Digital Fingerprint

From Wikipedia

Spam blogs, sometimes referred to by the neologism splogs, are artificially created weblog sites which the author uses to promote affiliated websites or to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites. The purpose of a splog can be to increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, to artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors, and/or use the blog as a link outlet to get new sites indexed. Spam blogs are usually a type of scraper site, where content is often either Inauthentic Text or merely stolen (see blog scraping) from other websites. These blogs usually contain a high number of links to sites associated with the splog creator which are often disreputable or otherwise useless websites.

There is frequent confusion between the terms "splog" and "spam in blogs". Splogs are blogs where the articles are fake, and are only created for search engine spamming. To spam in blogs, conversely, is to include random comments on the blogs of innocent bystanders, in which spammers take advantage of a site's ability to allow visitors to post comments that may include links.

I've been the target of quit a few splogs lately. I'm not always aware that I've been the victim of content theft, but sometimes I get ping-backs that clue me into the theft.

I don't consider someone quoting from something I wrote as part of a larger piece to be content theft. No do I consider any ping-backs or track-backs from legitimate blogs to be content theft. Matter of fact, I welcome both from legitimate blogs.

I don't, however, appreciate someone using what I wrote to make money for themselves. In an effort to combat the efforts of splogs, I've installed Digital Fingerprint into my blog. I'll let you all know if it works.

Technorati Tags: ,

Gone Total Beeatch

Sorry, but it is now more possible for any comments you leave to be put into moderation. I've been getting over 100 spam comments and ping-backs a day. Neither Askimet, nor Spam Karma were catching them all.

The comments weren't the big problem. Most of the spam comments were being caught. The problem was ping-backs.

At least 2 (often more) were getting through every day. Grrrrrrr!

Askimet is nice and all, but it doesn't do much in regards to the ping-backs. That's why I also use Spam Karma 2. I can at least tweak Spam Karma to be pretty harsh in regards to hit and run commenters (typically bots that are on the site for a second or two before tossing up a comment) and ping-backs.

If you, a real live person, leaves a comment and it doesn't pop up then it got flagged and put in for moderation. Sorry about that. You can feel comfortable knowing that once I get home from work and see that you are a real live person than I'll approve your comment.

Of course, ping-backs are a sign of content theft. I recently read about two plugins that help combat content theft. They are AntiLeech Splog Stopper and Digital Fingerprint were both highly regarded by the writer for dealing with content theft.  Does anyone use any of these?  Do you think they work well?  Do they cause any problems with you rss feed?

Technorati Tags: , ,