Google Blogsearch Already Getting Spammed by PayPerPost
Just yesterday, Google Blogsearch re-launched with additonal memetracker features, but spammers have already found a way to get their wares featured on the service. Right now, under the technology section, spam posts about Zenni Optical, an online eyewear store, and the '50 State Phone Book' are featured as the 7th and 10th most popular technology related blog posts on the web. Both posts look like they were pushed onto the front page thanks to PayPerPost bloggers. Today, Google blogger Matt Cutts pointed out that Blogsearch is more inclusive than other memetrackers like Techmeme, but judging from this, Google's Blogsearch might just be a bit too inclusive for its own good.
PayPerPost
PayPerPost pays its bloggers to write posts about their advertisers and link to them. Basically, it is an elaborate search engine optimization scheme. Bloggers are supposed to disclose their affiliation with PayPerPost, but the ethics of this scheme are debatable and some bloggers fail to disclose their affiliation.
Every memetracker (and every popular site for that matter) will, of course, attract spammers. It's surprising, however, to see that Google, a company that is generally known for its good spam filtering, let these two sites slip through. While the memetracker in Blogsearch is relatively new, the Google blog search index has been around for a long time and tends to be very clean.
However, because Google Blogsearch ranks posts according to the number of links they received, it is prone to list spammy posts from networks like PayPerPost.
A lot of memetrackers had to deal with these problems before, and we are confident that this will be an isolated incident, but Google clearly needs to improve its algorithms to shut this kind of spam out of its system or institute filters that shut out PayPerPost blogs by default.
ShareRelated Entries
1 TrackBacks
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/8498
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Ok, so most spam is derived from automated tools. But, what happens if we see a trend where people are being paid to hand write spam posts which show up in Google BlogSearch as natural content. Could their algorithm dictate which is human written good content versus human written spam content?
Jeff - yeah - I started looking into the two posts a bit more and they are PayPerPost stories...
so is this going to affect my blog ranking at all? seems like it definitely will! I am sure google will get it cleaned up though
http://jwojdylo.wordpress.com
You make it sound like a bad thing! If I'm Google, I'm getting ad revenue at both ends - from the spammers for the impressions they get on the site, and for the idiots (sorry, the users) who click through to the spamsites. And, if I'm Google, I'm arrogant enough to think that the real idiots (sorry again, the users) are complacent enough to use blogsearch anyway; after all, they put up with ads on their very personal emails, don't they? "Do No Evil"
This is one of the benefits of TechMeme's approach of using a select group of blogs rather than ALL of the blogs. Blogs, in general, have a much lower signal to noise ratio than traditional media. As a result, if Google simply uses their Google News algorithms without any significant tweaking, you will probably see much more of this.
Ben Ruedlinger
http://wistia.com
Wistia, Making Video Productive
The really funny thing was that the announcement on the Google blog had 5 trackback links below it when I first looked, and they were all spam:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/browse-what-world-is-saying-on-blog.html
You can still see them down the bottom as "Auto Car Loan", "Auto Car Financing", etc. Doesn't say much for their spam detection.
Pete
http://petewarden.typepad.com/
Great, there's hope for my nefarious marketing efforts yet.
Muhahahahahaaaaa!
;)
Many people have reported Google Blog search to get spammed. It is crazy to be spammed before it is launched.
Frederic,
I wanted to hit on a few of the issues you raised here.
Disclosure
We are in the middle of a massive blog audit in PPP. While the majority of bloggers abide by our code of ethics and produce quality content a small group of active users abuse the system and do not properly disclose. Some of the bloggers listed here will no longer be eligible to participate in PPP after these posts are reviewed by our team.
SPAM
Your definition of SPAM would eliminate the millions of blog posts made each day that are monetized either directly or indirectly. People openly blog on behalf of their companies, partners and affiliates all the time. Your own "Thanks Sponsors" posts which are done for every advertiser you work with are indexed by Google in the exact same way. Are you saying Google should stop indexing those as well?
Commercial content is all over the web. As long as that content has value, is open, transparent and honest it shouldn't be treated any differently than non-commercial content.
Well done to Google for finally tweaking what is arguably their weakest product.
I blogged about the problem with Google blog and suggested much better alternative blog search engines here
http://www.search1x.com/2008/06/22/google-blog-search-is-no-good/
One of the biggest problem I have with Google Blog is the inclusion of so much Forum contents. One quick search in the supposedly new version and there is still no shortage of forum contents in the results set.
I don't know about you, but when I search for blog articles in a blog search engine,I don't expect forum postings in the results.
Disclosure. I work for LoudLaunch which also helps connect advertisers with bloggers who will write honest reviews about their products and services.
I have to agree with Ted (#9) on this one. If the content is relevant and valuable to the audience, well written, and (ideally) in context, then where is the harm?