Home : Blogs : Jay Thompson : Jay's Phoenix Area Real Estate (and more...)

What is a "SPLOG" and What Can you Do About It?

A "SPLOG" is a Spam Blog. "Sploggers" steal content from other blogs and re-post it as their own.

Why in the world would someone do that?

The intent is to build a blog or website that contains a lot of content, and will be ranked well in search engines. The sploggers add Google AdSense and other advertising to the splog and are basically using other people's content to increase their search positions and generate ad revenue for themselves.

Almost anyone who has been blogging for some time has been "splogged". In addition to being incredibly unethical to steal someones content, it is also illegal as it violates federal copyright law (*if* the domain host is in the US).

My "other blog" (and MANY others) were recently victims of a splogger. Finding my content, word for word, on another blog with zero attribution is incredibly annoying to me. So I set off to see what I could do about this splog.

Thanks to the help of a great blog on plagiarism, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and a helpful web host, said sploggers domain was taken off-line in less than 24 hours.

It was painful and time consuming, but well worth the effort!

Here is the whole story.

Posted by Jay Thompson on 07/09/2007 03:47 PM

Comments (13)

splog, spam, content theft

Originally posted at: Jay's Phoenix Area Real Estate (and more...): What is a "SPLOG" and What Can you Do About It?

13 Comments on What is a "SPLOG" and What Can you Do About It?

JUL

2007

Thanks for sharing this story, Jay. Sorry to hear all you had to go through but good to know what to do. I was not aware of the Plagiarism site - thanks for the link.

Jeff

Nice work! I'll keep this post around in case anyone ever deems my posts worth copying. :-)

This seems to be more of a problem daily. As we get bigger more will try to take short cuts.

JUL

2007

splog.... I like the term. I haven't heard that before. Sploggers.... funny word. Can you say it ten times fast? No really just kidding. Thanks for the post and the link I will have to check out the other post.

I have a couple of sites splogging my primary blog. It's hard to keep up though....

Tony

JUL

2007

Howdy Jay

I would like to thank you for being so helpful and thinking of all of us.

Have a good one

No problem Dale, my pleasure!

JUL

2007

Jay, I missed this post when we were out of town. I think my splogger is gone that Laura told you about but if not I will be using your info to help as well. There is one splogger in particular taking a lot of content for Colorado AR'ers.

OCT

2007

What great advice! I recently did have another agent point someone doing something like this to me and I wrote a post about it. I didn't even know it was happening! The blogs were slightly different, but where always posted with 3 days of mine! Guess it gave them time to rewrite the article just enough that something like copyscape couldn't find it.

DEC

2007

Jay, i was splogged. Discovered it when googling my own name. It haPpened early in the year. Did not know what a splog was the time. InvestIgated my options and GoDaddY who is which was obviously a phony registration,

I was succesful in geting the the site shut down in a couple of days thru GoDaddy's intervention!

Ginger

JAN

2008

You can take legal action. You can also content the web site's host. This will usually violate most hosting provider's terms of service. I think the first thing you need to do is send a Cease and Desist Letter before you can take any further action. Here is a sample one.

JAN

2008

Robert - often a "ceases and desist" isn't necessary. The links in the post mention several ways to stop sploggers. Typically a DMCA notice is most effective (if the host is based in the US).

SEP

How are you. I like to play blackjack. I'm not addicted to gambling, I'm addicted to sitting in a semi-circle. I am from Sri and now study English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: "internet pharmicie with rogain and provillus." Waiting for a reply :P, Morrison.

Leave a response…

Name:

Email:
(optional)

Comment:

What does the graphic say?