Pay Per Spam Blogvertisers

Any way Google can combat this?

[Timetraveler]

It seems sites paying for posts and getting links even from way off topic blogs are outranking even older sites with much better content and higher quality links.

Newer sites are even ranking high who are doing mass paid link posts on blogs and also sidebar link purchases.

I could see on topic, relevant posts being acceptible but blatant spammy ad links on irrelevant blogs...come on Google how can they not spot this?

Do you think these sites doing this right now are cruising for a brusin or will Google have no way to figure it out?

Thanks

[lty83]

I find those PPSpam sites to be most annoying, especially one in particular that I happen to see their "Hire Me" badges plastered all over blogs, i'm waiting for the day that google ignores PR on sites that have the Hire Me PPSpam (you know how i'm talking about) badge on it.

[Crush]

Stop complaining and start thinking. Whine and you will be at the bottom of the serps. No offence meant but google has enough spam to worry about. At least these people are actually paying for links rather than dropping them.

[WiseWebDude]

Hm Crush, are you employed in the field? LOL, j/k. No, really, we get calls almost daily from blog sites wanting to write some garbage and post our links in them (they think highly of themselves as their prices show). The way I see it; it is a dumbing down of real content. People are so flooded with information now and that "filler" crap will simply make the net worse. I am sure there are SOME good services that have talented writers, but a lot of those services are just filler with links placed in them. A waste of $. That has been MHO.

:)

[seanpecor]

Most of these bloggers are getting paid a minimal amount of money to blog about a topic and tailor their copy to suit the particular campaign. After searching for text that appears on these bloggers' sites to identify and review some, nearly all are personal blogs that have no appeal to a mass audience. But they each do have small audiences that have stumbled over the blog previously and added it to their feed/bookmarks/roll, and because of that audience they do have a degree of authority, however small. The blog entries I read were indistinguishable from your typical blog post about a person's thoughts for the day. If that's enough to bump the target of their "affection" to the top of SERP results, then I'd like to know what niches those are, since they seem like easy pickens ;)

So I don't think the payperpost model is necessarily disingenuous. Heck, it's even more genuine than local news outlets accepting news stories written by p.r. firms employed by corporations - now the norm more than the exception.

Sean

[WiseWebDude]

So I don't think the payperpost model is necessarily disingenuous. Heck, it's even more genuine than local news outlets accepting news stories written by p.r. firms employed by corporations - now the norm more than the exception.

Sean, I agree. I do NOT think they are disingenuous at all. It all hinges on how it is done and where it is done. There are so many crap sites out there, I would just be careful on them. So many new Webmasters are taken in by blog scams, SEO scams, search engine submission scams, and the like that I've actually seen people ruined by them. You are 100% right on the PR releases, I get quite a few every day that pray I will put them up as free advertising for them...NOT.

[Timetraveler]

Crush - Sorry, but this is one of the more important spammy things Google should be worrying about.

Like I said, relevant on topic, quality posts are ok but blatant crappy ass posts littered with links that have no relevance are ok because they paid $10? Give me a break.

I think heavy penalties should be placed or it's going to get out of hand.

[lty83]

Whine and you will be at the bottom of the serps.

Thats funny because i don't see my sites at the bottom of the serps....

Listen, i have no problem with relevant blogs posting featured reviews on relevant products or services, but i'm sick of seeing blogs created only for the intents and purposes of reviewing totally irrelevant sites. I see them all the time, they have like 50 different ppblog badges all over, horrible to read content and just look plain spammy.

[tedster]

Any way Google can combat this?

One tool they could use would be Human Editorial Input [webmasterworld.com] - I can't see how a purely automated approach would be accurate, and I'd hate to see a new batch of collateral damage.

[nonni]

This has long been the Achille's heel for Google - the assumption that a 'link is a vote' creates a huge incentive to stuff the ballot box with links that are worthless or irritating to humans, but which impress the heck out of the algorithm.

The future of search is in collaborative mechanisms like stumbleupon. They will need to constantly upgrade methods for spotting spammers, but I think it is easier to do that than evaluate the quality of links. If many people are evaluating a web page, those evaluators can be compared to each other. Evaluators that nominate and vote for lots of pages that others find useless are quickly devalued. Evaluators that mostly vote honestly but occasionally pump for spam would still be limited, because that would only be one positive vote, while other honest voters would soon vote against that page and sink it.

[MLHmptn]

The simple be all fix all is eliminate algo's based on links! Sick part is every engine is based on them now and the content of a page is seemingly forgotten.

[Whitey]

It's going to be hard to differentiate the gradings of blog quality, without human intervention. There are blogs which are very poor quality and off topic, then there are barely legit one's, and then there are good ones. Could be bedlam sorting this out.

[edited by: Whitey at 7:48 am (utc) on Aug. 14, 2007]

[Robert Charlton]

It's going to be hard to differentiate the gradings of blog quality, without human intervention.

Not sure this is addresses your considerations, Whitey, but it might be of interest....

Patent App: Ranking Blog Documents
[webmasterworld.com...]

A blog search engine may receive a search query. The blog search engine may determine scores for a group of blog documents in response to the search query, where the scores are based on a relevance of the group of blog documents to the search query and a quality of the group of blog documents. The blog search engine may also provide information regarding the group of blog documents based on the determined scores.

Google also has patented methods of addressing link quality factors. That said, it's a constant back and forth battle between Google and blogspam, and it's premature to say "mission accomplished." I've seen sites with a great many questionable backlinks, including some from fake blogs, ranking well on extremely competitive searches. It's not clear that they're ranking because of those questionable links now... but those links may have helped them become prominent enough to get where they are now... sort of like the Godfather II taking the family into legitimate businesses.

The simple be all fix all is eliminate algo's based on links!

What do you suggest? Meta keywords have run their course, and there's only so much you can do with page content, titles, and headings alone.

[Reno]

This has long been the Achille's heel for Google - the assumption that a 'link is a vote' creates a huge incentive to stuff the ballot box with links that are worthless or irritating to humans, but which impress the heck out of the algorithm.

Well said nonni!

The simple be all fix all is eliminate algo's based on links!

Don't eliminate them from the algo, but certainly diminish their impact. What started out as a truly brilliant concept can no longer do all the heavy lifting -- the weight is too great, and the SERPs show it.

............................

[edited by: Reno at 1:36 am (utc) on Aug. 15, 2007]