Splog Wars I - The War Begins

While checking inbound links, I spotted more links coming from splogs than I care to count. It's in the hundreds, possibly more than a thousand. As of right now, I am officially declaring war on the sploggers that scrape the content from both of my blogs. Considering the fact that Google now penalizes blogs with lots of inbound spam links (backlinks), according to Lorelle on WordPress, it's time for me to make it a priority.

The 1st step is detection. That's what I'll be focusing on today. I just installed Stephen Cronin's FeedEntryHeader plugin. There are other plugins that add "digital fingerprints" and I think this is only the second one I've seen that inserts the text BEFORE the feed content.

The 2nd step is to preserve the evidence. I plan to capture screen shots.

The 3rd step is to contact the sploggers, if possible. I'll give them sufficient time to remove my content before proceeding with the next step. Stay tuned for more adventures in my ongoing "Splog Wars".

December 7th, 2007 By RT Cunningham | Categories: Internet | Tags: backlinks, spam, Splog Wars |

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Black Belt Mama on December 7th, 2007 at 4:41 am (Reply)

I will be following your battle because I'm having some issues of my own right now. It's very annoying, especially when they're putting your stuff on disgusting sites. Typepad has no plug-in's that I'm aware of right now to help. If you know of any, let me know!

Black Belt Mama's last blog post..Stupid is as Stupid does

RT Cunningham on December 7th, 2007 at 4:47 am (Reply)

I certainly will.

Chris Lodge on December 7th, 2007 at 5:53 am (Reply)

If only Google cared as much about scrapers and sploggers as they do about PayPerPost.

Especially as they're so concerned about the sanctity of the blogosphere and all.

Oh wait, sploggers are valued adsense publishers, silly me.

Chris Lodge's last blog post..Use Blogger And Miss 3/4 Of The Internet

RT Cunningham on December 7th, 2007 at 4:06 pm (Reply)

Actually, from what I've gathered, Google has no way to tell if sploggers are sploggers until it's reported to them.
2. Stephen Cronin on December 7th, 2007 at 9:49 pm (Reply)
  
  And I've just reported one. I'll let you know how it goes - whether Google take action or not.
  
  Stephen Cronin's last blog post..Make Money Online - Don’t Forget Your Existing Skills

K-IntheHouse on December 7th, 2007 at 10:21 pm (Reply)

Glad to see Stephen reporting the bad guys. I have reported a couple before but didn't track them down to see if it had any effect. I might have to join you guys in this.. but for some reason I am finding less of my content getting scraped! Maybe that says something about how I write!
K-IntheHouse's last blog post..By: Kyle Eslick

RT Cunningham on December 7th, 2007 at 10:26 pm (Reply)

Actually… since I added the fingerprint, my number of feed subscribers dropped drastically. I won't display the count until it goes way back up again.

Chris Lodge on December 15th, 2007 at 2:03 am (Reply)

Thought so, I'm not getting these comments mailed to me - they're not going in my spambox either.

Is it just me that your blog doesn't love?
Chris Lodge's last blog post..Use Blogger And Miss 3/4 Of The Internet

RT Cunningham on December 15th, 2007 at 6:16 am (Reply)

Just you.

Chris Lodge on December 16th, 2007 at 12:40 am (Reply)

Charming!

I wonder why not though-I've just checked the subscription manager and the details are correct, they're not going to spam. Actually didn't I hear something about Gmail deciding what was spam and nuking it before it reached people's inboxes? I'll have to try my next registration with a different non-gmail address.