Wordpress Banned by Google for Spamming 472
The Real Nick W writes "Wordpress, an incredibly popular Open Source Blogging system was found to be spamming google by inserting hidden links to junk content on high paying Adsense keywords such as mesothelioma and debt consolidation. Following Threadwatch picking up the story an anonymous Google rep appeared in the original thread admonishing bloggers not to use sneaky tactics to rank highly for "duplicate content" such as the 100,000 hidden articles on the Wordpress site. The articles have now dissapeared from Google and it remains to be seen whether Google will ban Wordpress outright as they tend to do when SEO's and web dev's pull these kinds of stunts."
The day will come when... (Score:5, Funny)
Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, crap!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Er... (Score:2, Funny)
Something fun to do (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Off topic - Google interview questions (Score:3, Funny)
So do they ask management questions of programmers? Human resources questions for janitors?
Re:Next ban eBay! (Score:5, Funny)
It seems that's what they do - whatever you search for, they put "for sale" on the tail end of it and hope you click on it.
Re:SEO (Score:3, Funny)
Cool!
Now once the spammers figure that out, spam will stop.
Re:Heh (Score:5, Funny)
But, given the quality of the postings here, you can be a smoker or a late night toker.
Re:Next ban eBay! (Score:2, Funny)
If you're looking for the x-ray observatory, a normal google search [google.com] for chandra returns the expected links at the top. But with the "clean" search query [google.com], NASA and Harvard give way to some Indipop singer named Shiela Chandra, who has an evil Flash-only website.
Re:Something fun to do (Score:5, Funny)
Yep, a link back to this /. story.