Here's One More Thing to Hate: Splogs.

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Author: Levy, Steven

Some of you may notice that the online version of NEWSWEEK alerts readers to blogs that discuss its articles. Not surprisingly, this is a service that authors of such stories cannot resist. But lately I've seen that my columns have been referenced by some very weird Weblogs. For instance, the first blog to link to my recent plea to mitigate technological incompatibilities was one called Relationships. It placed a snippet from my column among a laundry list of relationship-oriented articles on the Web, with no extra editorial commentary or evidence that a human intelligence was behind the choice.

Unfortunately, this was no mysterious anomaly but a nettlesome commonplace on the Web. It was a spam blog. That's right--in addition to e-mail spam and instant messenger spam (spim), there's a new form of exploiting the Net's openness--splogs. "It's due to the fact that readership of blogs has grown so much," explains Jason Goldman, product manager of the Blogger division of Google. The blight has sprung out of nowhere this year, confusing anyone who stumbles upon them, and dramatically gumming up search results, especially on services that focus on tracking blogs. "It's the No. 1 problem for search engines," says Matt Mullenweg of WordPress, a blog-software service. David Sifry, CEO of blog tracker Technorati, found that in some days spam postings inflate the blogosphere by 18 percent--but since he's not catching all the splogs, that number is probably low.

Why would anyone bother to create a Potemkin-like blog, which represents the opinions of no pajamaed slacker, takes down no errant journalist and spills no secrets about the next iPod? As Sifry explained to me, it's the same motivation as any spammer--money. Some splogs, by well-calibrated "keyword stuffing," are devoted to inflating the search-engine ratings of other Web sites--these are often created in bulk by automated programs that are openly sold on the Net. It's also possible to quickly create what Sifry calls "phony blogs" like the Relationships blog that feigned affinity to my story--apparently chosen because I used the word "love" in the first sentence. (Never mind that I was talking about DVDs.)

Here's how they work: first find a subject that draws consumers who may be valuable to advertisers on Google or Yahoo, and register for the programs that let those search companies place ads on your blog. Then set up a blog that automatically sucks in items from the news (via easy-to-set-up feeds) about that subject. If you've done it right, Google's search engines will identify your blog as a prime place for a high-value ad. Then, as Sifry says, "you can pay housewives in India to sit there and click on the ads." Because programs like Google's AdSense pay out each time someone responds to the ad, it's possible to make a bundle from this.

In the case of the Relationships blog, the abundance of items picked up about keeping a marriage going, dating and sexual abuse by clergymen were sufficient to get ads placed on the Web page for mating quizzes and lawyers eager to sue the Roman Catholic Church.

Google's Jason Goldman says that the company has tightened up the blog-creating process also; Google now offers a quick way for readers to report bogus pages so they can be blocked from its search engine. (Other blog hosts and search engines are also fighting spam blogs.) But he admits that like e-mail spam, the effort to stamp out splogs is taking on an arms-race aspect, where tricksters counter defensive efforts with new techniques. So get used to splogs, yet another class of uninvited digital dinner guests who refuse to leave the table.

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By Steven Levy