Como falar do spam nos motores de busca sem nunca referir o Google...
Researchers Track Down a Plague of Fake Web Pages: Tens of thousands of junk Web pages, created only to lure search-engine users to advertisements, are proliferating like billboards strung along freeways. Now Microsoft researchers say they have traced the companies and techniques behind them.
A technical paper published by the researchers says the links promoting such pages are generated by a small group of shadowy operators apparently with the acquiescence of some major advertisers, Web page hosts and advertising syndicators. [...]
[T]he researchers noted that the vast bulk of the junk listings was created from just two Web hosting companies and that as many as 68 percent of the advertisements sampled were placed by just three advertising syndicators. [...]
The researchers said large advertisers were to blame for a significant share of the spam problem.
"Ultimately, it is advertisers’ money that is funding the search-spam industry, which is increasingly cluttering the Web with low-quality content and reducing Web users’ productivity," they write in the paper, which will be presented in May at the International World Wide Web Conference in Banff, Alberta.
