Advisory: Spam is not dead. It’s evolving like a super strain of influenza, thriving just fine in the social media ecosystem. Larissa covered mobile spam in April, FriendFeeders were perplexed by a recent onset, and I’m about to have a fit with all the Twitter spam (”Twam“) that’s springing up.

Splog Hell

When it comes to counterfeit content, the true bain of PR’s existence is still the spam blog, or splog. A third of all blogs are splogs, according to Matt Mullenweg, founder of Wordpress. This toxic sludge of continues to drift past Technorati, Blog Pulse, and Google blogs. PR pros must make the call: Spam or not spam.

Clients/coworkers are fooled every single day, and it’s up to you to save them from false hits and spare them the embarrassment. Having a strong radar will protect the integrity of earned media mentions (blogs coverage is earned media!) and protect the integrity of your work family at large.

I thought we were past this, too. But recently a couple clients - different accounts - excitedly sent me links to spam blogs thinking they scored a great hit. In one case, someone wanted to comment in response.

All that to say, the spam smackdown ends up providing decent job security. In order to educate others, you have to educate yourself. Let’s review the process:

What is this crap?

Spam blogs are fake blogs that exist only for the sake of getting revenue from Google ads. They do this by sucking content from other people’s blogs, and tricking Google into thinking they’re real blogs. (Don’t ask me why Google hasn’t figured out how to squash this issue.)

Sploggers are also gifted at leaving comments on blogs - particularly defunct blogs and older posts. Comment filters have helped ameliorate this issue.

Red flags:

These black holes get more clever every day and are therefore increasingly tricky to identify. Even so, here are some tell tale signs of a spam blog:

1. No author or “about” info

2. No comments

3. Bad writing

4. A bunch of ads all over the place

5. Poor, cookie-cutter design – after a while you can tell them apart just visually. (Quoting a friend: “It’s like porn - you know it when you see it.”)

Specimens:

• This is a spam blog. The content categories are nonsensical, the archives are whack, and sentences drop off (see at the bottom there? “Brand Pile Courtesy of” and it cuts off. No human blogger is that sloppy). Oh, and, there’s no title on this blog.
• This is a post on a spam blog. Note the particularly awful header and really lame intro to the post: “It took great skill and will power to complete this article on fire and safety. We also request you to use your skill and will power to understand this matter.” Seriously?

When in doubt: check the blog at SplogSpot. And if you identify a new spam blog, add it to the list.

Please friends, beware the splogerrific spamerino. Don’t be fooled and accidentally send a spam blog to a client. And if a client sends one to you, help them understand the issue. Of course, if you’ve got a funny (or nerve-wracking) incident to share, the floor is yours.

(Image credit: cursedthing)