Looks like the spam has begun at technorati. Now granted I haven’t been paying much attention to tag and ping until recently, but a couple of tags that are currently popular in the last hour are nothing more than spam. They can’t even spell correctly. “Loose Weight” or “Lose Weight”. You decide. The Adsense tag is also popular this particular hour and interesting in that if you go to one of the weblogs it is simply an ad for a clickbank product on Adsense. Actually if you go to the top 5 they are all ads for something. Wonder if the builders of social bookmark sites had free advertising in mind when they conceived of this process?
So it seems that folks got the new course and are putting it to quick and good use. Good for them. I’d be willing to bet within a month, instead of the popular tags being newsworthy items like “Bush”, “Iraq” and “Microsoft”, we’ll see “teeth whitening”, “laser hair removal” and “debt consolidation”.
Perhaps this is the way it has always been at the social bookmark sites and I’ve arrived at the game rather late. I choose to think the new book has motivated the spammers in new and different ways.
I think I’ll build a site tonite and trade a few links. Just for old times sake.
7 responses so far ↓
Debt Free // Jun 3, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Maybe it really is “Loose Weight”. Maybe they have extra weight they just can’t get fastened down. There’s a tag for everything, you know. If they’re top tags, it must mean there is a certain level of interest out in the blogshpere for them, otherwise they’d never be so popular. It’s up to blog visitors weather or not they want to see this medium be something special, or an approximation of late night TV.
Splork // Jun 4, 2006 at 4:48 am
Nah, it’s lose weight. A trip to the blog indicated that but I can dig the humor in your comment.
As far as them being top tags, it just means they managed to spam the crap out of technorati. The anchor text were all the same. Every single website used the same template and the same article.
Charles Heflin // Jun 4, 2006 at 8:22 pm
It will be interexting to see how this plays out. I know spamming has been in the social bookmark sites for a while but never on this scale. We can thank Mr. Sean Wu for this.
I wrote a post in my blog this morning about this issue.
http://www.seo2020.com/seo-blog/
Splork // Jun 5, 2006 at 2:54 am
The esteemed Mr. Heflin. Thanks for reading. It appears that the spam has left the can. Massive amounts of crap postings are showing up on Technorati’s “Hot Tags”. Other sites aren’t fairing well either.
I knew it would be quick but, jeez this was fast. The top tags after two days are jammed with junk. Will be fun to watch how the”authority sites” begin to handle this because you know they aren’t going to put up with it for long.
How interesting this all is because in reality social bookmarking is what the internet is all about. Linking. Sharing. Bookmarking. Spamming these sites for the glory of PR is probably not what the designers had in mind.
Folks should enjoy it while they can because it doesn’t look like it is going to have a tenth of the shelf life of B&P.
Teli Adlam // Jun 5, 2006 at 8:47 pm
I’ve always said that some things should remain a secret or only shared amongst close friends.
Tagging is a viable means of building quality links and bringing targeted traffic to a website, but it’s best when take care to use to properly.
Unfortunately, a number marketers only want a quick fix with no consideration for consequences.
While these social bookmarking and tagging sites will inevitably censure the spammers and inhibit their proliferation, I believe that the legitimate users will be able to continue using the system with beneficial results.
The wheat will be separated from the chaff so to speak. We just need to survive the tag and ping wave first…
~ Teli
Splork // Jun 5, 2006 at 10:43 pm
Hi Teli. Thanks for reading and commenting. You should know that I consider purchasing your ebook one of the few things I have gotten right in this business.
Yea, I agree with you that legitimate users will find satisfying results. Sooner or later, those that abuse the system will eventually lose out. It’s just how things get sorted out eventually.
Social bookmarking is here to stay. A little more attention was granted it over the weekend which ultimately is a good thing. The system is amazing and very efficient. The sharing and linking of all these diverse topics is exactly what the web is supposed to be about.
I won’t be subscribing to all these junk sites that will get created and T&P dance. But I’m sure these jokers will create multiple accounts at Delicious, and others, to subscribe to their own Adsense sites to give them a boost in relevancy. Not sure what good it will do them but it appears to be the way game is headed.
Or do I have it all wrong?
How long before an automated account device is built like those that were made for Blogger during the B&P heyday?
Surf the Mind » Blog Archive » Tag and Ping fallout, RSS revenues, and Web 2.0 Idea Management // Jun 5, 2006 at 11:25 pm
[…] And Splork from Lost Ball in High Weeds noticed the spam affecting Technorati too: Now granted I haven’t been paying much attention to tag and ping until recently, but a couple of tags that are currently popular in the last hour are nothing more than spam. They can’t even spell correctly. “Loose Weight†or “Lose Weightâ€. You decide. The Adsense tag is also popular this particular hour and interesting in that if you go to one of the weblogs it is simply an ad for a clickbank product on Adsense. Actually if you go to the top 5 they are all ads for something. […]
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