Spam is a broad term that encompasses a wide range of unwelcome pop-ups, links, data, and emails that we encounter in our regular online interactions. Spam is the name of a (now-unpopular) lunchtime meat that was frequently unwelcome but always presenTags for headings make content more readable and visiblet. Spam can be annoying, but it can also be dangerous, deceptive, and detrimental for your website in a variety of ways.
A brief overview of spam history
Email spam is one of the most well-known sorts of spam. From the 1980s forward, email spam grew increasingly popular, whether it was newsletters, weird communications from “long lost cousins” with large inheritances, or adverts.
We’ve become accustomed to spam as a part of daily life, and our computer systems assist us in this. Whether you use Gmail, Outlook, or another email system, you’ll have a spam filter built in to assist you to keep unwanted emails out of your inbox.
Spam evolved from email spam into pop-up advertising on our desktop browsers. This is one of the most well-known sorts of spam, aside from email, and it is still an issue in 2016, but not nearly as much. Many of these intrusive adverts have subsequently been prevented by computer antivirus applications and ad blockers, which work similarly to email spam filters in that they remove spam in the background without our participation.
Spam classifications
Spam today comes in a variety of forms and may be combated in a variety of methods. Here, we’ll look at the many sorts of spam, concentrating on the most typical ones you’ll see, and what you can do to reduce their harmful influence. The most common types of spam can be divided into four groups:
- Spam search
- Spam traffic
- Spam links
- Spam email
Search spam
The goal of search spam is to manipulate a website’s ranking in search results, generally with the idea of getting a lot of bang for your buck. Typically, this will be utilized to boost the spam user’s own website’s position above competitors. Keyword stuffing is one of the most popular forms of search spam.
Spam traffic
Another type of spam is referral spam, sometimes known as link spam. Because poor links to your site are a big indicator of your authority for search engines, they may do a lot of damage.
Google’s algorithm has improved over time to better recognize authentic connections and high-quality sites, but it is far from flawless. If your site was found to contain spammy links in earlier years, it would be highly penalized for months (even years). However, Google’s 2016 Penguin change implies that you may avoid being penalized by either eliminating poor links or earning more favorable ones.
So, what exactly qualifies as link spam?
Traffic Spam
Traffic spam is the third major type of spam you may encounter. There are two types of traffic spam, none of which is necessarily exclusive of the other.
The first is link spam, which occurs when you obtain a link from a poor site and then receives visitors from that site, resulting in high bounce rates. This is considered traffic spam since it has a negative influence on your website and is unwelcome.
The second type of traffic spam isn’t quite genuine, but it’s close. On a regular basis, your marketing team or SEO agency should monitor your referral traffic. You may measure referral traffic and identify which platforms visitors are accessing your site from using traffic monitoring programs like Google Analytics.
