Article spinning is the automatic rewriting of an existing text. Software swaps words and phrases for synonyms to produce several seemingly new versions from one source. The method is outdated and counts as spam in Google’s terms.
What does Google say?
Google’s spam policies name the use of synonyms explicitly. Copying content from other sites and changing it only slightly, for instance with synonyms, falls under scraping. Generating many pages through automated transformations such as synonymizing or translating can count as scaled content abuse. Spam can lead to lower rankings or removal from search results.
Historical context
According to Wikipedia, spinning services were common in the early 2010s and used thesaurus databases and spintax to mark interchangeable parts of a text. Wikipedia adds that AI tools increasingly fill this role. Google evaluates the purpose of a page. Pages made mainly to manipulate rankings fall under the policy, whether people, automation, or both produced them.
Example
Spintax marks alternatives in curly braces. The notation is a common convention, not a standard, and the example is made up:
{Cheap|Affordable} running shoes {to buy|online}
One line produces four variants that add nothing new.
Sources
- Spam policies: scraping, scaled content abuse – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Article spinning – Wikipedia (secondary source)en.wikipedia.org
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