A spam blog, also known as an auto blog or the
neologism
A neologism Ancient_Greek.html"_;"title="_from_Ancient_Greek">Greek_νέο-_''néo''(="new")_and_λόγος_/''lógos''_meaning_"speech,_utterance"is_a_relatively_recent_or_isolated_term,_word,_or_phrase_that_may_be_in_the_process_of_entering_com ...
splog, is a
blog
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...
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
PageRank (PR) is an algorithm used by Google Search to rank webpages, web pages in their search engine results. It is named after both the term "web page" and co-founder Larry Page. PageRank is a way of measuring the importance of website pages. A ...
or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, to artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors (see
made for AdSense
A scraper site is a website that copies content from other websites using web scraping. The content is then mirrored with the goal of creating revenue, usually through advertising and sometimes by selling user data. Scraper sites come in various f ...
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
A scraper site is a website that copies content from other websites using web scraping. The content is then mirrored with the goal of creating revenue, usually through advertising and sometimes by selling user data. Scraper sites come in various f ...
, 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
Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, for the purpose of non-commercial proselytizing, for any prohibited purpose (especia ...
techniques, including ''
spings''.
History
The term splog was popularized around mid August 2005 when it was used publicly by
Mark Cuban
Mark Cuban (born July 31, 1958) is an American billionaire entrepreneur, television personality, and media proprietor whose net worth is an estimated $4.8 billion, according to ''Forbes'', and ranked No. 177 on the 2020 ''Forbes'' 400 list ...
,
[Cuban's original post is archived her]
It developed from multiple
linkblog
A linklog is a type of blog which is meant to act as a linked list. Common practice is for the post titles to link directly to an external URLs, and the content of the post includes information to complement the associated URL.
Linklogs existed ...
s that were trying to influence search indexes and others trying to
Google bomb every word in the dictionary.
See also
*
Adversarial information retrieval
Adversarial information retrieval (adversarial IR) is a topic in information retrieval related to strategies for working with a data source where some portion of it has been manipulated maliciously. Tasks can include gathering, indexing, filtering ...
*
CAPTCHA
A CAPTCHA ( , a contrived acronym for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart") is a type of challenge–response test used in computing to determine whether the user is human.
The term was coined in 2003 b ...
*
Blog scraping
*
Link farm
On the World Wide Web, a link farm is any group of websites that all hyperlink to other sites in the group for the purpose of increasing SEO rankings. In graph theoretic terms, a link farm is a clique. Although some link farms can be created ...
*
Spam in blogs
Spam in blogs (also known as blog spam, comment spam, or social spam) is a form of Spamdexing. (Note that ''blog spam'' also has another meaning, specifically when a blog author creates posts without adding any informational or educational value ...
*
Spamdexing
Spamdexing (also known as search engine spam, search engine poisoning, black-hat search engine optimization, search spam or web spam) is the deliberate manipulation of search engine indexes. It involves a number of methods, such as link building ...
References
External links
Blogger: About Spam BlogsSVMs for the Blogosphere: Blog Identification and Splog Detection* ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers '' The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the ...
'', 17 November 2005
"Cashing in on fake blogs"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spam Blog
Black hat search engine optimization
Blogs
Spamming