The Physiology of Spam Blogs

From Google Blogoscoped:

"Spam is like the aliens among us. They look like us, dress like us – but they also eat the houseplants."
-- John Holbo

This post may end up on spam blogs. Let me explain why.

In my recent interview with Joe Harris, a keyword blogger, several “high paying” keywords got mentioned (like mortgage, gambling, poker, or mesothelioma). There was an unexpected side-effect to this post, as it was also featured in Google News; many spam bloggers, I suspect, subscribe to Google Alerts for their spam keywords. They then fill their (mostly Blogspot-hosted) plogs with posts sent to them via Google. The final irony is that they’re often using Google AdSense to make this a commercial venture. In other words: someone’s abusing Google to get traffic, on a blog hosted by Google, filled with content automated by Google, and they’re making money from it via Google...

Technorati Tags: Spam Blogs, Splogs, Plogs, Spam