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Google Approved Over 50% of User Submitted Spam Requests in 2016

Google has released its Webspam Report for 2016, which provides insight into the top webspam trends the company noticed over the previous year — as well as what Google is doing to fight it.

Here is a recap of some of the key data points from Google’s report, which is broken down into three sections.

Top Webspam Trends in 2016

  • Website security: There was a 32% increase compared to 2015.
  • Beyond webspam: “We saw a lot of webmasters affected by social engineering, unwanted software, and unwanted ad injectors”
  • Mobile webspam: Due to the increase in mobile browsing, there was a rise in spam targeting mobile users. The spam is usually unwanted redirects.

How Google Fought Spam

  • Made multiple algorithm improvements, included making Penguin part of the core algorithm.
  • Manually sent 9 million messages to webmasters to notify them of webspam issues on their sites.
  • Started sending more security notifications via Google Analytics.
  • Took manual action on over 10,000 sites that had structured data markup which did not meet Google’s quality guidelines.

How Google Worked With The Community

  • Received 180,000 user-submitted spam reports in 2016, 52% of them were confirmed to be spam.
  • Conducted more than 170 online office hours and live events around the world.
  • Provided support to website owners through the Webmaster Help Forums in 15 languages
Category News SEO
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SEJ STAFF Matt G. Southern Senior News Writer at Search Engine Journal

Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer, has been with Search Engine Journal since 2013. With a bachelor’s degree in communications, ...

Google Approved Over 50% of User Submitted Spam Requests in 2016

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