Blog Wars: Attack Of The Splogs
by:
Priya Shah
The engines, viz. Google, are striking back at sploggers and their malevolent creations, the splogs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splog
According to media reports Google has taken measures to impede those attempting to use its Blogger service to create and maintain fake blogs. http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2005/10/24/google_trying_captcha_to_obstruct_sploggers/index.php
Blogger's official corporate web log mentioned the "spamalanche" that has search engines, web log search engines and net advertisers in a tizzy. http://buzz.blogger.com/
They are now working together to eliminate the economic incentive for splogs by distinguishing them at their source - by domain - and not categorization them.
Can CAPTCHA Finish The Spamalanche?
The "CAPTCHA" test is a know-how
by which machine-controlled programs that post or create blogs can be foiled--where the user is asked to type in a sequence of letters from a line that folk can read, but computers can't decipher.
Blogger is presently
working on route to reduce false positives and ensure that once a web log with word verification has been established as legitimate, the blogger wish no longer need to solve the CAPTCHA.
Why Create Splogs In The 1st Place?
Splogs generally fall into one of two categories, notes Mediapost: Link farms, which pack hundreds or even as thousands of blogs with gibber or recycled content, and contain multiple links to a particular Web site, which allow them to game Google's PageRank algorithm, creating unnaturally high organic search rankings; and spam blogs that just recycle content with AdSense or another advertising on them in the hopes of devising money from errant users clicking on the ads. http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=../../Articles.showArticle&art_aid=35418
Splogs most often get their content by scraping - the process of causing an electronic repetition bot to take everything it sees, recreating it on an unlimited number of instant documents, writes Jim Hedger. http://news.stepforth.com/blog/2005/10/splogs-scraping-adsense-fraud.php
Literally millions of instant sites have sprung up over the past twelve months, most of which are free-hosted Blogs, containing content scraped out from the innovational sites.
Why Splogs Are Evil
An article in the Wall Street Journal notes that the splogs are a big source of frustration for several search-engine start-ups that focus on web log searches, such as IceRocket.com LLC, Technorati Inc. and Feedster Inc. http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB112968552226872712-h37m_YUT3BqCvLRfhl6rqzKObnE_20061019.html?mod=rss_free
Jim Hedger does several first-class points just about why splogs are a menace to genuine bloggers, notably that:
Splogs are content thieves and can cause honest webmasters to get caught up in technical and fiscal issues by losing search engine listings and advertising revenue
Splogs use up blogging resources, especially those of Blogger and Blogspot
Slogs clog up the search results with icky and digressive sites.
Splogs devalue the legitimate uses of blogs as communications and marketing tools
Splogs mightiness lead futurity web log readers or users away from the growing blogosphere.
Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of Intelliseek, a firm that monitors and searches web log content, aforesaid that spam blogs do it harder to convert companies to blog. http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=../../Articles.showArticle&art_aid=35418
What Can You Do Just just about Splogs?
It’s not just the engines that are fighting back. There are a few knights in shining armour out there, like Frank Gruber, a blogger in Chicago who became defeated piece encountering splogs in search engines, and recently launched a site called SplogReporter, reports the Wall Street Journal. http://www.splogreporter.com
SplogReporter lets anyone submit the Web address of a suspected splog. Gruber has created an index to rate how "spammy" a web log is, and is building a information of splogs that he may share with search engines.
Google engineer, Matt Cutts, provided tips on how to report spam to Google on his blog. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/update-jagger-contacting-google/ Use his tips to report spam and do your bit to clear up the blogosphere.
I 1st wrote just about spam-blogs here, and suggested that instead of exploitation blogs for spam, marketers must focus on building content-rich sites and acquiring high-value links to them. http://www.blog-maniac.com/spam-blogging.htm
Don't restrict yourself to just the SEO benefits of blogging. Appreciate the value that blogs can add to your marketing and public relations strategy and use them the way they were meant to be used - as cutting-edge and "cool" tools for communication with your target audience.
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About The Author
Priya Crowned head is a partner in the search engine marketing firm, SEO & Much http://www.seoandmore.com. Request the whitepaper Boost Your Search Engine Visibility With Blogs And RSS http://www.seoandmore.com/blogs-rss/
This article was announce on Gregorian calendar month 28, 2005
