Identifying "Poker Blog Spam"
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Although I am relatively new to the poker blogging scene I have noticed that the vast majority of poker submissions to social networking sites such as Digg are blog spam. Of course this comes as no surprise to those who frequent these sites. As someone who cares a great deal about poker, both online and live I find this completely unacceptable.
Below I have put together a list of identifying characteristics of typical poker spam blogs.
No Original Content
This one mostly speaks for itself. Nothing original just regurgitated click through news from various sources. Sites like this usually have one sentence descriptions to the news they link.
Large Number of Pokersite Links
You sign up, you play, they earn a percentage of your rake. In moderation there is no problem with this.
Garbage Content
If these types of sites do have some content it is usually badly formed, inaccurate, and unhelpful.
Mostly Ads
When you click on a spam link you notice right away that 80% to 90% of the site is advertising. Full banner ads. Flashing lights. An epileptics worst nightmare. One blog I recently visited had a left hand sidebar ad that literally followed me down the page as I scrolled along.
News Relay
Linking to a site that links to a site that links to another site that links to a news site is not content.
Duplicates
I have noticed that every large poker story has at least four or five submissions all from different poker spam blogs. Once again they provide no incite and less content.
I understand that advertising on blogs is a big part of the game. Mostly ads should be unobtrusive and easy to look at. I feel that any blog created for the soul purpose of presenting ads to visitors is bound to fail.
For the sake of poker blogging in general it is important to label the offenders and be sure to mark the posts as spam so others might avoid the noise in the future.
As always I welcome your comments and if I you have any additions to these please feel free to post them.
posted by JD52 @ 2:37 PM,
