Slammer for Fake Blog Spammers
Posted on May 30th, 2008 by Paul Woodhouse in Business Blogging, Internet, Online Marketing
TAGS: astroturfing, europe, fake blogs, flogs, Online Marketing, sock puppetry
Did you know that it’s now a criminal offense - punishable by up to two years in jail - for any marketer/marketing firm/staff of marketing firm caught churning out fake blogs, fake reviews and other similar shady marketing practices online across Europe?
Read this and vent your first amendment spleens in the comments.
I shall be looking to make a citizen’s arrest on any commenter who attempts to shill a product and will invoke Godwin’s Law with impunity.
When do you guys think Google will filter out "fake blogs" from their blog search SERPs? Any thoughts? It’s really annoying to try and track blog links when the majority of results in a search come back with spam.
Comment by Jonathan Bentz on June 13, 2008
@ Jonathan - Thanks for swinging by. I’ll defer to Paul on this one, but my personal thought is that it’s a matter of time before it happens - whether the info goes into a supplemental results netherworld or gets sandboxed completely or gets a -100 penalty (not sure I believe in any of the -## penalties seo-types like to talk about). They’re getting better with their main serps (and as spammers, arbitragers, and black hatters get better, they’ll both be forced to evolve in a never ending tango), so I don’t see why they wouldn’t with their other serps as well.
Side note - good call on Maholm. And he is very frustrating - his m.o. is to pitch 5-6 great innings and 1 really bad one.
Comment by Justin Seibert on June 13, 2008
Thanks for the response, Justin. You have a very informative blog here and I greatly enjoy the content. Looking forward to further enlightened insight on internet marketing.
Comment by Jonathan Bentz on June 13, 2008
I must confess that Google does a far better job of filtering out fake blogs than they used to.
So take from that what you will.
I’ve never been much of a fan of Google’s blog search, to be fair. I’d rather use their main search rather than trawl through everything and anything with an RSS feed.
Comment by Paul Woodhouse on June 13, 2008
@Paul - thanks for your input. There certainly is something to be said for filtering out individual webpages from blog entries. I personally prefer a site like Technorati for specific blog search. At the end of the day, Google is Google though, you know?
Comment by Jonathan Bentz on June 13, 2008
Gentlemen:
You may be interested in twingly - a self-confessed spam-free blog search engine.
http://www.twingly.com
Comment by Paul Woodhouse on June 16, 2008