're going to link build. It's tiring work!

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Source :  http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2172916/Link-Building-A-Z-Guide-Definitions-Terms

SEO Outreach: Gain a Competitive Edge by Running Display Ads

Identifying and leveraging SEO opportunities is at the core of achieving organic search dominance. This process is particularly critical for large companies.

Big brands have an inherent SEO advantage that, if leveraged, can lead to unrivaled organic performance. The existence of such advantages sparks debate during every industry conference Q&A session. Usually these debates focus on paid search spend influence, immunity to algorithm updates, etc., most of which are pure noise.

So what proven advantages can large companies leverage to gain a competitive edge?

Prospecting Quality Lists

Most professionals agree targeted outreach is at the core of any successful link building campaign. The process of executing a results-oriented outreach strategy is time consuming (read: expensive).

Prospecting and prioritizing relevant, authoritative targets is a critical step in this process. Large brands possess this inherent advantage: Targeted prospecting is done by Google and other large media networks for free.

This unknown fact enables certain companies to generate high-quality, extremely relevant lists with the click of a button. How do they do it?

Executing display campaigns on various media networks, such as Google Display Network (GDN), Value Click, and Yahoo. The majority of display networks will provide transparency into ad placements which can be used as the backbone of outreach campaigns for your SEO program. So how does it work?

If you're currently running ads on Google Display Network (GDN), exporting your prospect list is easy. Within any campaign, navigate to the “display network” tab, as seen below:

Once there, simply click on “placements” within the sub navigation.

Finally, filter for “automatic placements” to pull up your list along with KPIs such as clicks, CTR, etc. (KPI information by placement is only available on GDN. Other vendors only provide basic site information where your ad was displayed.)

These exported prospects are guaranteed to be relevant to your site in the eyes of Google. The algorithm Google uses to match advertising sites within GDN is built off the same relevance algorithm used for organic search. This saves tons of time having to manually qualifying each site. As a result, more time can be spent on persuasively communicating your value proposition.

Have a Unique Value Proposition

Executing a successful outreach campaign isn’t just about prospecting quality lists. It’s critical to have a unique value proposition when communicating with bloggers.

The number of companies executing outreach campaigns is rising by the day. Most are using the same tools, social networks and advanced search parameters to build their prospect lists. Over time, only those with unique value propositions will receive responses.

Even following great outreach guides like this one from Neil Patel becomes less effective over time. Why? Everyone reads these guides and uses their templates. Running display advertising provides a unique value proposition which can dramatically increase success rates.

Bloggers and webmasters want to make money (surprise!). Part of their revenue stream is generated from users clicking on ads.

If the content on the page mentions the same brand being served in on-site advertising, the click-through rate on the ads will increase. This connection and increase in revenue for the blogger is the unique value proposition that will set you apart. As an added bonus, your display campaign will also benefit from these incremental clicks.

Summary

Executing successful outreach campaigns is a sure-fire way to drive continual organic performance long term. As outreach continues to increase in popularity, unique and creative tactics become critical.

If your company or client is running display ads, you have an inherent advantage in both prospecting targets and establishing a value proposition.

Looking for additional outreach ideas and don’t have any display campaigns? Check out this post outlining three unique ways to identify link prospects.

Source: - http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2258423/SEO-Outreach-Gain-a-Competitive-Edge-by-Running-Display-Ads