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Gary Illyes from Google posted on the Google blog that spam reports are not used for manual actions. That spam reports are used for improving Google's spam detection algorithms. Was it ever used for manual actions? Gary would not say.
Gary wrote on the blog "today we're updating our Help Center articles to better reflect this approach: we use spam reports only to improve our spam detection algorithms."
Before it read:
If you believe that another site is abusing Google's quality guidelines, please let us know by filing a spam report. Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, so we attempt to minimize hand-to-hand spam fighting. While we may not take manual action in response to every report, spam reports are prioritized based on user impact, and in some cases may lead to complete removal of a spammy site from Google’s search results. Not all manual actions result in removal, however. Even in cases where we take action on a reported site, the effects of these actions may not be obvious.
After this change, it read:
If you believe that another site is abusing Google's quality guidelines, please let us know by filing a spam report. Google prefers developing scalable and automated solutions to problems, and will use the report for further improving our spam detection systems.
I did ask if this was always the case and Gary said that is more of a Google PR thing to respond to:
Please check with Lara. I'm not going to comment about this post, at least not intentionally
— Gary 鯨理／경리 Illyes (@methode) July 3, 2020
Forum discussion at Twitter and Local Search Forums.
