Has anyone used a spam report to Google with any success? How long does it take Google to react if at all? Does a small network of sites (same owner) designed to crowd out a niche qualify as spam?
"Does a small network of sites (same owner) designed to crowd out a niche qualify as spam" Depends on how you do it. If it looks like spam (e.g. tons of links to other sites), or if "a small network" really means hundreds of sites, you might be blocked.
About 10 sites all different enough to fool Google but in effect pretty much the exact same thing that offer nothing new to the user. Same themes and content tweaked in 10 different ways.
What you meant was if someone did it ten ways better than you ranking above you will a spam report work? Could back fire ...
I frequently fill out Google spam reports. Google frequently ignores them. But, I still fill 'em out. I want to know that I am doing my part. If you post the search terms and the URL's here, a bunch of us will report them from our various IP addresses. This may increase the odds of waking the sleeping Google.
No that is not what I mean - I wan't to know if this is the way to do things now before I invest in my own network of micro sites. Or will this network be flagged and removed?