Classification of "Spam" Blogs

Even if this post does not seem to relate to you I recommend reading it anyways before you end up being one of those who it does relate to.

Some maybe reading this article to keep their blogs from being marked as spam, and others maybe reading this because their blog was already marked as spam. But for everyone of you who has a legitimate reason to be reading this article, their is someone else reading this article with intentions only to use this info to manipulate Google's Anti-spam system. Those type of people are hurting everyone and don't care the least bit. So for everyone who has had their blogs falsely marked as spam you can stop blaming Blogger and start blame the people who are trying to manipulate Google. The more they manipulate, the more blogs we will see falsely marked as spam.

History of Spam

We see quite a few Blogger users everyday who's blogs are being classified as spam. Many of these users do not get their blog back even after they appeal to Blogger (If your blog is truly spam). In many cases the users do not understand why their blog has been marked as spam. By our terms the word the word "Spam" is commonly referred to as duplicating something many times. But in Blogger's terms it could mean a whole lot more.


The most common types of blogs that are classified as spam are blogs titled "Get Money Fast" or "Earn Money Now".  But in fact it has nothing to do with the title of the blog but the common methods used by these types of blogs. Most sites that contain articles about how to get rich fast are scams which are only getting their money from the traffic entering the blog. Their is no such thing as getting rich fast in the real world and if you think their is your more then welcome to browser through the endless list of scams online. But beware and don't forget that company's are supposed to pay you to work not the other way around. Don't give money to these sites that claim to send you a package on how to make money fast.

Google's Anti-spam detection system will target these type of sites. While simple having your blog titled by a similar name is not enough to get your blog removed, it is enough to be put in the cross-hairs.

Why does Google target these sites?

As I said these sites are scams and we could do without them, but the content on these sites are often illegal. Teaching people to manipulate their ad payouts and Google search is not allowed. Any site caught doing so will be removed. The more people that try to manipulate ad payout, the more it hurts us all. Advertisers pay with hopes that their ads will bring in traffic and they will sell more merchandise. If people are manipulating this, it cost the advertisers more money in which they are not getting any return. This results in advertisers not wanting to pay as much on adverting, which hurts the economy and everyone who uses ads on their site. If advertisers don't make money then we wont either.

Another problem found on "Get Rich Quick" sites is link affiliation networks. We see this quite often and it is simple another method to manipulate the ad payout. Sites that link from one site to another for no apparent reasons other then profit gain. The visitor is reading a article only to be linked to another site with a similar article which then links to another site with the same. Each of these sites containing ads which gives (I say "gives and not "earn" for a reason) each owner a profit every time someone enters. Their is no real point in this other then to gain profit. So when Google finds this it will travel right up the same path the visitors are traveling and remove each site.

We can usually tell when this is the reason because the user reporting their blog being marked as spam has multiple blogs marked as spam as well. Meaning they made a link affiliation network with their own blogs.  Visitors enter on Blog1 only to be sent to Blog2 which will send them to another blog doing the same thing. Linking to or being link to a blog that is using this method could result in your blog being marked as spam as well.

Another type of link affiliation is link farms, these type of sites do not contain any real content of their own. These sites have post that are full of post that contain links to other sites. This is not allowed because it manipulate backlinks and search results. No one wants to come to a site with no content only to be sent to other sites. Some visitors may find these sites useful because it helps them find sites they are looking for. But the fact they cant find find what they are looking for can is sometimes caused because of the link farm site. They clog up Google search making it harder for everyone to find what they want. These blogs are also a problem because the ads hosted on these sites are only getting viewed for a brief moment before the user is sent to another site. The bounce rate of these sites are extremely high and sends up a red flag to Google that something is wrong.   

Last but not least we come to the reason blogs are marked as spam that you maybe aware of. Blogs that copy or duplicate content to multiple post or other blogs.  These blogs may or may not be owned by the same person but its all the same. Your duplicating content which clogs up the search engines making it harder for people to find what they are looking for. If I create 10 blogs with the same articles then I just put a monopoly on that article. Now when someone searches for something about that topic they will not pull up results of different articles but a list of the same article. The smart web surfer will always read more then one article about a subject to verify that the article is true. (Getting a second opinion)   Well if content is duplicated then you might as well say "So much for the second opinion!".

There are other reasons your blog could be marked as spam that many not be as easily noticeable. The fact is Google is always adding more reasons because people keep finding more ways to cheat. Google does not have any official article written on what is and what is not spam for that simple reason. If they tell us what is, then spammers will just find loop holes to get around it. As the internet becomes more advanced, so will the spammers tactics.