John Mueller responded to a question on Twitter this morning says all paid link spam reports are reviewed manually by humans at Google, i.e. Googlers.
John wrote, "these are reviewed manually" when asked about the paid link report he submitted. Well, we did know this but it is always good to have it said multiple times.
@VishMarathe411 These are reviewed manually. Thanks for submitting your report!
— John Mueller (@JohnMu) September 1, 2016
Here is the place to submit spam reports and specifically, here is the paid link report tool which says "Google uses a number of methods to detect paid links, including algorithmic techniques. We also welcome information from our users. If you know of a site that buys or sells links, please tell us by filling out the fields below. We'll investigate your submissions, and we'll use your data to improve our algorithmic detection of paid links."
So don't expect that when you submit a paid link report that within 24 hours the site you reported will be vanished from the internet. That is unlikely. Although, Google did say about 65% of spam reports are acted upon.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
