Spam blog

A spam blog, also known as an auto blog or the neologism splog,[1] 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.

"Autoblog" redirects here. For the automotive news and shopping site, see Weblogs, Inc. For spamming made through comments in legitimate blogs, see Spam in blogs.

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.

There is frequent confusion between the terms "splog" and "spam in blogs". Splogs are blogs where the articles are fake, and are only created for search engine spamming. To spam in blogs, conversely, is to include random comments on the blogs of innocent bystanders, in which spammers take advantage of a site's ability to allow visitors to post comments that may include links. In fact, one of the earliest uses of the term "splog" referred to the latter.[2]

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,[3][4] but appears to have been used a few times before for describing spam blogs going back to at least 2003.[5] It developed from multiple linkblogs that were trying to influence search indexes and others trying to Google bomb every word in the dictionary.

gollark: Most stuff here is metric, apart from people's heights, road distances, and people's weights *some* of the time somehow.
gollark: > Um, how comfortable are you with living in a militant commune?> militant communeThis seems vaguely worrying.
gollark: > the janitorial department wouldn't be under my managementSee, this is what I mean. Spirit's insults are just *better* than yours.
gollark: Probably not very publicly because it's probably illegal and you can't really get around that.
gollark: It's entirely possible that there are already copies of all the textbooks you're talking about floating around on the internet.

See also

References
  1. "Wired 14.09: Spam + Blogs = Trouble. Splogs are the latest thing in online scams". Wired.com. 2009-01-04. Retrieved 2010-05-14.
  2. "June 13, 2003 hackermojo.com entry". Hackermojo.com. Retrieved 2010-05-14.
  3. 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."
  4. Cuban's original post is archived here .
  5. See, for example, a June 13, 2003 hackermojo.com entry, which uses the term, albeit in reference to spam comments on blogs.
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