A spam blog, also known as an auto blog or the neologism splog, is a blog which the author uses to promote affiliated websites, to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites or to simply sell links/ads.
The purpose of a splog can be to increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, to artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors (see made for AdSense or MFA-blogs), and/or use the blog as a link outlet to sell links or get new sites indexed. Spam blogs are usually a type of scraper site, where content is often either inauthentic text or merely stolen (see blog scraping) from other websites. These blogs usually contain a high number of links to sites associated with the splog creator which are often disreputable or otherwise useless websites.
This is used often in conjunction with other spamming techniques, including spings.
History
The term splog was popularized around mid August 2005 when it was used publicly by Mark Cuban, It developed from multiple linkblogs that were trying to influence search indexes and others trying to Google bomb every word in the dictionary.
See also
References
- ^ "Wired 14.09: Spam + Blogs = Trouble. Splogs are the latest thing in online scams". Wired.com. 2009-01-04. Retrieved 2010-05-14.
- ^ Zhu, Linhong; Sun, Aixin; Choi, Byron (2011-03-01). "Detecting spam blogs from blog search results". Information Processing & Management. 47 (2): 246–262. doi:10.1016/j.ipm.2010.03.006. ISSN 0306-4573.
- ^ Yamamoto, Mike (2005-08-17). "Are 'splogs' ruining the blogs?". CNet News. Retrieved 2009-01-31.
Cuban, who defines a splog as "any blog whose creator doesn't add any written value," writes: "Go to your favorite blog search engine and type in hair loss. Or you can try Cialis, or Discount Tickets?? You get the idea. Anything that has ever been spammed about is spammed in monstrous proportions in the blogosphere because its so easy to do."
- ^ Cuban's original post is archived here .
External links
- Blogger: About Spam Blogs
- SVMs for the Blogosphere: Blog Identification and Splog Detection
- news.com.com: "Tempted by blogs, spam becomes 'splog'"
- The Guardian, 17 November 2005, "Cashing in on fake blogs"
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