The end of 2007 marks the begining

Posted by multippt

This year went by real fast, and there were quite a bit of nice stuff going on in it. As a nice momento, I’ll like to list the best of Tevine in 2007, judging from its activity (based from traffic and other stuff).

The most popular posts (2007)

Google Toolbar Review #2
If 1 review was not enough, 2 reviews should do the trick. By far this review takes a bit of scrutinizing of the new Google toolbar. There were some nice titbits that probably most people who have tinkled with the toolbar would have found, but for those who have not tried the new toolbar yet, you can read this nice review.

Google, Yahoo,… what about Windows Live?
Nothing like discussing Microsoft’s remodeled search engine in comparison to the super-titans - Google and Yahoo.

Why Microsoft *could* have taken over the Internet
A poke at Microsoft’s monopoly and its capability of ruling over our sheltered haven.

Web standards see increasing adoption
Well, just a nice tip that more people are becoming more aware of web standards that have been around for the past decade. Sounds like good progress don’t you think?

Technorati is flawed
Ah, the ranking system we grew to love. Technorati may be accurate, but not accurate enough, well, because the votes/responses can be “manipulated” as well - accidental or intentional.

—

Have a nice year ahead.

Splogs, and how to tackle them

Posted by multippt

Spam blogs are the menace of blogs. Designed to scrap off content from a site, many blog owners find it frustrating that some people would simply not hesitate to profit from other people’s work. They take the form of blogs, and are created in the hopeful hopes that it cause the splog to look like it contains “quality content”.

Find the splog and combat it

Splogs have one characteristic - they are content scrappers. Most splogs are generally auto-blogs, while some are manually managed. Not to be mistaken for automobiles. An auto blog is one that updates itself without user intervention. This form of blog has it’s several variations in itself. Here are some common splogs that have appeared.

Total copier

Some splogs copy content completely from target sources. Generally this is targetted towards feeds that contain complete content. These splogs are the easiest to establish - and hence the most common. These sort of splog is quite easy to spot, because sometimes they give out trackbacks after copying a post (if they linked to the original). This might have been deliberate in order to get links from other blogs. However, other splogs may not give off trackbacks, and thus is harder to find. Nonetheless, a little search at Google or Copyscape should do the trick.

Because they contain content that is completely copied, they can be defeated fairly easily by:
1. Truncating the feed content
2. Adding a copyright to feed
3. Adding a copyright to post contents

By doing this, it will lower the quality of the copied content, but not the original. If others are doing this (the copyrighting I mean), why not you?

Alter the content, but keep it roughly the same

These splogs are harder to spot - if they didn’t link to the original source. If they do link to the source, they can be found easily because they would set off trackback alarms (be sure to reach them before Wordpress deletes them). The reason why it is harder to spot is because copyscape no longer works effectively on these blogs - as the content has been modified.

So, the solution? Google’s blog search is the key. If you were to type a search for your blog name or a title of the post, chances are you may find one or two splogs that alter content. There are some limits with Google search, but the fact is this: It can find splogs fairly easily because splogs retain the overall shape of the content, up to the titles themselves.

Defeating these splogs can be quite difficult - because they edit content, they can easily remove copyrights, or even get content straight from web pages without much problems. However, there is no perfect splog that can mix and merge content in a post (or multiple posts) without glitches - why, computers can’t construct sentences on their own (chat bots aren’t perfect chatters neither), let alone construct multiple sentences that don’t sound odd.

Change content to mimic your style of handwriting

These types of splogs are the rarest - because they are not easily available. Unless you write a large amount of content on your own already, these splogs will treat content with little regards to grammar and sentence structures. However, if there is one such perfect splog like that, it would be difficult to counter it - it’s like having an actual blogger. Of course, if this sort of blog copies your content and changes it to a large extent - you won’t really mind it any way… (because it’s no longer called copying).

Why you should worry about splogs

Splogs are used for a main intention - money. It’s always been about the money? Auto-money is a nice concept - except that it doesn’t work. If the idea of someone else profiteering your work without crediting you for it (or for that matter, claiming rights) doesn’t tickle you, I’m not sure what will. Of course, some splogs are designed to gather links - but it eventually leads to monetary incentives anyway. I’ve seen some splogs turned into redirects to sales page - a sneaky move ain’t it?

Okay, I’ve found the splog, but it’s still copying my stuff!

Finding a splog is a step in the process of tackling them. If you did some precautionary measures like adding copyrights, great! But, these measures are not foolproof - offensive actions need to be taken; the great report button is there to aid. Blogger has the flag button - click on it and the splog vanishes in a few days. Wordpress.com also has a similar feature as well - which is a good step in the right direction. If splog has ads on it, report it to the respective ad group. :D Of course, going straight to the web host probably works effectively - for a while.
Sadly, splog reporting services are not widely available anymore…

—

Of course, an individual effort is not enough. However, a whole community effort is probably sufficient enough to eradicate splogs.