Google Does Not Use The Wikipedia WikiProject Spam Reports

Did you know that Wikipedia has a WikiProject Spam section where it publishes all its link spam reports for all to see? That is basically a list of all those who do link drops on Wikipedia. Long story short, Google Search does not use this list for its link spam detection methodologies.

John Mueller of Google was asked about this on Twitter and he said “I wouldn’t expect a direct Google reaction” when asked if Google uses this database. John did add that “spamming Wikipedia is pretty terrible.” But it is super common, he also added that “usually chances are high that the same folks spam the rest of the web, and we might pick up on the bigger pattern, and probably ignore the rest.” So Google probably picks up on this stuff automatically, probably at least. He said spamming Google or Wikipedia, “it’s a big waste of time & energy.”

Here are those tweets:

Do you have an example?

— ???? John ???? (@JohnMu) September 23, 2021

Spamming Wikipedia is pretty terrible. I wouldn’t expect a direct Google reaction, but usually chances are high that the same folks spam the rest of the web, and we might pick up on the bigger pattern, and probably ignore the rest. It’s a big waste of time & energy.

— ???? John ???? (@JohnMu) September 23, 2021

Forum discussion at Twitter.