For over two decades, Google has been the world‘s go-to source to find information on the web. With a mission "to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful," Google‘s search engine has been a transformative tool for research, discovery, and everyday questions.
But a concerning new study suggests that the quality and trustworthiness of Google‘s search results are in decline. The culprit? The proliferation of SEO spam – low-value, heavily-optimized pages created to rank highly and generate affiliate marketing revenue rather than help searchers.
The study, conducted by a team of German researchers and titled "Is Google Getting Worse? A Longitudinal Investigation of SEO Spam in Search Engines," analyzed over 7,000 search results across Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo over the course of a year. By looking at factors like keyword usage, URL structure, content quality, and the density of affiliate links, they attempted to measure the amount of SEO spam in each search engine‘s rankings.
Inside the Methodology: Detecting SEO Spam at Scale
To identify SEO spam, the researchers developed a set of criteria based on common spam tactics. These included:
- Keyword stuffing in the page title, headings, and body content
- Overuse of exact-match affiliate marketing phrases like "best [product] for [use case]"
- Abnormally high density of affiliate links compared to normal pages
- Low content quality measures like reading level, text length, and repetitiveness
- Frequent use of templated designs and boilerplate text
The researchers then crawled the top search results for over 7,000 product-related queries across the three search engines every month. They compared the prevalence of spam signals in these results against a baseline of typical web pages as represented by the Common Crawl dataset.
To validate the spam criteria, they used both automated classification and manual review by human raters. The human raters assessed the pages for characteristics like E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) and whether the primary purpose appeared to be affiliate revenue rather than user value.
The Results: Spam Overwhelms Google‘s Search Results
Unfortunately for Google, the study found that spam pages were extremely prevalent in the search results, especially for commercial investigation queries like product reviews. And the problem appears to be getting worse over time.
For Google, between 60-80% of the top ranking product review pages contained an "alarmingly high" number of affiliate links, suggesting that the rankings are dominated by commission-driven spam rather than genuine recommendations. In many niches like electronics, fashion, and health products, 9 out of the top 10 results contained multiple affiliate links.
The most common affiliate program represented was Amazon Associates, demonstrating Amazon‘s oversized influence on the e-commerce review ecosystem. Many of these sites appeared to be "affiliate farms" – groups of generic-looking review sites apparently operated by the same networks to maximize revenue from every search variation.
Percentage of Google search results containing affiliate links over time. Source: Is Google Getting Worse? A Longitudinal Investigation of SEO Spam in Search Engines
Beyond simple affiliate linking, the researchers found evidence of more sophisticated spam techniques being rewarded by Google‘s algorithms:
- AI-generated content built to target every long-tail keyword variation, but lacking real substance
- Cloaking and sneaky redirects to show Google different content than human visitors
- Private blog networks (PBNs) used to build unnatural backlink profiles and manipulate PageRank
Tellingly, the spam-heavy results performed poorly on content quality indicators like reading level and text length. Product review pages with lots of affiliate links tended to have thin, repetitive content that would be less useful to real searchers.
The Limits of Google‘s Anti-Spam Efforts
While concerning, Google‘s spam problem is not due to a lack of effort or awareness. Google makes hundreds of changes to its search algorithms each year, many of them targeted at detecting and filtering out spam.
Major updates like the Penguin and Panda have aimed to crack down on common spam tactics like link schemes and low-quality content. More recent updates like the "Helpful Content Update" and the product reviews update specifically try to identify affiliate sites with thin content.
However, the researchers found that these updates only led to temporary declines in measurable spam levels before the SEOs would adapt their tactics and the spam would return. They describe Google as locked in "a dynamic adversarial game" where spammers are constantly probing for the next loophole or weakness in the algorithm.
Whenever a new type of spam is detected, Google rolls out a new filter, which works for a while until the spammers figure out how to evade it. Rinse and repeat. The researchers argue this amounts to an "arms race" between Google and increasingly sophisticated spam networks.
A major challenge for Google is that many effective spam tactics are difficult to detect with just automated algorithms. AI-generated content and natural language processing have made spam posts more fluent and "human-like," requiring more manual review to identify. Likewise, sneaky tactics like cloaking and link spam are designed to be invisible to search crawlers.
Google‘s Dilemma: Balancing Transparency and Fighting Spam
So why can‘t Google simply be more transparent about its algorithms, allowing the SEO community to help identify spam and suggest improvements? The researchers argue this hits on an inherent conflict in Google‘s spam-fighting strategy.
On one hand, Google relies on an ecosystem of SEO professionals and site owners implementing best practices to help crawl and index high-quality content. Tools like Search Console and the official SEO Starter Guide aim to support "white hat" SEO work to boost relevant content.
At the same time, the more transparent Google is about the technical details of its algorithms, the more ammunition it potentially provides to spammers looking to reverse-engineer rankings. Historically, every major reveal about how Google Search works has quickly led to a wave of new spam tactics exploiting that knowledge.
Google‘s challenge is to find a middle ground, providing useful guidance to legitimate SEOs without opening up the floodgates to abuse. Critics argue Google doesn‘t always get this balance right, at times being overly secretive or relying too much on opaque machine learning signals.
The researchers suggest potential solutions like more human oversight on important search topics, harsher penalties for spam sites, and reducing reliance on gameable off-page signals like links. But they also call on Google to collaborate more with academics and subject matter experts to audit search quality.
The Responsibility of Ethical SEO
Of course, the SEO industry itself bears significant responsibility for the spread of search spam. While many practitioners promote a holistic, user-centric approach to SEO, there are clearly still strong financial incentives for gaming the system with manipulative tactics.
Affiliate marketing spam persists because it continues to be profitable for the spammers. As long as there are big commissions to be earned from ranking for high-value keywords, black hat SEOs will seek out every possible loophole and trick to achieve those rankings.
The researchers argue that SEO industry leaders need to more forcefully condemn spam tactics as not just ineffective, but actively harmful to searchers. Groups like the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) could take a harder stance by kicking out members who engage in spam and other unethical practices.
SEO blogs and online communities can also do more to call out spam case studies and discourage anything designed to deceive search algorithms or users. The industry has to decide whether it wants to be seen as a reputable field that delivers real marketing value, or be associated with the worst reputation-damaging spam.
What‘s a "Good" Search Result Anyway?
The debate over search spam also raises deeper philosophical questions about what makes for a high-quality search result in the first place. Google has traditionally prioritized metrics like relevance and popularity, but some argue those don‘t always align with actual helpfulness for users.
Is a "good" result one that simply contains the keywords the user searched for? One that is most linked-to and shared by other websites? One that comes from a reputable domain? Or one that provides the most accurate, complete, and useful information for the searcher‘s needs?
As the researchers point out, many affiliate-heavy pages may be considered "relevant" in the sense that they mention the right products and terms. But that doesn‘t mean they contain trustworthy reviews or recommendations that deliver genuine user value.
Google is increasingly trying to build more nuanced models of search intent and content quality into its algorithms, with recent updates emphasizing "helpful" and "authentic" content over simply matching keywords. But inferring the true intent behind queries is a massive challenge requiring new advances in natural language understanding.
For now, Google‘s approach still relies heavily on classic SEO signals like links and site authority. And that leaves continued opportunities for spammers to exploit those signals at the expense of searchers.
The Stakes for Search Users
Ultimately, it‘s everyday Google users who pay the price for rising search spam. If more and more of the top results are useless affiliate pages, it becomes harder and more time-consuming for people to find truly reliable information.
This goes beyond annoyance into real-world consequences when you consider the many high-stakes topics people turn to Google for – things like medical symptoms, investment advice, legal information, and product safety issues. If the search results on these topics are polluted with misinformation from unqualified sources, people could make seriously harmful decisions.
For instance, the researchers found that some of the most spam-heavy affiliate verticals were in the supplement and alternative health spaces, where searchers could be exposed to unproven or dangerous products. Likewise, legal and financial searches were often dominated by lead-gen sites trying to capture affiliate commissions rather than provide factual information.
Example of affiliate spam dominating supplement-related search results. Source: Is Google Getting Worse? A Longitudinal Investigation of SEO Spam in Search Engines
The erosion of trust in Google also has ripple effects across the web publisher ecosystem. If users lose faith in Google‘s ability to surface the best information, it could lead to more fragmentation as people turn to social media, walled gardens, and niche vertical search engines as alternatives.
This not only hurts Google‘s bottom line, but makes it harder for legitimate publishers to reach audiences and monetize content. It contributes to a "rich get richer" dynamic where only the most powerful incumbent brands can compete with the affiliate spam networks.
Fighting Spam and Rebuilding Trust
Despite the scale of the problem, the researchers believe progress is possible if Google ramps up its anti-spam efforts and collaborates more closely with subject matter experts. Some of their suggestions for Google include:
- More transparency around spam detection efforts and levels of impact
- Expanded human review and curation for sensitive search topics
- Harsher ranking penalties for sites repeatedly caught engaging in spam tactics
- Increased support and incentives for publishers producing high-quality original content
- User empowerment features like improved content filtering and community spam reporting
Restoring Google‘s search quality won‘t be easy, as the financial incentives for spam remain strong. But for the sake of searchers and the health of the open web, it‘s a battle worth fighting. If Google Search ceases to be a reliable gateway to online information, the consequences could be dire.
As a Google user, you can contribute by reporting spam when you see it, providing direct feedback to Google‘s search quality team. Be selective about which results you click on, and look for credible brands and authors in the search snippets. Consider using search operators and advanced filtering options to drill down to more reputable sources.
And remember, Google rankings are not always an indicator of truthfulness or quality, especially on topics with a heavy affiliate marketing presence. Approach every unfamiliar search result with caution and critical thinking. The more discerning we can be as searchers, the more pressure it puts on Google to ensure its results are truly relevant and reliable.
