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Nathan Weinberg: You know those posts Weblogs Inc feeds us about once a week, the ones that tell us “The Best Of Weblogs Inc”? They’re all gaming Technorati. [cut] Since these posts are replicated across all of Weblogs properties, getting seven links in the post can translate to well over a hundred links in just one day. This is something all the blog search engines need to work around, or that Weblogs needs to stop doing until they do.

Philipp Lenssen: By the way, both the Weblogs inc Luxist Estates blog, the Autoblog, the TV Squad, HD Beat, as well as the Card Squad blog, have managed to sneak into the Blogpulse top blog posts list (sometimes, with multiple posts) for today: http://www.blogpulse.com/05_10_15/topWeblog.html.

Randy: I wouldn't consider this gaming the system at all. You see, Weblogsinc has a legitmate reason for posting these self referential links. Rather, I'd blame the search engines for simply reporting bad data. It's not like nobody reads Weblogsinc blogs. It's not like Weblogsinc blogs are splogs (SPAM blogs). They are simply good at self promotion. That self promotion is a reason I gave for unsubbing from some of their blogs and I'm sure others have done the same.

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Actually, Randy, the WIN Spam Blog, ironic as it might seem, might as well be a splog with only 2 out of the 10 posts currently on their front page actually having non Best Of postings. There isn't much content there, but there are several back to back Best Of posts.

Ouch.

If there isn't enough good content, or designated writer(s), then I don't understand what other reason they would publish the blog on their WIN network -- that has advertising on it -- other than to generate ad revenue. Doesn't that sound like a splog to you?

If their blog is there with no advertising, or as a placeholder or for their own network organization, and/or blocks search engine, than that makes at least some sense. Otherwise ... why is it publically viewable?

Maybe readers should ask Circuit City for the answer.

Heck, your blog spam category would have been a much better choice for CNET top 100 than that WIN Spam Blog piece of crap. I risk offending you simply making the comparison.

Aunty-spam is another good one that CNET could have chosen in the "write about spam" category.

We have a serious problem with splogs. The real problem is the countless automated blogs that have multiple posts per day and per hour. Let's address those first and forget about borderline splogging.

Randy

Going after the low hanging fruit is obvious, but apparently isn't happening. I think it's easy to understand to see why.

No, the real problem is people who will do anything -- or who unintentionally give that appearance through lazy or understaffed projects -- to make a buck. Respected publications like CNET lauding work as mentioned above and skipping over other legitimate contributers providing good signal, and less noise, just rip the scab off anew.

And "we" don't have a serious problem with splogs, Google and other free host blogging hosting services do. As long as you and I continue to contribute signal to the web, we are helping the situation. More signal, more people encouraged to add signal increases the pool of signal.

If you look carefully you'll see that Google indirectly benefits from these splogs (adsense), so how motivated do you think they'll actually be to deal with this problem?

(follow the money)

This is the part that what worries me. This is the serious problem *I'm* concerned about.

It is a nuclear bomb in the Googleplex ... I sure hope they realize how easy it could be for this to blow up in their faces.

Pirillo is right on this one, they need to get their brains on solving this situation *now*. I sure hope egos don't get in the way.

Take care.
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