Why are sploggers such poor spellers?
Tim Finin, 1:00pm 16 June 2006DEAR SPLOGGY: Sploggers and other Web spammers sure are poor spellers. They can’t even spell the key words they’re writing about! Are they stupid or do they just have fat fingers? — PERPLEXED IN SPAM ISLAND
DEAR PERPLEXED: While sploggers may not be too bright and could well be typing with gloves on, these misspellings are common and intentional. Try doing a Google search for las vegss. The results are almost entirely web spam of one kind or another. Web spammers salt their content with misspelled variations on their key words to catch Web searchers who are poor spellers or typing too fast. Some Web spam recognition systems use misspelled words as evidence that a blog or Web page is likely to be spam.
Misspellings are common in email spam, too, but for a different reason. That email message you just got about V1agra is trying to fool your spam filter than teats any mention of Viagra as evidence of spam. Note that the ways that words are mangled tend to differ. Web spam mimics common organic spelling errors — character reversals, mis-keying, simplifications, etc. Email spam favors leetspeak misspellings that look like the target word.
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