Splog or Spam Blog is a blog created for the sole purpose of linking to other associated websites. Some common characteristics of spam blogs are:
- Splogs contain meaningless or repetitive content. Articles on similar topics are often repeated using a few targeted keywords excessively throughout the content.
- Splogs usually contain little or no information about the blog author. Most of the time, the author information is fake.
- Articles on a spam blog look like they were created using article spinner software. An article spinning software rephrases an article using synonyms.
- Spam blogs often contain content stolen from other blogs and websites.
- These blogs contain excessive links to one or multiple affiliate sites with affiliate code in the links
- May contain links to unethical or illegal websites.
Spam blogs are used to manipulate search engine results. Sometimes they are created for the sole purpose of occupying search engine rankings on a certain keyword. Many online scam websites usually create spam blogs for keywords they suspect their target audience would search for to find reviews about their scam website.
These blogs are also created to display advertisements. These kind of blogs create a network of websites targeting different keywords and displaying advertisements. They also display poorly written, repetitive, and/or scrapped content.
Search engines are getting better at identifying spam blogs. However, sometimes a legitimate blog or website could get wrongly flagged by search engines as spam. Website owners can then ask the search engine’s support team to manually review their website and unmark it as spam. Website owners can also review their website on their own to find out why search engines might have confused their website for a spam blog. They can change their content based on the guidelines provided by search engines to get their search rankings back.