Google Published the warning of penalties for user generated content spam. People encourages to follow the steps to being avoided by such content.

Recommendation

Google is Testing Expandable More Specific Searches

According To Google:

“Under the principles set out in Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, this may result in Google taking manual actions against the affected pages.”

UGC Spam

The spammers & people building links generally creates a profile over forum in order to leave their link in profile or in a post. The Forum spammers used to hide their link in a post via black in order to that they don’t turn blue like links normally perform.

Google Mention the following areas having problems:

1. Forums
2. Guestbooks
3. Social media platforms
4. File uploaders
5. Free hosting services
6. Internal search services

As Per Google

Spammy content like this can be harmful to your site and users in several ways:

• Low-quality content on some parts of a website can impact the whole site’s ranking.
• Spammy content can potentially lead users to unwanted or even harmful content, such as sites with malware or phishing, which may lower the reputation of your site.
• Unintended traffic from unrelated content on your site can slow down your site and raise hosting costs.
• Google might remove or demote pages that are overrun with third-party generated spam to protect the quality of our search results.

Tips To Avoid & Spot UGC Spam

Google Mentioned a no. of tips to rectify spam, people doing forum are already knows with it.

Suggestions for Finding & Removing Spam 

• Block automated account creating by turning on captcha & account validations via Emails.
• Turning on Moderation Features: By disallowing new guest bloggers to post & moderating their post before approval.
• Monitor your site for any spammy content & clean up any issues via Search Console to check manual action & security reports.
• Find & terminate Spam accounts.
• Prevent Google Search from Showing or Following Untrusted Content as Google suggested to use nofollow meta tag for untrusted portions of a site like profile & nofollow on UGC links.
• Consolidate UGC Content in a Concentrated File Path or Directory as Google Recommends to createa directory where you keeps all UGC can be stored, as it makes easier for you to finds spam content in your site created by hackers using some scripts.
• Keep your Web Software Up To Date

Use Google Alerts to Fight Spam

Google suggest to use google alerts to get warnings for any kind of spammy content created over your site.

You can check this by doing (site:) by using spammy leywords then set a google alerts for the same. And when the spammer creates any kind of spam by using those keywords, you will receive an email from Google.

Google Explained:

“…check your site for unexpected or spammy content by using the site: operator in Google Search, together with commercial or adult keywords that are unrelated to your site’s topic. For example, search for [site:your-domain-name viagra] or [site:your-domain-name watch online] to detect the irrelevant content on your site…”