Search Engine SPAM how to avoid search engines from giving you the boot!

Eclipse Ezine

June-July 2001

The other day I received an urgent e-mail from a client with this in the subject header - PLEASE HELP!!!!. Here's part of the copy he sent me -

....Now I think I am in trouble. I have been going happily on my way, using a submission program to submit pages. I had restricted my submissions to just about ten different search engines, including AltaVista. Suddenly I discovered when I did some tests that on AltaVista, ALL OF MY PAGES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE INDEX. And when I try to make any new submissions, I get back the following message:

You have submitted the following URL: http://www.myurl.com Too many URL's at that site have been submitted today. Because of abuse of this feature by SPAMmers, we limit the number of pages that a site can submit per day. We apologize for the inconvenience but this is necessary to protect the index from a minority of very aggressive people. Limits are reset every day. Please try to submit your URL again tomorrow.

But it is much worse than that. I have been getting this message now for about ten days. I have not been able to make ANY submissions and waiting to the next day does no good. They are obviously punishing me quite harshly for doing what they consider an abuse of their system. I had no such intention of abusing their system, indeed all I was doing was using a submission program to register my various pages.

So my first question is, based on what you know, if there ANYTHING that can be done about this? This is clearly hurting my business right where it counts and I have seen a substantial drop-off in visitors to our web site, presumably since so many of them find us through AltaVista.

Second, are there other search engines that could give me the same kind of problem? This seems to be yet another serious shortcoming of the ?????, because it is not able to discriminate between those search engines that can kick you out, like has been done by AltaVista and those that do not...

As you can see this is a very serious situation for anyone doing business via the Net. To lose your entire presence in just one of the major engines is a great loss. You will also note that this client is trying to blame the submission software for his own lack of basic search engine knowledge. It so happens that this particular fellow is really quite the gentleman and anything but a SPAMmer, but the search engine software does not know that.

My response to this client was rather lengthy, so I have summarized the main points. Suffice it to say that I have plenty of experience with search engines and even more with people that SPAM as I run more than one site that accepts URL's. Keep these points in mind when acting as your own site promoter:

It is your responsibility to know the SPAM rules of the search engines. This means something that most seem to refuse to do - READ AND FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS.
Many entire domains have been banned from all of the major engines and many of the smaller ones as well. This has meant that some have had to register new domains and go to the expense and time required to start over.
SPAM is running rampant and it's ruining the value of the indexes.
Those that play by the rules and use the engines properly without avarice and taking what they do for granted will thrive. As the Internet is growing rapidly search engines will become more and more sophisticated at blocking SPAM.
There exists a strong possibility that free submissions to the engines may become a thing of the past. It is a no nonsense way of blocking out SPAMMERS.
The quality of Web pages, as it has for years with Yahoo!, will start taking on more and more significance.

Pretty simple stuff right? You bet! Then why are so many Web site owners so irresponsible about submitting to the engines? There are many reasons - from laziness to greed to just being plain spoiled by everything being FREE, that too much has been taken for granted and that is never good. Unless there is a cleansing of the ways of using these services the possibility of access to them becoming restricted should not be discounted. At Surfers Choice Internet Awards we have stopped taking on-line submissions for site reviews. It makes little sense to have submission rules, if 85% of the people that use the form don't comply. It just wastes a whole lot of time for those that, in our case, volunteer their time. This is no different to what the major engines are currently doing to block SPAMMERS. The bottom line is that the people that play by the rules will end up as winners and rightly so; and those that insist on SPAMming will end up where they belong -totally banned or in position 14 million on page 1.4 million.

When it comes to search and directory services, it really is a case of - "It's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game".

-submitted by Wally Gross, Director Exploit InfoTech Canada and TechnoMax Software and Systems Inc.

The opinions stated in this article are strictly opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Eclipse E-zine. If you would like to write an article for Eclipse, please contact us!

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