Google has been pretty transparent in how it handles black hat SEO content practices, and yet it seems many sites still try to pull a fast one on the search engine. Esteemed engineer Matt Cutts shares insights in YouTube videos regularly, answering questions from industry insiders and the average internet folk. In a video from February 13, 2013, Cutts spoke about the types of notifications Google sends out via Google Webmaster Tools. According to Cutts, Google issues thousands of messages each month to site owners – most are bad.
The message breakdown showed that 90 percent of notifications are black-hat related. Four percent highlight low-grade content, 3 percent underscore hacking instances, 2 percent flag paid link practices and 1 percent call out link selling initiatives.
In early December 2012, Cutts broached this same topic. He said rumors of Google sending nearly 700,000 messages to webmasters about unnatural linking strategies were false. The bulk of notifications aim to stop black hat practices, and only 3 percent went to site owners with unfavorable links.
It seems two months later, the same averages still apply, so why do internet users keep asking for the notification breakdown? Tell us what black hat practices you think Google looks to terminate the most in our comments section.
