Spam bloggers

Blogger has a handy feature for exploring other blogs in the blogosphere. On the top right of the blogger navigation bar is a 'Next blog' function (see above).

I'm not aware of how scientific Blogger is in terms of whether the next blog is related or random. Certainly it looks random as you jump from business blogs to personnal blogs to the inevitable spam blogs.

Netcoms dot com truth no. 1: Wherever there is a communications tool, there is a spammer.

If you want to see what I'm talking about, a few clicks of 'Next blog' will reveal a spam blog stuffed to the gills with keywords. I fail to understand how the spammers believe this will yield them results. Judging by the pure repetition, many of the blogs look auto generated and are certain to set the search engines alarm bells ringing. The scale of keyword stuffing will most likely lead to an automatic ban and certainly to a manual ban if spotted.

Tellingly, I have yet to come across a spam blog in the search engines and have only stumbled across them through the random 'Next blog' function. A quick analysis of a couple of the spam blogs I found revealed no inbound links on the first and one inbound link on another from, guess what, another spam blog - talk about a bad neighbourhood (more SEO alarm bells).

Even if they manage to get someone to stumble across the spam blog, they are so obviously gibberish that any visitor would be very unlikely to click on a link and earn them some affiliate revenue.

So why bother? Please stop (I wish).

When it comes to viral marketing, simple is often best

A campaign from Milwaekee's Best Light shows that a very simple idea well executed can make an effective viral.

While hardly the most PC of virals, 'Lust for Bust' is clearly targeted at its demographic and is curiously addictive (slap!).