The answer to splog.
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Posted By Rochelle Knight on 11/18 at 09:19 AM |
I've mentioned the issues with email spam attempts in a recent post but am becoming pretty disheartened with splog's increasing popularity in my life. Lately, I have been spending more and more time babysitting posts, specifically comments, to move one here, another there, to be filed in the junk section. While it's not a huge time eater, it does become tiring to deal with over and over and over and... over again. Yep, good ol' splog.
What's splog, you say? Well, some compare it to the zombies in Night of the Living Dead - seriously, read the article. But it's really spam + blog and can vary from nonsensical content, to adlinks that link to unrelated Web sites, to stolen content that falsifies search engine results (hurting those who deserve those results).
So I decided to look around a little and not only found that people who do this have nothing better to do with their time but that splogs cause major search engine issues, require you to constantly watch for malicious activity (especially if you don’t have a junk filter), and who knows what else will develop should it continue. I also came across Frank Gruber's "Spam + Blog = Splog : How Is It Affecting The Blogosphere?" post which led me to his answer to splog: SplogReporter.com. According to the site:
Splog is a terrorist to our blogosphere and needs to be stopped. This site was created for "good willed" bloggers to report splog in an effort to help to clean up the blogosphere of splog. It was spurred by the called to arms of Mark Cuban here and then followed up by a post on Somewhat Frank.
So, if you are dealing with splog, please report the site to SplogReporter.com -- if anything, so these people can find something else to do with their time. Thank you.
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Comments
That site is the biggest farce i've ever seen Rochelle -- who exactly do they report to, what exactly do they do?
They need to get a life and let the search engines worry about this stuff...
Posted by: Nick Wilson | November 18, 2005 07:16 PM
I disagree, I think it's rather refreshing to see someone take action on a problem rather than sit back and expect someone else to take care of it for them.
Regarding the purpose, the site does contain information, news releases, even articles that give the why, what, and how details - not to mention the general research and reports that can be found. And splog is a growing problem. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google's Blogger had over 13,000 splogs which clogged the search engines with false results. With blog searches gaining popularity, why allow people to puposely ruin legitimate results just because they can?
While SplogReporter.com hasn't been around for ages, it shouldn't be written off just because their initial usability is being improved upon - every company strives to improve functionality and usability, especially to keep up in the Web world.
If you feel it's a farce, there's no requirement to participate but... I believe it's actually the sploggers who need to get a life.
Posted by: Rochelle Knight | November 19, 2005 02:48 PM
I have to say i disagree as well. The spam/spim/splog problem runs much deeper than being merely a search engine issue. The former two are no more than a fundemental invasion of our privacy in my mind, regardless of how the law regards the private/public nature of our email addresses and instant message contacts.
Splog is a bit different in that Blogs are indeed public forums of discussion. I would equate it more to spray painting your phone number on the side of someone's car.
Some friends and I have a Blog to keep in touch with eachother and plan trips back and forth (usually around UF football games). Having our discussions peperred with links to fake Viagara sites is frustrating at best. And I don't see how Google will solve this aspect of the problem any time soon.
Posted by: Brian Ledebur | November 19, 2005 03:33 PM