Google Spam Algorithm Update

Google announced a recent series of updates to their spam algorithm designed to target 'hacked spam'. The reasoning behind these changes is that hacked websites are more and more common, and they're not only harming well intentioned website owners and website visitors - they're ranking well in Google and that makes Google look bad. Here's how Google's team explained it:

"Recently we have started rolling out a series of algorithmic changes that aim to tackle hacked spam in our search results. A huge amount of legitimate sites are hacked by spammers and used to engage in abusive behavior, such as malware download, promotion of traffic to low quality sites, porn, and marketing of counterfeit goods or illegal pharmaceutical drugs, etc....The algorithmic changes will eventually impact roughly 5% of queries, depending on the language. As we roll out the new algorithms, users might notice that for certain queries, only the most relevant results are shown, reducing the number of results shown."

This is an update you don't need to stress about unless you're hacking websites for profit! If everything goes well we will have less hacked sites ranking, which could result in less hacked sites in general. For more information, visit the Google Webmaster Central blog or post questions/feedback at the Webmaster Help Forums.