Sunday, July 18, 2021

Holding a Conversation over Different Platforms

Tag Spam

There is a growing number of publishing platforms on this planet. I've started using platform built on HIVE blockchain since these platforms reward posts with a crypto currency and, to be blunt, I could use a few rewards in mu life.

The blockchain hosts multiple web sites. These web sites publish articles based on the tags used in the post. Using the tag #POB puts the post on ProofOfBrain.io. The tag #LEO drops the post on the site LeoFinance.

Some users on the platform have taken to using multiple tags on their posts to get their posts published on multiple web sites.

Do you see the problem:

Dropping multiple tags on a post gets it published on multiple sites! A system that publishes posts on different sites creates a new problem called "Tag Spam."

I believe that the solution to tag spam is to simply limit the system so that the system only lists the post on one site.

My solution immediately begs the question: What should a blogger do if a post is truly relevant to two tags.

I think the answer is simple: If a topic is relevant to two tags, the blogger should write original posts for each platform that might be interested in the topic. The blogger should then create links between the different posts.

Writing original posts for each of the tags and linking the articles has a positive SEO benenfit as Googlebot and other web crowlers would see original content on different sites about the same issue.

Tag spam leads to a situation where different sites publish the exact same content. This has negative SEO implications. Writing original content on multiple platforms and linking the articles has postitive benefits.

HIVE is a single blockchain that produces multiple sites. The same issue applies

A similar problem occurs when people use different platforms. Businesses and individuals need to use mutliple platforms to connect with their audience. Some lazy bloggers will write one post then copy and paste the posts on all interested platforms.

Publishing the same text on different sites creates a problem for the Googlebot. Googlebot won't know which pust the true source of the inforamtion and is apt to dismiss the sites with duplicate content.

A better approach is to write articles fresh articles for each platform which target the people on the platform. My article on LeoFiance talks specifically about how tag spam affects the LEO token. I wrote an article on PhotoStreem about the picture and talked about how one can use images to connect topics across platforms. Note, all of my posts on this topic are using the same tag.

I have created a structure where I am discussing a single topic on multiple platforms. To emphasize the structure, I added an index page for the conversation on my homepage.

I did not copy and paste text from the different platforms. Instead I wrote original articles that discussed the topic from the perspective of each of the web sites in this particular group.

The process is a little bit spammy but, since each of the hand written articles are specific to the respective platforms, I believe that the structure provides an example of link development done correctly.

Because this particular exercise is about the proper way to publish posts across different platforms, I might add another article or two on different platforms.

Please, drop a comment if you believe that writing articles on different platforms is spam or if it is a good web practice.