What is a Splog?
A "splog" is essentially spam
in a blog. In its most rampant form, these are blogs set up, sometimes in the
hundreds or thousands, purely to generate traffic for a primary website or
blog. Often they appear as nonsense, consisting mainly of long strings of
keywords and sometimes ads such as Google Adsense ads.
A splog could also be plagiarized
material, a blog set up for the sole purpose of advertising, or a blog
containing duplicate content, which is whole sections of another blog or
website copied and pasted. A blog contains duplicate content even if the
content belongs to that blog's owner. Posting several blogs on a community
space in a row within a small timeframe, called "flooding" is an act of
splogging, and another common mistake for beginners.
Could You Be a Splogger?
Actually, almost every
blogger accidentally splogs occasionally, especially when getting started. This
is usually due to confusion and misinformation about the definition of a splog,
as well as the proper uses of, and content for, a blog.
In order to avoid
accidentally splogging, try to include links whenever possible, in the
appropriate places, to the original web pages to which you are referring or
from which you have quoted. Paraphrasing is also your best bet, although do
remember that you still need to reference your sources using links. When it
comes to duplicate content, instead of reposting your own work in many
different places, try paraphrasing a bit of it and then linking back to your
work. This will not only avoid splogging, but also bring traffic to your other
blogs and websites.
To avoid flooding, try posting your different pieces
to different blogs and linking them, or consolidating your separate blog
entries into one whenever possible. You could also get into the habit of
logging into your blogs at a few different times during the day, and posting
one or two entries then.
What is the Harm in
Splogging?
Many bloggers out there do
not know the extent of the harm that splogs cause. They redirect traffic
through their own portals, which amounts to stealing traffic from everyone
else. They also flood the directories, search engines, and blog community
browsing pages, which makes your blog very difficult to find. Again, this
amounts to stealing traffic from others, as splogs deliver no actual content.
Splogs are also on Google's
black list, so to speak. If you belong to a blog community and there are enough
sploggers active there, Google might refuse to allow any of the members to use
Adsense in their blogs, which amounts to lost potential revenue for honest
bloggers. There is also a risk that individual bloggers could lose their
Adsense accounts, and all revenue, completely. In addition, in a blog
community, all blog entries bring traffic to the community and thus to the
individual members. If there is too much splogging activity, Google will rank every
blog in that community lower, which will dramatically decrease a blog's
traffic and by association, revenue.
