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If you’ve searched for anything even mildly competitive lately, you’ve probably felt it. Pages that shouldn’t rank… do.
Thin content with questionable intent sits comfortably above trusted publishers.
Expired domains have been resurrected as betting sites, crypto funnels, or affiliate farms overnight.

Spam isn’t creeping back into search. It’s flooding in.

What’s most unsettling is that this isn’t happening quietly or at the margins. Google’s algorithms designed to stop abuse appear to be rewarding it at scale. And while Google continues to talk about quality, trust, and helpful content, the reality in the SERPs tells a very different story.

For white-hat SEOs, publishers, and businesses playing by the rules, this feels like the worst possible moment to stay clean.

From Control to Chaos, What Changed?

A few years ago, it felt like Google was winning. Spam updates landed hard. Manual actions were terrifying. Recovering from a Helpful Content or link-based penalty was brutal enough to deter most “creative” SEO experiments. The message was clear: short-term wins weren’t worth long-term damage.

Fast forward to today, and that deterrent effect has weakened.

AI has changed the economics of spam. Content can now be produced at near-zero cost. Entire networks of sites can be spun up, reskinned, and abandoned faster than Google can respond. Meanwhile, Google itself is distracted, pouring resources into AI Overviews, AI Mode, and new generative experiences.

The result? Spam has become scalable again.

How Google Tries to Detect Spam

At the heart of Google’s spam-fighting system sits SpamBrain, a machine-learning framework designed to identify and classify spammy behavior across the web.

In theory, it works like this:

Once Google understands what “bad” looks like, it measures everyone else against that benchmark.

The system is threshold-based. You don’t get penalized for one weak article or a handful of bad links. But if your site starts to resemble known spam networks across multiple signals – content, links, behavior, reputation, then you’re in trouble.

The problem isn’t the theory. It’s the execution at scale.

The Types of Spam Dominating Search Right Now

Google officially lists a wide range of spam behaviors, but several stand out as particularly effective today:

• Scaled content abuse
• Expired domain abuse
• Private Blog Networks (PBNs)
• Site reputation abuse
• Link spam and anchor manipulation

These tactics aren’t new. What’s new is how efficiently they can be executed using AI and automation.

Scaled Content Abuse: The Slop Flood

AI has dramatically lowered the barrier to entry. Entire websites, sometimes thousands of pages can be generated in days.

Industry estimates suggest that well over half of all new web content is now AI-generated, and much of it adds little or no value. Worse, some of it ranks.

Fake news sites, AI-driven “best of” lists, and mass-produced affiliate content are thriving, especially in Google Discover, where engagement signals can be gamed through emotional headlines and sensational claims.

The economics are simple: if one site fails, spin up ten more.

Expired Domains: The Black Hat Power Play

Expired domain abuse has become the backbone of modern spam.

The process is brutally effective:

• Buy an expired domain with a clean backlink history
• Reskin it with new content in a lucrative niche
• Use redirects, canonicals, or internal linking to pass authority
• Monetize aggressively
• Burn it when it gets caught

Betting, crypto, and finance are the most obvious battlegrounds—but the tactic works almost anywhere.

These are rarely long-term plays. But when a single site can generate tens or hundreds of thousands before being penalized, the incentive is obvious.

Why Links Still Matter Most

Data inferred from the so-called “Google Leak” suggests something important: Google is still best at detecting link-based spam.

Anchor text, link velocity, and unnatural spikes remain some of the strongest red flags. If a site suddenly acquires a surge of exact-match anchors pointing at commercial pages, SpamBrain pays attention.

But here’s the catch: sophisticated operators know this too.

That’s why PBNs exist: to spread risk, mask intent, and insulate the primary money site from direct exposure. When one head is cut off, another replaces it.

Also read : 4 Best E-Commerce Link Building Strategies

Google’s Bigger Problem: It’s Distracted

Spam is winning not because Google forgot how to fight it, because it’s fighting something else.

AI search is expensive. Incredibly expensive.

Traditional search is cheap. AI-generated answers require:

• Large language models
• Multiple parallel queries
• Ongoing conversational context
• Heavy compute and cooling costs

Google’s infrastructure spending has exploded as a result. Resources are finite, and spam-fighting in classic search appears to be receiving less attention than before.

That trade-off shows in the SERPs.

LLMs Are Making the Problem Worse

Large language models have a spam problem of their own.

They ingest everything. Volume matters. Repetition matters.

This means low-effort tactics are working again:

• Reciprocal linking
• Footer spam
• Mass mentions
• “Best” list manipulation

When AI systems rely on Google’s index for retrieval, search quality becomes foundational to AI quality. If the index is polluted, the outputs are too.

Key Takeaways

Google is losing ground to scalable spam
AI has tipped the balance in favor of abuse over enforcement.

Link manipulation is still the most dangerous signal
Anchor text and velocity remain critical risk factors.

Expired domains and PBNs are driving modern spam
These tactics thrive because they’re profitable, even when short-lived.

AI investment is pulling focus away from core search quality
And spam is filling the gap.

FAQs

1. Is white-hat SEO still worth it?

Yes, but expectations need adjusting. Sustainable brands win long-term, even if short-term spam outranks them temporarily.

2. Will Google fix this spam problem?

Eventually, yes. But not without collateral damage and further volatility.

3. Does AI make search quality worse overall?

Not inherently, but without strong spam controls, it amplifies existing weaknesses.

Final Thoughts

Search is at a crossroads! Google is building the future of AI-driven discovery while the foundations of traditional search quietly erode. Spam thrives in moments of transition, and right now, the incentives are misaligned.

If Google wants AI search to be trusted, it must first clean up the data feeding it. Because when spam wins in search, it doesn’t just pollute rankings, it poisons everything built on top of them.

And that’s a problem no amount of generative gloss can hide.

At Wibits Web Solutions, the trusted digital marketing company in India, we help brands tackle this uncertainty with ethical, future-ready SEO and data-driven digital marketing strategies built to withstand algorithm shifts and not exploit them. If you want sustainable visibility, real authority, and growth that lasts beyond the next update, now is the time to act.