A couple of months ago PSFK wrote about SpamBlogs and the affect they were having on search engines like Technorati. SpamBlogs seem to appear so often in search engine results these days you begin to wonder if this "boom" in blogging is all down to fake blogs…
In the Online Journalism Review, Mark Glaser looks at how a get-rich-quick company, Quixtar, created dozens of blogs to bolster its search position and enhance its reputation:
The company, a revamped online version of Amway, has had trouble
with critics online and decided to fight them by unloading an arsenal
of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that go against accepted
marketing techniques and into the muddy world of Web page spam, also
known as link farms and Google bombing.To put it simply, Quixtar
enlisted various people to help create dozens of Weblogs that linked to
each other and were filled with positive stories and key words. The
idea is to help put these newer blogs at the top of search results for
phrases such as "Quixtar success" and "Quixtar opportunity," while more
critical sites such as Quixtar Blog and Amquix.info would drop down.
To counter the trend of SpamBlogs, a number of vigilantes seem to have appeared. Pascal Van Hecke runs a site that explains the phenomemon and seems intent on identifying the false sites. He suggests that we lend Technorati a hand by reporting the blogs through a tag on del.icio.us. There’s hearty discussion about the pros and cons of this method on his site but one thing is for sure: we need to sit up and notice. As Mark Glaser says: "Every major company, non-profit and religious
group now has to worry about their Web reputation and has to pay very
close attention to that first page of search results."
Online Journalism Review
<via BL>
Related PSFK Articles
Could SpamBlogs Render Technorati Useless?
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