Index Spam, Melanoma and Google

Do a search for "what is melanoma" in Google today and the first link on the very first page is something called index spam. (Yes, index spam.) Most people still think spam is only when you get junk mail in your email box. Unfortunately, that's not the case anymore.

INDEX SPAM is when web site owners themselves or through the "black hat" search engine optimizers they hire, get their undeserving sites listed at the top of Google and other machine-generated search engines. This highjacking of the search results is done by taking advantage of the algorithm. They are able to do this because machines, not humans, make the determination of what is included in your search results.

It's amazing to me that in late 2007, here you are researching a serious, life-threatening cancer and in your very first search on the very first page in the very first link, you get hit with Index Spam

Here it is for your very own eyes to see...the first link in google's search results for "What is Melanoma":/





If you click that, you are brought to a definitions page, which has been planted to drive you to this site:





The final result: a useless link with useless information with no value whatsoever. And that, my friend, is Index Spam.

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