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How to Complain and Report Spam Blogger Blogs

July 10th, 2006 | Filed under Blogging, SEO, Security, Tips.
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There are hundreds of spam blogs (also called Splogs) in the blogosphere. Most of these are created on the feature rich and free blogging platform Blogger offered by Google.

Some typical spam blog features

Many people set up a free Blogger blogspot blog as there is no identity proof required, no whois information from registered domain names or webhosting tracked. Blogger provides ad free unlimited free webhosting on blogspot.com subdomains with no bandwidth restrictions and free image hosting.

Then they copy lots of good high paying keyword rich popular content from several different websites and blogs. And do not credit or even mention the source. Finally they put up Google Adsense contextual advertising to earn money quickly.

Usually there is no feedback form or email to reply to contact them. Even if there is a email link or contact form - dont expect a reply back. Comments are either disabled, or moderated and you comment explaining them to remove your copyrighted content never appears live.

The Blogger navbar will usually be hidden so that you cannot click the “Flag” button to report the blog. So how do you report a Blogger Blog for Violation of TOS?

Since most bloggers do not link back to such spam blogs - Multiple spam blogs link to each other to get backlinks and increase page rank, and are search engine optimized in such a way that their urls will turn up higher in SERP’s than the original content source.

What action Blogger might take

The “Flag?” button notifies Blogger staff about potentially questionable content, and they can “unlist” such blogs, which means they won’t be promoted on Blogger.com but will still be available on the web

For more serious cases such as spam blogs or sites engaging in illegal activity, they might removing content and deleting accounts when necessary.

Complain to Blogger

  • Click the “Flag” if the navbar is still existent on top of the blogspot blog. But you will find that most splogs hide the blogger navbar. As per Blogger terms of service, only FTP Publishers can hide the navbar. When the navbar is hidden, Consuming Experience has created a greasemonkey script which will restore the flag icon back into the blogger blog and then you can flag it.
  • Send feedback - Blogger has a page where you can report a spam blog.

Report to Google Adsense

There are high chances that such blogs are earning advertising revenue from Google Adsense pay per click program that earns money quickly. You can also report to other affiliate programs they are running onsite like Chitika eminimalls, commission junction, adbrite etc.

  • Click on the “Ads by Gooooogle” link. It takes you to a page where you can give feedback about ads. Click the link “Send Google your thoughts on the ads you just saw” and a form drops down. In the subject, select “report a violation”. Add an email (optional) if you want a reply back.
  • Email Google Adsense and report a policy violation. Subject the email as ‘AdSense Policy Violation’, describe in detail the problem and send this email to adsense-abuse@google.com

Complain to Feedburner

Feedburner now provides an option to contact them to report feed content republishing. Works if someone else has burned a FeedBurner feed of your content, or there is a website displaying content from your feed without your consent.

Inform Search Engines

Reporting terms violation to popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN. These search engines can remove such sites from their index and such sites will turn up zero results which defeats the purpose of these splogs.

  • Contact Google - Report a Spam Result if you believe that another site is abusing Google’s quality webmaster guidelines. They thoroughly investigate every report of deceptive practices and take appropriate action when genuine abuse is found.
  • Contact Yahoo Search - If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or that your intellectual property rights have been otherwise violated, tell Yahoo.
  • Contact MSN Search - they have a feedback form. Select “found spam” in the subject and fill in the details.
  • Splogspot is a service maintaining a database of spam blogs. It mainly derives data from the blacklist that Pingoat pinging tool generates. Pingoat has automated software that can detect spam blogs. SplogSpot also accepts manual splog submissions, that are first reviewed and then added to the database. Submit a splog to splogspot.

Another useful related resource is What Do You Do When Someone Steals Your Content

Update: On a related note, if you’ve come across a blog on WordPress.com you believe is spam or spammy - report it here.

Liked this article? To continue getting our latest free tips and tricks, you can grab the feed or get the email newsletter. More related articles:

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» Blogspot Blogs and Geocities Blocked in India
» Best Blogging Tips
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» Remove Word Verification Captcha from Blogger Posts

Comments

  • Rose DesRochers | 19/07/06  #

    When reporting splog to blogger, they reply with “Thank you for your note. Blogger is a provider of content creation tools, not a mediator of that content. We allow our users to create blogs, but we don’t make any claims about the content of these pages. In cases where contact information for the author is listed on the page, we recommend working directly with this person to have this information removed or changed.”

    The Report a Spam Result returns a page cannot be displayed.

    You can submit a splog to http://www.splogreporter.com

  • Amy Gahran | 26/09/06  #

    Thanks for explaining these techniques. I can see how some of this advice would apply far more widely than Blogger, so i’ve just recommended your article to my readers.

    See: http://snipurl.com/x5fc

    Thanks,

    Amy Gahran

  • Ryan Waddell | 9/10/06  #

    Actually, you can report a spam blog directly at this page:

    http://help.blogger.com/?page=troubleshooter.cs&problem=&contact_type=Spam&Submit=Submit

  • James Newton | 24/10/06  #

    Google is doing evil via Blogspot.com. There is no reason they could not be checking thier own members content for hidden navbar flags, common spam keywords or other TOS violations.

    Thanks for the info and especially thanks to Ryan for the direct link to the reporting page and to Rose for splogreporter.com

  • http://www.freeinfoz.com | 19/12/06  #

    I have many experience in blog spams. I have more than 20 per day (maybe not alot considered), but it sure took me time to moderate these comments. All posting links to sell something.. This is a nuisance!

  • Dick | 30/12/06  #

    Hi,

    Has anyone come across the issue of Blogspot spam that can not be flagged because the site forwards to the spam site or pill site in this case?

    Thanks to the post above I was able to find where to report the URL. After 30 minutes at Blogspot I could not find that link!

    Thanks for that one!

  • hate spam | 7/01/07  #

    I hate spam blogs, this is the link to report spam blog. Had looked for it 10 minutes!

    Report Spam Blog

  • David Scott Aubrey | 16/01/07  #

    Champion! Thank you for the info! There’s at least one splogger out there who’s now been reported!

  • What is Spam? | 27/06/07  #

    It’s in Blogger’s interest to allow spam. Google profits from the Adsense revenue just like the spammers do. Why should they stop a viable revenue avenue?

  • Penguin Pete | 12/07/07  #

    I’m sorry to break this to you guys, but Blogger.com is a slumlord. There’s about five serious sites left on Blogger.com and the rest are spam. Google bought it, but they haven’t done anything with it. When I was on it, I got zero response from anywhere for anything; there is no person reading the mail.

  • Jeanette | 7/08/07  #

    I noticed that the same evil sploggers switched to wordpress hosted on obscure sites. Do you have the link to protest to wordpress?

    Thank you.

  • QuickOnlineTips | 7/08/07  #

    @Jeanette - If you’ve come across a blog on WordPress.com you believe is spam or spammy - report it here.

  • Cathy Goodwin | 18/08/07  #

    I disagree with the poster who said blogger.com is a slumlord! Many people started with blogger.com and can’t see a reason to change. All of my blogs have been shut down briefly because blogger.com’s robots thought they might be spam (nearly every post has a link to my site or another site of interest).

    My articles have been misappropriated by wordpress blogs almost every day. Now that I’ve got a place to report, I’m going to start.

  • Jeanette | 23/08/07  #

    Success! For the first time, I went to a content stealing blog and this is what I got: “This blog is in violation of Blogger’s Terms of Service …”

    I have been reporting blogs which post my articles without bios or active links for over a year. This is the first time I’ve seen this message. Frequently, the blogs disappeared. And, then someone started posting my articles on porn sites–not a good image for a college instructor.

    My attorney told me that authors need to fight copyright violations.

    Thank you for the Wordpress link. I hope to see some improvement with those blogs, too.

  • snowgirl | 2/10/07  #

    thanks for the articles

  • Hrw | 19/11/07  #

    Does Splogblog still run? Their list of recent splogs is not updated for long time. I reported few splogs but looks like there is no response to it.

  • mark | 20/12/07  #

    Good tips. Thanks.

  • Diane | 13/01/08  #

    I am running to a big problem with splogs showing up on obscure wordpress MU sites and their own domains. Then they are popping up on blog.com, friendster, livejournal, and other such sites.

    Splog Reporter does not work anymore.

    Splogs are like a virus invading the web.

  • Joana | 17/01/08  #

    Congrats for the Entry. Very Good Tips to Report Spammers !!!!

  • Secma | 17/01/08  #

    This is really a Quick Guide to “SPAM REPORT”… Thks

  • kurye | 26/02/08  #

    this subject is very important for us . thank for subject. please write back soon

  • Hector | 3/03/08  #

    Nothing works to report SPAMMERS they are here to stay for one reason, big companies don’t care about it! otherwise they would hire people to actually respond to SPAM complaints. And by the way Obama is the antichrist, just so you know

  • jessie | 11/03/08  #

    thank you so much for the great tips. my blog is presently suffering from being copied my scrapers.

  • sap abap | 2/08/08  #

    Thank you for the list of things at least we can try.

    What i mean to say is we can just try for some one stealing the content and we have to wait for the results.

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