A SPLOG is a spam-blog. It is easily created and simply reposts articles from another blog or site via an automated import of the items from an RSS feed. The result is that items from one or more site are reposted without adding any utility. Why do people do this? First, to be jerks. Second, folks can make money.
Making money with a SPLOG
Most folks find content in splogs via search engines. In fact, some splogs come up higher in search than the originating site. People then think they are legitimate sites and click around the content and see ads. Folks then click through these ads and the site owner makes some money.
These ads are automated displays from things such as Google Adwords. These are easily setup in bulk with no effort. I do wish that Google and other ad networks could shut down this loophole that provides this opportunity. However, it would simply be too large an effort to police the millions of people who sign up to display the ads.
Monitoring Implications
Splogs are most evident when monitoring the blogosphere. Splogs show up in Google Reader and other tools. Many services try to block these sites but can never keep up with the volume. The result is that splogs add many hours to monitoring efforts as someone has to manually delete the bad content from the monitoring feed and block the sites from inclusion in the future.
How easy is it to setup a splog?
It can take less than 10 minutes to setup the initial splog and then adding new splogs can take just a minute or two. Here is how they do it.
Note: I am writing this post to show people how easy it is for folks to create spam blogs (SPLOGS). I do not advocate the practice and think it is a shady and disruptive practice. I am also not providing any secrets or making this easier for anyone to setup a splog. This information is readily available to those idiots out there who want to spam all of us.
- Find a cheap host – There are thousands that offer hosting at less than ten dollars a month.
- Install WordPress MU- This is technology to allow you to host an unlimited set of blogs and setup new ones in under a minute each.
- Install an Autoblog plug-in – This enables you to enter one or more RSS feeds for automated posts to a blog.
- Install an Ad Network plug-in – This activates the display of ads to make the owner money.
- Create blogs with RSS feeds using the installed items.
Let me know what you think and if you want to know more.
