What is a splog?
We've all
seen those 'blogs', for want of a better name, which are little more than a few
pages of poorly written, usually meaningless, content, heaps of affiliate
links, advertising, promo banners and the like. That is a splog.
Just as spam emails are emails written purely to advertise products, affiliate links and websites, a spam blog is a blog written purely to advertise products, affiliate links and websites. Granted, they are a lot less common these days than they were a few years ago - we can thank the search engines for that. They regularly weed out these types of sites with new algorithms and rules. However, there are still thousands upon thousands of sites out there masquerading as legitimate 'blogs' that are in reality just sophisticated splogs. They clutter up the Internet and provide very little in the way of real value.
A splog's
main purpose is to send people to associated/affiliate websites and landing
pages. To this end, they're
specifically designed to manipulate search engine results and hog rankings for
particular keywords. All the rage a few
years ago but search engines are getting smarter and smarter and keyword
stuffing, which is what most splogs are full of, is more likely to have the
opposite effect these days.
Duplicate,
or near to duplicate, content is also an issue with many splogs. Article spinning software is a serial
splogger's best friend - it gives them the remarkable talent of being able to
use other people's work and rephrase enough of it to fool search engines.
And as for
wanting to know something about the author ...
Forget that - IF there is any information provided it's likely to be
very sketchy at best and completely fake at worst.
Then there
are the links and ads; they're everywhere in a splog. No tasteful and relevant placement tactics involved whatsoever -
just make the text fit the link and then shove half a dozen ads on there as
well so no-one misses the point.
Sploggers beware however - these days search engines are placing more and more emphasis on quality content and reader engagement and they're penalising websites and blogs that are deemed to be overly promotional in nature and not providing value. Website hosts, particularly those who offer free websites and free hosting, are following suit and many 'bloggers' are suddenly finding themselves 'blogless' literally overnight. Blogger and Wordpress in particular are starting to jump on anything they consider is more splog than blog.
And the solution?? That's a no-brainer - make sure you have a blog, not a splog!
