Google Steps Up Its Fight Against Spam: Key Numbers From 2017

In its Webspam Report 2017, published in June 2018, Google says it is fighting spam more actively than ever. The numbers are striking: in 2017, Google sent 45 million messages to site owners through Search Console, more than 6 million of them about manual actions. Here are the details.

What Counts as Spam?

Before going further, let’s define spam. The concept can be hard to pin down because it covers a range of very different practices.

Spam includes pages or sites that try to manipulate Google’s ranking systems in violation of its published guidelines (think doorway pages or paid links). It also includes content that’s harmful to users, for example by tricking or pressuring them into sharing personal information. And some sites don’t even know they’ve been hacked and are now treated as spam (here are the signs your WordPress site has been hacked). Those sites can cause all kinds of damage.

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Google’s Goal: Wipe Out Spam

When you search with Google, our goal is to provide you with results from relevant and authoritative sources. We work hard to ensure that search spam doesn’t get in the way of you finding the information you’re looking for.

Google

Google wants to give people what they came to find, and it works hard to keep spam out of the way.

How Does It Work in Practice?

Google relies on a range of automated systems designed to detect and prevent spam. Users can also report spam and other problems, through the feedback link at the bottom of the search results or through spam report forms tied to Search Console.

Here are the key figures Google shared for 2017:

• 45 million messages sent to registered site owners through Search Console, more than 6 million of them related to manual actions
• 90,000 user spam reports acted on
• An 80% reduction in hacked sites in search results
• Link spam cut by almost half compared with the previous year
• Less than 1% of the sites people visit from search results are spammy, according to Google

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Where Things Stand in 2026

Google’s Webmaster Guidelines were renamed Google Search Essentials in 2022, and the spam policies they include keep evolving: in March 2024, Google added policies against scaled content abuse, site reputation abuse, and expired domain abuse. Manual actions are still reported in Search Console, and our Google penalty recovery guide explains how to respond.