Track: Industrial Practice and Experience
Paper Title:
Spam Double-Funnel: Connecting Web Spammers with Advertisers
Authors:
Abstract:
Spammers use questionable search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to
promote their spam links into top search results. In this paper, we
focus on one prevalent type of spam - redirection spam - where one can
identify spam pages by the third-party domains that these pages redirect
traffic to. We propose a five-layer, double-funnel model for describing
end-to-end redirection spam, present a methodology for analyzing the
layers, and identify prominent domains on each layer using two sets of
commercial keywords - one targeting spammers and the other targeting
advertisers. The methodology and findings are useful for search engines
to strengthen their ranking algorithms against spam, for legitimate
website owners to locate and remove spam doorway pages, and for
legitimate advertisers to identify unscrupulous syndicators who serve
ads on spam pages.
