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CNN Spamming Blogs With High Google Rankings?

CNN Spamming Blogs With High Google Rankings?

Danny Sullivan picked up on a Wired piece about CNN strategically placing linked comments in blogs which are ranked highly in Google, or as some folks would like to call “blog spamming.” Seems that some Daffy Duck type genius over at CNN thought it would help the Google placements of some of their show sites to fill blog comments up with spammy content laced with links back to specific CNN sites. Now, commenting in blogs and linking back to sites is not spam, that is – educated comments.

What may have been viewed as savvy blog marketing by CNN if they would have only spent some time making the posts they have been making full of quality content worthy of CNN – has now stained their reputation amongst bloggers. Or, is this some right-wing Fox News fan’s quest to knock CNN pages out of Google results by performing some Google Bowling; the mischievous spamming on other sites on behalf of your competitor – in turn, getting your competition dropped from Google rankings.

Nick Lewis uncovered the CNN spamming on his own blog : Last week, CNN appeared to be attempting an unusual marketing campaign in the blogosphere. The two day campaign combined blackhat search engine optimization techniques, viral marketing tactics, and guerrilla comment spam. Unlike the majority of comment spam, this spam only targeted mid-level blogs that discussed CNN. So far, 14 separate instances of the spam have been found. Most alarmingly, the spammers may have also left malicious keywords in 4 out of 14 of the targeted posts; its suspected the intent was to use google’s keyword stuffing detectors to censor them. CNN’s Christa Robinson denied their involvement, “CNN is not responsible for this or any other guerrilla spam campaign. This is simply untrue.”

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SEJ STAFF Loren Baker Founder at Foundation Digital

Loren Baker is the Founder of SEJ, an Advisor at Alpha Brand Media and runs Foundation Digital, a digital marketing ...

CNN Spamming Blogs With High Google Rankings?

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