One of the functions of WordPress is the ability to click on a link and see your Technorati referrers from the dashboard. From time to time, I’ve noticed that Technorati has been the victim of referrer spam, or fake-blog referrer spam. Spammers now set up hundreds or thousands of blogs via Blogspot (until they get caught and Blogspot deletes the faux blogs) or other free blog services, and fill these fakes blogs with with posts (mostly meaningless), blogrolls and archives.
My Technorati rating has jumped about 1,000 ranks due to Blogspot blog referrer spam, from the likes of such blogs as TallBasin, AwakeRiver, HealthyBoot, CompleteBoat, Quietdrop, and my current favorite, Poly Septic Tank. (That last isn’t a Blogspot blog.) There are also PoliticalBucket, EarlyHair, MixedWhistle, GreenCollar, and the evil-sounding DarkOffice. (Or maybe there was a power outage.)
These names are so great. DelicateChess. RightArch. CupForest. FalsePotato. FatWindow. PresentBaby. To counteract DarkOffice, we have GoodChest. (Not sure if they mean furniture or Dolly Parton.) And AngryTooth, obviously a candidate for a root canal. Or a lefty with a speech impediment.
CheapBasket, GreatOffice, NarrowJewel, SadIsland, ProbableWall, BrightMarble — is it just me, or are these starting to sound like neat names for, um, something. CommonDrawer, FeebleNose, IllWall — somebody was feeling crabby during those blog namings.
I could go on. There are hundreds of them. But you get the idea, and, well, I’m tired of typing the weird blog names.
I’d notify Technorati, but, well, I haven’t been very fond of their blog ranking system since they decided to take away sidebar links as an indicator of a blog’s popularity. Gee, no, why would you think a permanent blogroll link would mean that people, you know, read the blog? Their reasoning? To give the newer bloggers a chance. As a result, I dropped like a stone in the rankings, as people seem to read my blog without linking it on a regular basis (but my referrers from sidebar blogrolls continue to increase).
Besides, I’m getting a kick out of my profile being raised by spammers. I’m not paying for it. I didn’t ask for it. I’m just laughing about it.
Hmmm, that explains some of the recent very odd links that we’ve been getting in our referrers.
So do “readers” without blogs (non-referrers) not count in the popularity stakes?
Not even kibitzers?
I was wondering what the hell was going on with Technorati, and you have helped explain it. My Gawd, here’s a Blog-Tool that, from the standpoint of Usefulness, is a mere shadow of its former self.
I’d love to get hold of these Spam-Schmucks and Zarqawi their sorry asses.
I’m a little frustrated, though more and more people link to me, my technorati profile has dropped continuously over the past few months.
I’m still in the top 10 for Judaism but out of the top 20 for Israel.
I do see the rationale behind deemphasizing blogrolls. I don’t believe they’re as important as they once were. I used to go to Instapundit all the time for the blogroll. But I’ve created my own. Blogrolls serve individual bloggers more than masses.
You should be pleased though that your google page rank is an impressive 7. That really separate the men (I mean women) from the boys (like me who ranks 5).
To be fair, Elisson, it’s Blogspot, too. They’re not catching the spamblogs, which I think are already called (ugh) splogs.
Just about every one of the blogs I mentioned can be accessed as of this morning.
Soccerdad, there’s a Google page rank? Where?
Shows you how tuned I am to the ranking systems. None of them is accurate, in any case. You need to balance the rankings of all of them in order to figure out where you are, and then remember that, um, more than 90% of Internet surfers don’t read blogs.
My traffic stats fluctuate widely depending on who you look at. I just take the middle ground.
Never mind, found it. I see now why my site gets so many Google hits. My site will come up higher in the Google rankings than any site with a six or less.
And it tickles me no end that I have the exact page rank of a much “bigger” blogger with whom I have crossed swords in the past. But then, he’s always been into the “My blog’s bigger than your blog” mode.
Doesn’t seem to matter to Google.
Actually, I created a blog just so that I could refer to my great-grandfathers picture. Does that mean that I am a “spam blog”? Since the only purpose is to have a place for that picture (and I don’t have time to actually post anything), there won’t be anything on the blog. Maybe eventually I will get to put a writeup about him next to the picture.
Sabba Hillel