For the longest time, the issue of plagiarism was seen as only occurring within the province of the academia. Copying and stealing another person’s work is only a problem in colleges and universities, and of course the occasional seedy journalist. The internet was pure and pristine. No one would dare steal someone’s work and then pass it off as their own. Of course, we all know that the internet is now the primary battleground for plagiarists and the hard-working people who actually write original content. More and more people are seeing plagiarism as a growing problem but, unfortunately, many also think that there’s nothing anyone can do to combat this crime.
But there are actually many things that a person can do to help combat plagiarism. There are many kinds of recourse they can take in order to curb this intellectual theft of original content that is being used for splogs and other dubious endeavors online. The first thing that should be done is to become vigilant. As holders of original content, a person must always be aware about the threat of plagiarism.
One important thing you should know about splogs is that it will happen — whatever you do, unscrupulous people will set up splogs that will irritate us and make searching for the correct information just a little harder. But for internet surfers, a splog is an inconvenience at the most.
It’s not the same thing with web site and blog owners. Splogs pose a bigger problem because splog operators are also copyright thieves. Splogs are notorious for stealing the content of other web sites and it is only a matter of time before sploggers get hold of your content and use it for their splogs.
One of the first things you must do when dealing with splogs and content stealing is that this kind of robbery will happen. No one is immune from it so you should be prepared about it happening to you. With the continued explosive growth of the internet, content is becoming more and more precious. And as with anything that has value, some people will try to steal it.
It’s the reason why you should have a plan in place in case someone steals the content of your web site or blog.
Next time I’ll tell you more about how to handle content stealing.
It’s interesting to note that almost all splogs use Javascript. The reason for this is that Javascript allows sploggers to embed their site with instructions that will increase their “revenue” from all visitors.
For example, they input Javascript instructions for generating pop-up windows when you enter the site or when you click on a link. These windows open up even when you leave the site. Regardless on what triggers the pop-ups, these are one of the most annoying things you will see on the internet and it goes to show how poorly sploggers treat internet visitors when they don’t care if you have a horrendous experience on their site just as long as they earn money doing so.
Your mouse is a great tool in immediately finding out if a blog or web site is actually a splog. You have to remember that most splogs are nothing more than link lists. A good way to immediately determine if a blog is actually a splog is by gliding your mouse over any link in the page. If you see a very long code and not the usual links that is quite familiar to anyone who surfs the net then you’ve found a splog. That long code is actually the affiliate clickthrough information.
Of course, sploggers are quite devious in that they also have other ways of going around this easy tell. Some sploggers actually have hidden link information. This means that when you hover over a link in a splog you won’t see the link appearing in the status bar. Of course, when you think about it, a legitimate web site won’t go through the trouble of hiding a link so, ironically enough, it becomes another clue that you are visiting a splog.
Why do people operate splogs? The simple answer is money. Splogs can generate money for its operators without them having to put a lot of hard work on actual content.
Splogs earn money from advertising affiliate programs and other ad-based schemes to generate advertising links. They put in links that will fool you into thinking that these are recommendations to informative articles but are actually ad links — and these people earn from every click.
There are other splogs that earn money from hosting while others are more unscrupulous and earn from every click that an unsuspecting visitor will make on the splog pages.
That’s why you should be vigilant in looking at web sites. You wouldn’t want to be an unwitting contributor of money to these splog owners.
You may be surprised to know that the most common form for splogs is one that doesn’t even hide what it really is. It actually makes sense because sploggers are a lazy bunch who can’t even make their own content so it stands to reason they’ll be too lazy to even hide the true intentions of their splog.
These splogs are just a list of links leading to their advertisers. Usually the advertisers are often called sponsors, which in a way is also true because these are companies that pay to be included in the list.
Advertisers get benefits from being in splogs. The link points to their site and their keywords can now be found by search engines in another location. Of course, the advertising benefit is there as their coverage increases on the internet.
I’ve written before about how feeds are being used by people who make splogs. They are using RSS feeds as well as the power of search engines to look for specific content that can be used to popular the blog. The usual form this content takes are link lists or excerpts of the article or content along with links that usually point to other content that often have just enough correct keywords to lead search engines to it.
In a link splog links that number from a single one to a dozen that are related to the articles are posted everyday. The attempt is to make it look like it’s a “links of the day list” but a deeper investigation into the lists will show that the links don’t add up. Some of the links will usually point to non-related content, this indicates that the link list was chosen without rhyme or reason — usually automated by a piece of software.
If you see a blog that relies heavily on feeds then you’ve stumbled upon a another splog.
Sploggers (these guys are growing like weeds on the netosphere) will use the most inventive ways in employing feeds to get juicy content from other sites and then pass it off as their own content. they typically use variations of certain tactics to mask their splog and pass it off as benign site.
One tactic sploggers use is to grab feeds from different sites that have content that is similar or related to the splog’s “content”. They then use the excerpts in a manner that is similar to a blockquote — and this will even include links to the original source through the feed. There are those who are more brazen with getting content. These sploggers will lift the whole articles and content from the various related feeds and pass it off as their own. It’s really unfair especially for those whose content has been basically stolen.
The kind of content that you read on a blog can give you a clue whether a blog is actually a splog.
To be fair, not a lot of blogs really give you all original content. Most blogs will feature posts that quote from the posts of other people or other websites, while other just post links directly to the content the blog owner finds interesting. There is actually nothing wrong with this and this is not what a splog does. A splog will be devoid of absolutely any kind of original content and will have a wanton disregard for Fair Use by completely ignoring the use of block quotes by just pasting the derived content on their blog without any kind of attribution or sign that it was lifted from another source.
A good way to find out about splogs through its content is by going to the suspicious blog’s categories and its archives looking at signs of whether the content was written as an original piece. This can be quite difficult but you’ll see subtle signs that an article was lifted entirely from another site.
Oftentimes you will encounter a blog that generates an insane amount of posts. A regular blog that has a number of writers will usually post an impressive number of posts but when you see a blog that lists posts in an archive or category and the numbers are just too dubious then you are most likely visiting a splog. Some splog operators would even shoot themselves in the foot because of their wanton disregard for common sense. For example, you will see blog posts in splogs that date back to years when the internet wasn’t even widely available, much less when blogs were already in existence.
When you go to a dubious looking blog check out the categories and the archives based on the date. If you see that posts number in the hundreds or thousands at some point in the past but absolutely nothing (or very few) since then, or if you notice that the posts are quite erratic (hundreds of posts in one month, a two month lull and then another burst of blogs after three months) then your splog radar should start pinging loudly.
