Easy Living

2005-10-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

Blog Wars: Attack Of The Splogs

The engines, namely 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/archieves/2005/10/24/google_trying_captcha_to_obstruct_sploggers/index.php.

Blogger's official corporate blog mentioned the "spamalanche" that has search engines, blog 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 identifying them at their source - by domain - and not indexing them.

Can CAPTCHA Stop The Spamalanche?

The "CAPTCHA" test is a method by which automated 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 people can read, but computers can't decipher.

Blogger is currently working on ways to reduce false positives and ensure that once a blog with word verification has been established as legitimate, the blogger will no longer need to solve the CAPTCHA.

Why Create Splogs In The First Place?

Splogs generally fall into one of two categories, notes Mediapost: link farms, which packs hundreds or even thousands of blogs with gibberish or recycled content, and contain multiple links to a particular Web site, which allow them to game Google's PageRank algorithm, creating artificially high organic search rankings; and spam blogs that simply recycle content with AdSense or other advertising on them in the hopes of making 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 sending an elecronic copying bot to take every thing 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 original 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 blog searches, such as IceRocket.com LLC, Technorati Inc. and Feedster Inc. http://online.wsj.com/public/articles/SB112968552226872712-h37m_YUT3BqCvLRfh16rqzKObnE_20061019.html?mod=rss_free.

Jim Hedger makes some excellent points 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 financial issues by losing search engine listings and advertising revenue.

Splogs use up blogging resources, especially those of Blogger and Blogspot.

Splogs clog up the search results with crappy and irrelevant sites.

Splogs devalue the legitimate uses of blogs as communications and marketing tools.

Splogs might lead future blog readers or users away from the growing blogosphere.

Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of Intelliseek, a firm that monitors and searches blog content, said that spam blogs make it hard to convince companies to blog. http://publicatioons.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=35418.

What Can you Do 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 frustrated while 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 blog is, and is building a database 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 clean up the blogosphere.

I first wrote about spam-blogs here, and recommended that instead of using blogs for spam, marketers must focus on building content-rich sites and getting 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 communicating with your target audience.

(CC) Creative Commons License
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Priya Shah is a partner in the search engine marketing firm, SEO&More http://www.seoandmore.com and writes an online marketing blog http://www.marketingslave.com. Request the whitepaper Boost Your Search Engine Visibility With Blogs And RSS http://www.seoandmore.com/blogs-rss/. This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box is left intact and all links are hyperlinked.
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Blogger's Comments:

Priya Shah is also the author of the book titled "Number One In Your Niche". She is definitely number one in her niche. Priya knows her stuff. I have been on Priya's mailing list for almost year. Mrs. Shah doesn't email me five to ten times a week with the sales-pitching, advertising emails. Instead, I receive informative and quality information from her ezine. That's why I have posted the Blog Wars: Attack Of The Splogs article on this blog. This is the type of content that's worth my time to read from an ezine publisher. I can handle the sales-pitching and advertising in ezines that contain "quality", no-hype, educational content excluding web site links to worthless products. Be sure to visit http://www.ebizwhiz-publishing.com and sign up for Priya Shah's newsletter. You can get free, no-hype info. on web site search engine optimization and internet marketing. Until next time, cherish easy living.

2005-10-10T03:23:00.000-07:00

FOR WEBMASTERS AND EZINE PUBLISHERS

Are you struggling to build your newsletter subscriber base? Welcome to the club. I have received 5 or more emails per week from some of the newsletters I've subscribed to. I unsubscribed myself from those lists in about eight weeks. I assume that most of us subscribe to ezines hoping to receive no-hype, "quality" information. Information that will be beneficial to our lives and/or businesses. I suppose others subscribe to ezines having the same expectations as myself. Stick around for a few moments longer. I will be discussing a spam-free way to build your ezine subscriber base. I will first discuss what appears to be a waste of time and money for most of us to bother with.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking advertising and sales pitching to an opt-in subscriber list. They say the money is in the list. I'm trying to earn a "decent" living from the internet too. As an ezine publisher myself, I don't believe in advertising or promoting junk products to my subscriber base. There are tons of what I call the "no need", "low demand" or "no demand" product types on the internet. I'm referring to the so-called, high-profit income-producing products you're supposed to be able to sell like hotcakes. Yeah, right.

Take a look at some of the resale rights packages on the web. I became aware of the existence of resale rights packages after subscribing to certain mailing lists. I wouldn't dare refer my newsletter subscribers to any resale rights packages I'm currently aware of. I'm not knocking every resale rights package. I don't believe I have seen them all. Some are simply a waste of money to purchase and a waste of time to download. I've bought two or three resale rights packages myself. I've downloaded better freeware software and ebooks from the internet without spending a dime. I don't have any use for any software I purchased in a resale rights package thus far. I wouldn't bother putting up a web page(s) to try and sell the junk I've wasted my money on.

Get real. How many people do you think would want or need some of the ebooks/software included in some of the resale rights packages? The best package I've seen so far costs around $100.00 . I say "best package" because it may contain software that could benefit me as a webmaster and an affiliate marketer. $100.00 is quite a bit of money to spend hoping for a benefit.

Attempting to sell resale rights ebooks and software is another ball game. You will have to compete with dozens of other sites selling the same products. I won't even get into web page optimization, advertising expenses (good luck with the free advertising), purchasing a new domain name, web hosting fees (or the time spent incorporating one of these "resale" web pages into your existing web site), clickbank, paypal or other merchant fees, etc. What about product download theft? You may be able to get a free script to prevent download theft of your digital products if you can find one that works. Don't expect any support with free scripts. To successfully prevent download theft of your digital products, you may end up spending more money on scripts and software. It will cost you more money to hire a programmer to install scripts on your web server. Don't forget to factor in customer refund requests. That will result in more money falling out your pockets since you may still be liable for merchant transaction fees. Your expenses will probably exceed your profits. Businesses file for bankruptcy and close their doors when more money is being spent than collected.

I simply believe that many people are afraid to sign up for more newsletters. I believe many are fearful their email boxes will become cluttered with a constant flow of sales pitches and advertisements. It has happened to me and many others I'm sure. This fear will probably prevent many ezine publishers from ever building a "decent" subscriber base. The program I'm about to introduce to you can help ezine publishers build their subscriber list. This is a free, spam-free , opt-in list building program. This program could possibly work wonders for ezine publishers as more people participate in it. To find out more visit http://www.easylisteninganne.com. Scroll down toward the bottom of this page (my home page). You will see a green and white banner stating: Add Opt-In Newsletter Subscribers 100% free. Click Here To Find Out How-Spam Free. This banner can also be found on a few other pages on my site. Be sure to click on the banner link. Typing in the web site domain name in your browser will land you on a web page that has nothing to do with opt-in list building. It hasn't done me any good as a webmaster to add direct web site links (text or banner) to external products and services on my web pages. If the aforementioned banner on my web pages was linked to (http://www.) blahblah.com, someone would type the blahblah web site address into their web browser. The same holds true for affiliate banners and text links. The webmasters end up with nothing for their referral efforts.

In closing I'd like to mention a product that I have implemented on some of my web pages with great success. You can see this product in action by visiting http://www.easylisteninganne.com/easylisteninganne_006.html, or visit http://www.easylisteninganne.com/easylisteninganne_027.html. Be sure to click on the text link inside this popup. You will find yourself on another web page that has nothing to do with this currently, unblockable popup program if you type the web site domain name in your web browser I've linked this program with. This unblockable popup appears only once per browser session on my site. There are 3 free popup blockers and 1 commercial popup blocker program installed on my computer. The software I use currently gets past them all. That's good news for webmasters who are trying to get the attention of the 30 second to 1 minute web site visitors.

Be sure to visit http://www.easylisteninganne.com/easylisteninganne_privacy.html and sign up for the Easy Living Newsletter. I don't advertise, promote or attempt to sell junk products that most people have no use for. I offer no-hype original content, free, no-hype, high quality business and christian ebooks and freeware software downloads to the Easy Living Newsletter subscribers. You can spend hours downloading and testing freeware programs that don't work. Or you can sign up for the Easy Living Newsletter and download freeware programs that work as well as some commercial software programs. Until next time, cherish easy living.

2005-06-26T08:30:00.000-07:00

For the time being you can read encouraging and uplifting syndicated christian articles by visiting my web site at http://www.easylisteninganne.com/easylisteninganne_articles.html. You can sign up for the Easy Living Newsletter at http://www.easylisteninganne.com/easylisteninganne_privacy.html. My statement of faith along with more information about me can be found at http://www.easylisteninganne.com/easylisteninganne_002.html. Composers and musicians can find beneficial music related web site links by visiting http://www.easylisteninganne.com/easylisteninganne_006.html. Visit http://www.easylisteninganne.com/easylisteninganne_007.html for links to christian directories and christian search engine web sites. A web site and music promotion package can be purchased for $69.00 at http://www.easylisteninganne.com/easylisteninganne_027.html. Have a blessed visit.

2005-06-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

Anne Allen