Google's Hacked Sites Algorithm Only Impacts Spammy Queries

The new Google Hacked Sites Algorithm which launched this week, we think, is said to impact about 5% of search queries. It aims at removing sites that are hacked in the search results, to keep the search results safe.

Last night at PubCon, I spotted a tweet from Jennifer Slegg on Twitter where she quoted Gary Illyes from Google saying on stage that this algorithm only impacts "spammy" flavors of search queries.

Here is her tweet:

Hacked sites algo: just devalues site for spammy queries only. @methode #pubcon

— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) October 8, 2015

So Gary said that the algorithm only impacts sites that are (1) hacked AND (2) are in the spammy queries realm.

That seems like something I should double check on because sites in all areas can be hacked and impact searchers across the board. So maybe this was a misunderstanding or maybe the vast majority of hacked sites are in the "spammy" area?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update: Gary Ilyes from Google confirmed it directly on Twitter:

@rustybrick yesr. That's what we're aiming for.

— Gary Illyes (@methode) October 9, 2015