A large number of blogs turned out to have been hacked to promote spammy content and affiliate links. I've also seen blogs being sabotaged by creating empty folders that follow the same permalink structure as some of the pages of the blog. Last time AOL bought a blog network (Weblogs Inc, owner of Engadget) was like 5 years ago. Smaller sites under the TC network, MobileCrunch & CrunchGear, might not survive the acquisition if we base it on what happened to similar blogs in the Weblogs Inc. Low-paid workers are hired by “SEO†firms to post comments on blogs and forums, advertising their clients’ web sites (typically small local businesses). They've heavily trained employees to write very sensible and relevant comments in blogs and forums that that get past spam filters. I've encountered a lot of these human-powered spam since last year in my blogs and they sometimes pass manual review -- the comments are sensible and well written but the accompanying links usually gave them away. Read more in our articles including "Massive Blog Hackery Exposed" and "Building a Brand thru Blogging".
A large number of blogs turned out to have been hacked to promote spammy content and affiliate links. I've also seen blogs being sabotaged by creating empty folders that follow the same permalink structure as some of the pages of the blog.
Last time AOL bought a blog network (Weblogs Inc, owner of Engadget) was like 5 years ago. Smaller sites under the TC network, MobileCrunch & CrunchGear, might not survive the acquisition if we base it on what happened to similar blogs in the Weblogs Inc. Low-paid workers are hired by “SEO†firms to post comments on blogs and forums, advertising their clients’ web sites (typically small local businesses).
Our coverage of blogs includes: "Massive Blog Hackery Exposed"; "Building a Brand thru Blogging"; "AOL buys Huffington Post for $315 million". Each article provides unique insights and information.