Giles' blog

New splogging technique?

I'm sure everyone has encountered the kind of spam blog where they're scraping posts from someone reasonably well-known -- presumably via RSS -- and presenting the results as their own, normally with a million Google ads on the sidebar.

Here's a new (to me) twist on that. I spotted two new incoming links to my WebGL blog. One was a (very brief) mention in a roundup from Dion Almaer on Ajaxian, an Ajax community site. The other was on "tutorials4html.com".

Let's compare Dion's introductory sentences:

A lot of great news is coming in via Twitter. I make a lot of Ajax comments under @dalmaer and wanted to give you a roundup on the month of October via Tweets. Always interesting to take a glance at the month. What do you think?

...with that of the intriguingly-named "admin" on tutorials4html.com:

A aggregation of enthusiastic programme is reaching in via Twitter. I attain a aggregation of Ajax comments low @dalmaer and desired to provide you a roundup on the period of Oct via Tweets. Always engrossing to verify a spring at the month. What do you think?

Well, yes. It certainly is always engrossing to verify a spring at the month. Couldn't agree more.

What impresses me, though, is that they've clearly automated this. There's no way a paraphrase that bad could have been written by hand (or if there is, I never want to meet its author) so presumably they have some kind of program doing it. Maybe they run it through Google translate a few times?