There are numerous, unscrupulous methods with which to spam search engines in an attempt to improve SERP ranking. Hidden text, doorway/cloaked pages, and keyword stuffing are just a few of processes tried by those not wanting to use approved (tolerated?) SEO techniques. With the proliferation of blogging as a form of web publishing, there appears to be another method that spammers are willing to use in an effort to trick search engines into yielding higher rankings.
Using Blogger To Spam Search Engines
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According to Rustybrick of SearchEngineRoundtable.com, a number of weblogs, specifically blogs from Google-owned Blogger.com have been used in an attempt to spam Google and other search engines that place a high value on contextual links. In his entry, Rusty states, “people are using Google’s Blogger to set up dozens of free blogs and then setting up hundreds of keyword rich anchor text links to point to pages.” This is done in order to boost the search engine ranking of the page/site that the links are pointing to, and it is considered spam.
Gord Collins discussed this type of blog spam in an article that appeared on SitePoint.com. Gord claims that these types of blogs “operate in a free-for-all link structure that further validates the linked sites in search engine indexes.” Making blog-spam even harder to combat is speculation that search engines don’t penalize or ban weblogs.
A thread appearing in the SearchEngineWatch Forum reinforces Gord’s thought. The topic concerned whether or not search engines penalize blogs. According to Seobook, “no they do not. In fact, some people have even [written] articles complaining about how blogs are so link dense that some of them heavily restructure the web.” If blogs are less apt to be penalized, using them for spam purposes can be effective for deceiving search engines.
To make this type of spam effective, the offending blog would be better served if it has a high PageRank. If the blog does not, this method is not even worth the risk. At HighRankings.com, this topic is also being discussed. In the conversation, Cre8site moderator, ILoveJackDaniels, also commented on the effectiveness of this technique:
“This really is no different to a person setting up a network of sites to spam with. The blogs are going to have very low PR unless serious effort is put in to them. If serious effort is put in to making each a good blog, then fine, nothing wrong with that. If no effort is put in, their PR will remain low and the IBLs (in-bound links) will count for very little.”
Another poster named Kackle, counters JD’s point by saying, “I don’t think PageRank getting passed is the issue. But if the keyword you are trying to optimize is repeated in anchor text, the blogs are counted more quickly and more powerfully than non-blogs, at least in Google.” If this is the case, using blogs for spamming purposes can be considered a problem, and could remain so until search engines change their perceived position on blog penalization.
However, using Blogger sites for spamming purposes is not fool proof. If you draw too much attention to your methods, Google will probably find out, and penalize you accordingly. Seobook echoes this thought by indicating that if you were caught, you could very easily get penalized. The technique is effective as a “cheap and easy way to give Google a roadmap to your sites” Although, he cautions that this approach could (should?) receive a “penalty of some sort.”
Granted, this is not the first time that blogs have been used to spam search engines, however, this is one of the first reports of it happening at blogs originating from Google-owned Blogger.com. Since Google gave/gives such high value to blog content, it was only a matter of time.
I, Brian, also posting at SEW, concurs by offering these thoughts: “Using blogs in this way is an old SEO tactic – but using a high profile site like Blogger in this way is disingenuous Google seems to have (or until recently, had) a clear bias towards blogs. Somehow, the idea that blogs are mostly content rich has been a keen mistake, in my opinion.”
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
