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"Postmodernism is a change-or-be-changed world. The word is out: Reinvent
yourself for the 21st century or die! Some would rather die than change."
Leonard Sweet, cultural historian.

10/16/2005 Entry: "Google, stop the spam blogs or else!"

Like many people in the emerging media business, I track certain keywords via the blog search engine Technorati. It's easy. All you have to do is enter a keyword, and their software will provide an RSS feed based on that word or words. Among other things, it's a helpful way to keep up with what people are saying about you in the blogosphere.

I subscribe to an RSS feed on "Terry Heaton." It used to produce a couple of items a day, but the feed is now inundated with what can kindly be described as junk. Creative spamming assholes have begun using my name and stealing quotes about me to create links -- and, therefore, Google placement -- via blogs that aren't really blogs. They're simply platforms to generate links for their clients. Scores of these fake entries are populating my RSS reader daily, thanks to these leeches masquerading as human beings.

Nothing illegal, though, eh? Gee, that's comforting.

Chris Pirillo is calling it like it is, because 99% of these spam blogs are generated by Google's own (too) easy-to-use blog software, Blogger.com. And his warning for Google is spot-on:

Blogspot has become nothing but a crapfarm, and your brand is going to go down with it. If your motto truly is to do no evil, then you need to start putting some resources behind an effort to curb this train wreck.
As a person who believes profoundly in the personal media revolution, this REALLY pisses me off, as I'm sure it's doing to a lot of those important "early adopters" that Google needs to help move its business model forward. It's truly astonishing that a company with such an apparently user-benefit-driven "business think" would sit by and let this happen.

Oh, and have you ever tried commenting on a Blogger blog? If the company can restrict that, why can't it come up with a way to block these frauds?

I agree with Chris that this is a MAJOR problem for Google, its Achilles' Heel in the war for search (and media) supremacy. After all, your enemies don't need nearly as much ammunition, if you're busy shooting yourself in the foot.

Fix it, Google, and do it fast!


"The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create."
Leonard Sweet