SEO Contests

If the title doesn’t make any sense to you, feel free to skip this post.

A few times a year someone decides to hold a search engine optimization contest to see who can get top rankings for various search terms on Google. As the number #1 hit for “Matt” on Google, I can totally understand the fun of this sort of endeavour.

However many times the contestants in these contests use less than kosher means of winning, such as spamming or creating dozens or hundreds of blogs all linking to the same website. (Sometimes called splogs, or spam blogs.) These blogs use up quite a few system resources, junk up the tags system, and can slow the site down for normal folks.

There are many blogs being created here by people wanting to use our blogs to try to win this contest. But WordPress.com is about blogging. It’s about communication, thoughts, news, and many other things in life. It is not about SEO.

These blogs are not welcome and will be removed when found.


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33 Comments

Comments are closed.

  1. avuee

    If a user find a spam blog, can they be reported?

    Like

  2. Matt

    Absolutely!

    You can:

    Use the feedback form
    Use the contact form
    Use the report form

    And we’ll take a look at it immediately. When you’re logged in there is a “report spam” under “blog info” on your blue admin bar.

    Like

  3. Kristin

    Two words: Unetichal SEO

    And as I see it; they should be disqualified from the contest when using splogs and comments.

    Like

  4. the forester

    Thank you for kicking those manipulative little jerks out of the pool.

    Like

  5. roadies

    Matt, I’d like to exchange links with you PhotoMatt – please link to me using the words carcasher…oh wait, think I misread the post.

    Seriously though, good for you for voicing up and trying to keep this a “community” and not a thrifty nickel ads type site.

    Like

  6. timethief

    I’ll say a hearty “yes” to keeping the click harlots at bay. 😉

    Like

  7. Moey

    thanks for keeping WP clean

    Like

  8. rollmops

    word.

    Like

  9. timethief
  10. Jope

    Kudos to you, Matt. These SEO contests have gone totally out of hand are nothing more than noise in the discussion…

    Like

  11. EclecticGeek

    Another great reason to have a blog here. Things are monitored, reported, and removed as necessary. Good job!

    Like

  12. Brent

    What up Matt? I hate splogs!

    😎

    Like

  13. Rui Geraldes

    Very good idea!

    Like

  14. Ashish C.

    I used to want visitors on my old blog site (on blogspot) and none would come (though I did nothing of the sort) Now I don’t ask for them but they come to my blog! 🙂

    I’ve seen some spam blogs in WP and will be reporting them. Thanks for the report as spam button. Kudos! Try to do something about the dead blogs too. I’ve see some that haven’t been updated since February and these are the type of blogs that come first under the WP Next option.

    Like

  15. dresramblings

    Hopefully the idea o getting us involved in this will work. It should be more about writing interesting posts or things that interest people more than spamming.

    Like

  16. bobmorris

    Thank you!

    Like

  17. khabarnegar

    hi Thank you!

    Like

  18. Luthfi

    just a test for my new avatar

    Like

  19. بهمن

    Great boys, keep WP clean…
    I hate splogs, or spam blogs that have not anything to say!
    Thanks.

    Like

  20. adam

    amen. thanks.

    time to put that ‘next blog‘ button to use!

    Like

  21. tnstampgirl

    thanks for that!

    Like

  22. kOoLiNuS

    I agree with the initiative !

    Like

  23. blaze

    I almost thought you were holding a contest to see if someone could knock you off being the number 1 matt for a second. Ha!

    Good to see you are on top of it though. Don’t want idiots wasting resources that us good intentioned folk could be using. 🙂

    Like

  24. markharrison

    If I were actually looking for an SEO company, then I’d search Google for “SEO”.

    I figure that the only GOOD ones are the ones who can optimise for THAT term. Anything else is snake oil.

    Like

  25. Thomas

    Thank you! Keep the spam away!

    Like

  26. missionmexicocity

    Way to go! Kill the splogs!

    Like

  27. brennanwoods

    Google and Yahoo CAN identify Splogs and penalize them by putting them low in the search results.

    Like

  28. brianfox

    I hate splogs, I think google, myspace and yahoo are filled with splogs, Thats why I like WordPress.
    Kill’em and bury’em

    Like

  29. tashfeen

    I read a very interesting article in Times Magazine about SEOs. Looks like the trend is fast catching the internet bubble :). More on my blog…

    Like

  30. wadehel

    Yess, kill em all!!!

    Like

  31. donncha200

    Just in case you want even quicker and easier access to the “Next Blog” link, you can copy it from the blue admin bar into your browser’s toolbar. That’s even handier than scrolling up to the top of a blog!

    Oh, and thanks to everyone who has reported a spam blog. Clicking the proverbial “Kill Spam Blog” button is so satisfying!

    Like

  32. herson

    yup! splogs are irritating!

    Like

  33. Pingback: Nenda tidak salah dan Ngadutraffik tidak melanggar TOS « Namaku Bank Al

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