Splogger-Splatterer, Round Four

The other evening when I should have been trying to do something productive, quite by chance, errrr, accident, I found myself looking at 9 pages of results from Google Search on the total url of Reflections From the Fence.  Actually, I am not quite sure how it happened, I clicked on something and BAM, there I was in Google Search.  OKKKK, since I was there, I had a lookie see.

Yep, I found a bunch more sploggers.  So, without wasting another moment, let's splatter them, remember, no links, you go there, you pad their wallet$.

squidoo.com

123people.co.uk (I found this one last week, I have no idea why they have Reflections there, and I may be wrong, but I think they are sploggers too)

mygreenvillecounselor.com

pubsub.com

thana-store.com

daymix.com

jokester-store.co.cc

yorkza.com

shop.coojin.com

fungpleng.yorkza.com

gasellercisetrainers.co.cc

alimustikasari.com

brokencontrollers.com

connect.in.com

Curiosity got me, and I decided to have a look at a few other blog names and see what popped up.  Greta over at Greta's Genealogy Bog has told me she knows she has been a victim of sploggers for some time,  She is right, it did not take me long to find that costa-rica-weather.net had her.

Then I went to cousin Karen's name, Genealogy Frame of Mind.  Did not take long at all to find that the 123people and jokester-store people and another gang currently going by the name of araby.com have Karen listed.

Not willing to spend any more time on the searches, I sure came away with the feeling that, if you blog, you ARE being splogged.

One thing I discovered was that I picked up different names of sploggers dependent upon how I searched.  I have searched with my full URL, and I have searched thusly: reflectionsfromthefence. One time I searched with the quotes like this:  "Reflections From the Fence" and a few other ways as well.  I stumbled into this realization during my study of the creeps on the Google Search page, but again, sorta by accident. 

Down at the very bottom of the search page I found a link titled, "See all my SearchWiki notes".  You know my curious mind had to know, so, yes, I clicked on it, and it took me to this cool page which showed all the comments I have been leaving trying to SHAME these idiots.  (OKKK, we all know that they are not going to be shamed, but, if  I keep them from getting ONE click to their sites I'll be happy.)  Anyway, this page is called "My SearchWiki notes" and I was able to save it as a favorite.  This page showed all the different ways I had been searching as well as the comments I left each time.

At the end of the evening, I am not sure I understand all of what I found here.  It has become more and more evident as I tread along, that there are a lot of people trying to make $$$$  off us bloggers.  

I spent an evening when I first was learning about sploggers in an online discussion with some live support dude at one of the companies that host one of the sploggers that was splogging me.  Oh, yea, they were polite, and encouraging during the live chat.  Then, I got the email with directions on how to proceed with my complaint.  They set it up in such a way that no reasonable complaintant would continue with said complaint.  BLAH.  Now, in hind sight, after finding out how many sploggers are out there, I have to wonder, did that real nice live support dude sit on his end of the conversation laughing so hard it was hard to stay in his seat?? Probably.

SPLAT!!!

Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence.
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Splogger-Splatterer, Round Three

Well, Google Alerts does not work 100%, but, they are nailing some of these creeps.

Today's offender opens to a page called My FamilyTree or Family Shop, and, NO, I am not gonna provide a link, I don't want any more internet traffic driven to them.  The page opens to a bunch of links for products for sale, My Family Tree Frame, Me and My Family Tree (book for sale at Amazon?), a pregnancy journal product, Family Ties (Geanealogy Software) and other stuff.  Reflections From the Fence is seen NO WHERE on this page.  (Note:  I did a copy paste on that word in red Don't you love how they spelled Genealogy??  GEANEALOGY, well, if that ain't a dead give away! Ya, I know, play on words here.)

Yep, to me they are a splogger.  Pure and simple.  I am in no mood to even chase them down on Google Search so I can leave a report.  I did start to look, but, decided I wasn't gonna continue, I have other things I want to spend my time on today.

So, they get the Splogger-Splatterer Award today, duck if you can, here it comes you creeps at My Family Tree or Family Shop or whatever you call yourself today. 

*My apologies to my readers that find this offensive or outlandish.   Suggest that maybe when you read Splogger-Splatterer in the title you could skip reading that particular post.  For now, I am gonna keep posting about these creeps. Carol mad!  Carol posts!

Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence.
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Splogger-Splatterer, Round Two

Here is another site that we believe is splogging ole Carol

withox.com

Now, remember, if you click on it, and he/she is a bonafide splogger, you are helping him/her out by filling the ca$h pocket book, which is just what they want.

Because of the situation with Man's mother, I don't have a lot of energy to spend searching this down right now, so, I left a few comments over at Google search and I am posting here.  Actually, I think it would be too funny for words, if this would get picked up on the splogger's web site and people would see it there.  Well, that is probably asking too much!  LOL

I cannot print/publish what I think about these "users".  Creeps and thiefs are the nicest words I can come up with at the moment.  Please refer to my previous post I wanna be a splogger-splatterer for more information about splogging and this fine graphic, which I toss out at the creeps at withox.com

I might get to be a splogger-splatterer yet. What is that phrase about "a woman scorned"?

Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence.

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I wanna be a splogger-splatterer

I’ve been splogged. Splogged by two charming types (can you read the sarcasm there?? if not, read again, placing your tongue to side of mouth, and, well, you get the idea now). Now before you go clicking on these links, be aware, that by doing so, you are putting ca$h in the creeps pockets, keep reading and I’ll tell ya more bout that. Anyway, one of these charmers is http://trevoro.com/  (January 2019, link does not function.). This nice charmer also splogged my cousin and friend Anne over at Gene Notes. The other is http://rvsandmotorhomes.reviews-online-blog.com/ (link does not function in January 2019).

Ok, here is a wordy description of Splog I found at Whatis?com

“A splog (spam blog) is a fake blog created solely to promote affiliated Web sites, with the intent of skewing search results and artificially boosting traffic. Some splogs are written like long-winded ads for the Web sites they promote; others have no original content, featuring either nonsense or content stolen from authentic Web sites. Splogs include huge numbers of links to the Web sites in question to fool Web crawler s (programs that search the Web for sites to index). The sploggers associate popular search keywords with their pages so that the splog links turn up in blog search results and are sent out as search subscription notifications through e-mail and RSS feed s.”

Gotta admit that is a bit techy for ole Carol to understand, but, I get the “artificially boosting traffic” part and the “no original content” part.

How did I learn I had been splogged? I owe all my thanks to Thomas MacEntee of Genea-Bloggers. He has oodles of good information about trying to protect yourself as a blogger. For example, he discusses sploggers in a very detailed and informative article at http://www.geneabloggers.com/blog-content-theft-deal-splogs/ (sadly link no longer functional in January 2019)
 
Another hint that Thomas shares with bloggers is to use Google Alerts.
 
I set up a alert for “Reflections From the Fence”.  I get a report every day. Now, I have to say, I love Google and I love Blogger and I love my gmail account, and I love my Picasa photo storage and a lot of other stuff Google does, but, I am not sure that the Google Alerts works at 100%.  But, it does work good enough to have shown me the two charming types that splogged me.
 
When I started figuring out that I had indeed been splogged I contacted Thomas, who kindly spent a nice hunk of time pointing me in the right direction and educating me.

So, what action did I take?

I notified all my Rving friends over at the Montana Owners Club and asked that they not do any business with creep, err charming person number 2.

I contacted the domain one of these charmers are using. The end result of that contact was disappointing. Actually, it was about what I expected after chatting with Thomas.

I did a Google search and attached notes to the comment button that shows up next to search results. That was a learning experience. I had no idea I could do that. I do NOW!  (As of January 2019, I am not sure this action is possible.)

Now what??

I spent a couple of days of angst, this does not set well, ok, it realy ticks me off.  So, I wonder, should I continue, or just take this blog down and go play in another sand box?   I spent some time fretting and contemplating and then remembered one of the last comments that Thomas shared with me, "My experience has been that these splogs fizzle and burn within 6 months. Just like spammers, they then try something else."

So, I am still here, and I will continue to await my daily Google Alert reports.  I will leave notes when and where I can on Google search comments.  I do not currently plan on filing official complaints with the domains that carry these charmer's blogs.  They threw enough legal nonsense language at me to discourage me, actually it made me even madder, they pretty much make it impossible for a regular ole gal to proceed, no, I cannot afford an attorney, and they know it.

Larry over the MOC in a reply to my post there told me, "Go get him you poster/blogger/splogger-splatterer."

Larry, I gave it my best, and I ain't giving up!  I still wanna be a splogger-splatterer.

Splat graphic found at Splat WiseTome.com, sans lettering, ole Carol added that.  Link no longer functional in January 2019.

Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence.
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