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Copyright 2005 Randy Charles Morin
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Destroy all Malware
Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:50:30 GMT
Defending Yourself Against Blogiarism and Splogs

Now that you know you've been blogiarized, what do you do about it? The last thing you should do is walk away and do nothing. Inaction will only mean more blogiarism and splogs in the future. It's simply a matter of speaking up and telling the right people about the blogiarism or splog. Let me tell you the ways I've used successfully in the past to combat blogiarism and splogs. Start by finding out who this guy is working with. You see, if he has AdSense ads, a FeedBurner feed, a blog hosting service or a Web hosting service, then you can usually go right after his partners and hit him where it hurts. Send them an email complaint. For some services, there are specific ways of contacting the right people. Let me enumerate them.

AdSense

Many blogiarizers or sploggers use AdSense as a way of monetizing their efforts. There's two primary ways of inappropriate blogs to the AdSense team.

  1. Click on the Ads by Google link in the margins of the AdSense ad unit. This will bring you to a page with a link "Send Google your thoughts on the ads you just saw."  The content of this page changes from time-to-time, so this link may disappear. Click this link or one similar to it. You are then presented with a feedback form where you can tell Google that the publisher is a splogger or blogiarizer. If he gets enough submissions, then his AdSense account will be terminated and this does happen quite frequently.
  2. The second option is to send and email to adsense-abuse@google.com with all the pertinent information included in the body of the message.

The first two steps failing (too often the case), I have found that Jason Goldman is a good contact on the AdSense team.

Yahoo! Publishers Network

Very similar to AdSense, some sploggers attempt to make their money using Yahoo! Publishers Network. Splogging is against many of the subsections of section 6, Members Conduct, of the YPN Terms of Service. The TOS says to report these abuses to Yahoo!'s Customer Care, but I can't find anything on that page that helps you report YPN splogs. Yahoo! must fix this.

FeedBurner

Some blogiarizers and sploggers, go to the extent of publishing a FeedBurner feed on their blog. You can report them to feedback@feedburner.com. I've done this in the past and the blog (not just the feed) actually disappeared within the hour. The blog may have disappeared for other reasons, but it's worth pointing out, even if it's a coincidence.

Blogspot

Most splogs are hosted on Google's blog hosting service called Blogspot. Each Blogspot blog is suppose to have a Flag button in the top right corner of each blog page. This is not always true and there are likely two reasons for this.

  1. The author maybe adding script to his blog to disable the button or the entire Blogger bar.
  2. Maybe Google removes the Flag button when the blog meets some criteria (it's about to be deleted).

Google

You can also try to get splogs de-indexed from Google. Remember, Google is every Webmasters best friend. Getting a splog removed from Google's index should have a severe negative effect on the splog traffic. Here's one way of reporter a splog. Type the URL of the splog preceded by the modifier "site:" (example site:www.the-splog-url.com/page) then hit enter. Then scroll to the bottom of the page and click-on "Dissatisfied? Help us improve." You are then presented with a form where you can give Google the appropriate feedback.

Another secondary approach is to contact Matt Cutts. On numerous occasions, I've sent Matt lists of splogs, which he quickly removed from Google's index and forward to other appropriate Google teams. Matt is likely the #1 warrior in the fight against SERP (Search Engine Result Page) Spam. Thanks Matt!

SplogSpot

Another way of telling the world about a splogger, is to list his Website at SplogSpot.com. SplogSpot has a difficult submission form, the CAPTCHA is a killer, but if you can bypass it then you are a smart human and your submission will be reviewed for inclusion in the SplogSpot database.

Reader Comments RSSRmail
what a denouncement ! is the Gestapo come back ? I know Siddartha, he's a gentleman. Please at least don't publish his email ! Jerome Chesnot NONAME SEO
Jerome, it's entirely possible that Siddartha's email address is attached to the splog without his knowing. In that case, all he needs to do is respond to the email I already sent him, with that explanation.

Randy
Making money (with the Google Adsense) by denouncing people is not better than splogging I think...
Randy, I can't be agree with your method and your judgement. Web is full of crappy and useless sites you can denounce but 301 bring to french SEO some contents from several sources, I don't found anything here to blame. In add, parsing feeds on multiple access points is the foundation of the information propagation. Jerome Chesnot, NONAME

ok so why does someone smarter than me not figure out how to block an  rss feed from being published were they don't want it?  what does it matter to you if someone else is "splogging" and making money off there account?  My real question is what gives anyone the right?  if your rss feed is being published in full someplace and you don't like it tell the person and do something about it.  But attacking someone in the manner that you do is just dumb! 

The only way to stop someone from re-publishing your RSS is not to publish RSS.

Why do I care that people splog? Imagine an Internet without SPAM filters?

The Website owner has been told. That hasn't stopped him.

I guess we should just leave SPAMmers to their craft too!

Randy

I might be missing some important point, but actually, I don't see anything there that I haven't seen on thousands of other blogs: copies of others people's work with links to the originals! Just their stuff concentrates and condenses all SEO-related articles from a number of sources on one page.

If I were interested in SEO-related info, I'd now have a choice: read that one blog, or import al those sources in a feed-reader a-la Google reader or Bloglines myself... And I don't see the difference.

But then... hey, what do *I* know?

This is no judgement against what's going on here OR there. I'm just curious what all this fuss is about. So if Randy or anyone else could enlighten me... please do.

FreeBee
FreeBee, Thou shalt not steal. Remember that? Stealing content is stealing none-the-less. Most blogs that copy other people's content, excerpt a sentence or two and maybe even add their own input on the subject. 301 is just copying as much content as they can, no excerpting, no input.

Randy
Why do I really feel like posting this URL here: http://www.kbcafe.com/blogs.aspx/ ?

Something tells me it is related to the issue discussed....

Regards,
IrishWonder
What an absolute load of rubbish you are talking here.
Rss feeds are to be syndicated.
You are a parasite for trying to do this to somebody.
I dont like splogs as much as the next man but all this spam hunting will came back to bite people like you in the future.
Wimp
http://www.kbcafe.com/blogs.aspx is a blog search engine, no different than Google blog search, Yahoo blog search, Feedster, etc. All the results are excerpted and I'm not archiving or copying anything. It's called fair use.

Randy
Some of you don't understand fair-use. If you don't, then read the following...

Please,

Randy

301powered.com is not even close to being a splog. Does he not link back to the source? Does he publish the entire article as his own? He is in the limits of fair use and you have made it possible with your own feed. Live and let live. Every "white hat" I have ever ever researched, ended up having a black hat band. Quit being a prick.
Q: Does he not link back to the source?
A: Most all splogs link back to the source. Linking to source, has nothing to do with whether something is a splog or not.

Q: Does he publish the entire article as his own?
A: He publishes whatever is in the RSS feed, which part of the time means, yes, he publishes the entire article.

Randy
Well, I still find this most confusing.

So, if I start a new account at BlogLines, make it publicly available, and enter the Feed addresses of all of 301's sources, then either BlogLines or myself are splogging? Because that's what all this boils down to, as far as I can tell. I would, after all, be using my BlogLines page to publish all the same info as 301 is doing, without adding any info of my own. I'd be stealing, and BlogLines would have supplied me with the means to do so!

FreeBee
No, it's not the same. Bloglines is an RSS reader. The purpose of RSS is to allow users to read your news in an RSS reader. By publishing an RSS feed you are giving people the defacto right to read your news in an RSS reader, because that's the purpose of RSS. The purpose of RSS is not for somebody to steal your content, which is what 301 is doing.

Randy
The line that separates right from wrong is much too thin for me to percieve in this case. I would NOT want to be the judge in this court, because no matter how much I want to understand, I will never get it.

So I wish you all the best in this battle that you think you must fight, but I'm not going to support either side.

So long,
FreeBee
> http://www.kbcafe.com/blogs.aspx is a blog search engine, no different than Google blog search, Yahoo blog search, Feedster, etc. All the results are excerpted and I'm not archiving or copying anything. It's called fair use.

I can't agree with this statement. The way I came across this one is because a page of "search results" appeared in one of the search engines when I was looking for something else - well, the URL also contained the search term which I removed prior to posting it here. So it looks like you're spamming the SERPs as well...

Regards,
IrishWonder
http://www.fightsplog.com/news/index.php/2006/01/randy-morin-issues-splogger-challenge/
IrishWonder, by that logic every search engine or tag space is spamming the SERPs.

And I could go on forever.

Randy
FreeBee, the legal case is pretty clear. An excerpt here or there is fair use, but this level of copying is blatant theft.

Randy
How to spam technorati & Google, by Randi Morin
MSN search API + Tags + Adsenses

http://www.kbcafe.com/search.aspx?q=casino
http://www.plazoo.com/item/kbcafe/14912985.htm
i think you're a prick and should be doing something more useful with your life. You're no better than some of the thugs sitting on Death Row. Get a life you loser!

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