Blog and Ping Spamming
Posted by Jim on 16 May, 2005
Category Internet Marketing
BlogPower, RSStoBlog, InstantBlogandPing.com, BlogAutoMachine.com, Blog-and-Ping-Machine.com, and others are tools designed to accomplish one thing and one thing only... to spam the search engines.
Now I do realize that these are tools and any tool can be misused, but I do not believe for an instant that these were developed for any other reason expect to spoof the search engines. Andy Wibbels has a pretty good post on his Easy Bake Weblogs blog. Brett Fogle, Co-creator of Blog Power, even jumps in to comment on Andy's negative review of the product. Brett trys to use the tool argument "Blog Power is a tool, one that can and should be used responsibly for auto-posting theme related content to your blog." Maybe it was just Armand Morin's demonstration of using the tool tool as an SEO spamming tool that made me think that's what it was. Andy's opinion of Brett's so-called tool reflects that of mine in my "The Death of Free Blogs" post. Brett claims that "Andy should have at least *used* the software before coming out publicly and at first slandering Armand Morin and dragging his name through the mud. Armand simply realized how powerful it is, and promoted it." I guess I should've bought it to... NAH! I've got better things to spend $197.00 on.
Armand Morin is no dummy. He saw BlogPower for exactly what it was and this is why he jumped in and promoted it. I see it as another way for the gurus to shear the sheep. Now I wonder if the sheep shearers will give their customers their money back. BlogHarbor is the first of the blogging services (and they should be since Armand used them for his demonstration) to ban this type of tool; they know that their future is at risk due to this type of "tool". Brett further stated on Andy's site, "What's wrong with pre-loading a list of relevant RSS feed articles (with permission) and also having the option to add your own related articles that you've written into an article respository, and setting the software to post to your blog at periodic intervals?" Absolutely nothing, but Brett, you didn't build this tool to do that! Most blogging systems (at least Quikonnex does) provide their users with a way to schedule the posting of items. Quikonnex allows for the pre-posting of items and they show up in our publisher's blog pages when they've decided to release them to their subscribers. Why build a program that will ping the weblog lists every minute when sites like weblogs.com only permit pings every 30 minutes. PingOMatic will respond to a quick ping with a "Hold your horses cowboy!" message. Give me a break! Your argument is no different than Napster used when they first started their song piracy network. They provided the tool for piracy and they paid the price. BlogPower and all the similar tools are no different. They're a tool for blog spam, nothing more. If they weren't, then why do the sites promoting them not tout their time saving benefits or teach about the ethical way to use such a tool. Nope, they promote their SEO spoofing ability and the riches for zero effort approach.
Trina Schiller, one of the Quikonnex publishers, has gone out on a limb to call this as she sees it. Her post at Howtocorp.com on RSS Spam shows how volatile this topic is. I'm surprised at the number of Internet marketers responding to her that thinks this behavior is okay. No, Armand Morin did not create BlogPower, Brett Fogle and Marc Quarles did. However, he did lend his GuruPower to BlogPower to create the buzz. Hmmmm, buzz, isn't that the sound shears make?
These products will sell and be abused (because that's what is taught) by the sheep, the gurus will make the millions and the sheep will make a whopping $8.00 a day off of Google Adsense... Wow! I'm just curious about one thing... why would anyone buy software from a "35 Year-Old Computer 'Dummy'"? And who is the dummy? Marc, Brett, Armand? Or is this their target market?
Now I do realize that these are tools and any tool can be misused, but I do not believe for an instant that these were developed for any other reason expect to spoof the search engines. Andy Wibbels has a pretty good post on his Easy Bake Weblogs blog. Brett Fogle, Co-creator of Blog Power, even jumps in to comment on Andy's negative review of the product. Brett trys to use the tool argument "Blog Power is a tool, one that can and should be used responsibly for auto-posting theme related content to your blog." Maybe it was just Armand Morin's demonstration of using the tool tool as an SEO spamming tool that made me think that's what it was. Andy's opinion of Brett's so-called tool reflects that of mine in my "The Death of Free Blogs" post. Brett claims that "Andy should have at least *used* the software before coming out publicly and at first slandering Armand Morin and dragging his name through the mud. Armand simply realized how powerful it is, and promoted it." I guess I should've bought it to... NAH! I've got better things to spend $197.00 on.
Armand Morin is no dummy. He saw BlogPower for exactly what it was and this is why he jumped in and promoted it. I see it as another way for the gurus to shear the sheep. Now I wonder if the sheep shearers will give their customers their money back. BlogHarbor is the first of the blogging services (and they should be since Armand used them for his demonstration) to ban this type of tool; they know that their future is at risk due to this type of "tool". Brett further stated on Andy's site, "What's wrong with pre-loading a list of relevant RSS feed articles (with permission) and also having the option to add your own related articles that you've written into an article respository, and setting the software to post to your blog at periodic intervals?" Absolutely nothing, but Brett, you didn't build this tool to do that! Most blogging systems (at least Quikonnex does) provide their users with a way to schedule the posting of items. Quikonnex allows for the pre-posting of items and they show up in our publisher's blog pages when they've decided to release them to their subscribers. Why build a program that will ping the weblog lists every minute when sites like weblogs.com only permit pings every 30 minutes. PingOMatic will respond to a quick ping with a "Hold your horses cowboy!" message. Give me a break! Your argument is no different than Napster used when they first started their song piracy network. They provided the tool for piracy and they paid the price. BlogPower and all the similar tools are no different. They're a tool for blog spam, nothing more. If they weren't, then why do the sites promoting them not tout their time saving benefits or teach about the ethical way to use such a tool. Nope, they promote their SEO spoofing ability and the riches for zero effort approach.
Trina Schiller, one of the Quikonnex publishers, has gone out on a limb to call this as she sees it. Her post at Howtocorp.com on RSS Spam shows how volatile this topic is. I'm surprised at the number of Internet marketers responding to her that thinks this behavior is okay. No, Armand Morin did not create BlogPower, Brett Fogle and Marc Quarles did. However, he did lend his GuruPower to BlogPower to create the buzz. Hmmmm, buzz, isn't that the sound shears make?
These products will sell and be abused (because that's what is taught) by the sheep, the gurus will make the millions and the sheep will make a whopping $8.00 a day off of Google Adsense... Wow! I'm just curious about one thing... why would anyone buy software from a "35 Year-Old Computer 'Dummy'"? And who is the dummy? Marc, Brett, Armand? Or is this their target market?
