Mark:
Real (hypothetical) question:
I’m creating a website AI with purely entertaining content – there’s no “right or wrong” about it.
It can be anything, stories, poems, games, anything – 1 million pages.
The vast majority of them are considered entertaining by readers – they like it.
Is this spam?
Pedro:
What queries does it rank for?
If it ranks for queries where people expect to find verified information rather than creative works, it could be considered deceptive.
Mark:
Why should the question of whether the content is spam or not be linked to whether a search engine ranks it?
Can’t we, as humans, determine what is spam without a search engine?
With that logic, nothing is spam.
Is it all about the search engine being mistaken?
Pedro:
It’s not about whether your site is ranked by a search engine, but about your intention to promote it.
Mark:
So, do my feelings and intentions when creating content determine whether it’s spam or not?
Pedro:
Feelings and intentions are not necessarily the same thing.
Some are driven by emotions, others by goals.
Your intentions and what you want to achieve with what you publish determine whether something has manipulative intent or not.
Mark:
So, my question is: as a user, seeing the content I described, without knowing my intentions – is it spam?
Pedro:
Users don’t necessarily need to know your intentions.
If user expectations are not met because of what you’re trying to do, that’s enough to consider it a bad outcome, which means it could potentially be considered spam or low quality.
Mark:
I answered this question hypothetically – the majority of users like my content.
I can’t say “everyone“, because entertainment is subjective.