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Splogs - A New Malware on Internet

Spam that haunts e-mail users is now seeking new base. spammers are lately sending unsolicited spam messages to target 'Blogs' or 'Blogosphere'. These converted 'Blogs' are called 'Splogs'.

The surge of splogs depends on common search keywords and is total farce. Money is generated when a visitor clicks on adverts provided on these splogs. Popular search engines like Google, MSN, and Yahoo have a process of rating websites on the basis of how many other websites connect to a particular site. This function generally enables splogs to enhance a site's popularity, which they do by ignoring search engine results.

Nearly 56% of current blogs in English language are splogs, so says Tim Finn, a researcher in University of Maryland of Baltimore in USA. According to him while the blogosphere is growing fast, splogosphere is growing even faster. Finn made this observation based on a study of addresses of about 1.3 million blogs. He collected the data from 'Webpulse' a recognized search engine for blogs.

Splogs give foul search results. Non-technical users end up wasting time when they surf a splog. But sploggers make money through ads posted on their splogs. Splogs can create content haphazardly by using robot programs. These programs browse websites and copy content from them when some of its keywords match those defined to the robot program. A robot can search blogs or websites through a search engine for prominent keywords like Microsoft, iPod, and eBay. Splogs can display advertisements if they relate to those keywords. When a visitor clicks on it, the sploggers earn a good amount of money. Since most of the material in the splog is copied, it is nothing but a useless piece of blog, although it will be shown in search engine results.

According to Wikipedia, Google is processing a technique that will desist robots to update blogs implying that such updating would be possible only by human intervention. Google's product manager for 'Blogger's service', Mr. Jason Goldman has termed the splogging problem as "Spamalanche" to the company.

Some anti-splog sites have come up. One such site, "Splogreporter" has blacklisted certain splogs based on reports by blogger's.

ยป SPAMfighter News - 9/15/2006

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