Recently I came across yet another spam blog trackback in my moderated blog comments. I’ve tried to ignore these as they’ve continued to increase. But enough is enough and now I’m looking at ways to simplify the abuse reporting process.
There are two simple steps you can take to hit a splogger where it hurts. You can report them to their web hosting provider, and you can report them to Google.
The host will most likely suspend the splogger’s account until they remove the content or they may terminate their account entirely. For the most part, this is simply a short term deterrent because they can always re-establish their site with a new hosting company. But it gets the point across.
In most cases Google AdSense is used on spam blogs. If you report AdSense policy violations to Google they will suspend the splogger’s AdSense account.
Which approach you take is entirely up to you. In my opinion, having someone’s hosting account suspended is a lot less aggressive than having their AdSense account suspended. You might want to assess the degree of the offense before you decide which approach is best.
If the spam blog was their first attempt at experimenting with the idea of generating revenue then at least they can take the hosting suspension as a lesson and decide to move on to something more productive.
However, if you hit them at the AdSense level then they’ll be affected on a broader scale because it could get their whole AdSense account banned. To me this is much more aggressive and it depends on the situation to determine which route you may want to go.
If you want to take both routes then I recommend reporting the site to Google first, wait for their ads to come down and then report them to their host and get the entire site taken down.
To me this is the full meal deal of fighting sploggers, but just keep in mind that it’s going to take your own valuable time to step through the process and depending on the number of spam trackbacks you get, it might take more time than it’s worth.
That said, I recommend you use a combination of form letters and software to cut down on the time spent in the communication process.
Here is a simple email template that I used recently to request that a host remove my original content from a splogger site:
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A website on your server is stealing my blog content. This site is scrapping my original content for their spam blog.
[Insert Offending Spam Blog URL Here]
Please have them remove the content from their site. The original content can be found here if you need to verify ownership.
[Insert Your Original Content URL Here]
Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com
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This simple email received an immediate response and the host took the website down immediately. The communication does not have to be complicated or lengthy. Hosts and Google know what’s going on and all you have to do is provide them with the basic details and they will follow their own processes to handle the problem quickly.
I’m currently using this form letter along with macro software that lets me assign short cuts to just about anything. I assigned a short cut to this form letter and when I type in a key phrase the letter appears and I complete the url sections and send it off to be handled. Overall the process takes under thirty seconds and I’m done.
If you’re using a PC, I recommend using a text macro tool like PhraseExpress. It’s inexpensive and you can use it to create macros for starting applications, pasting blocks or text, form letters, website addresses, you name it. If you use a Mac, then I recommend TextExpander. It’s basically the same type of application, but it’s made for the Mac OS. I use TextExpander for email signatures, social networking greetings, support responses, blogging code snippets, and now splogger form letters.
Combine the form letter with either one of these macro tools and you’ll be able to gain an edge on spam bloggers and protect yourself from content theft.
What tools do you use?
Splog smashing,
Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com
