Pligg Websites Beware!

It's important to always be tuned in to the darker side of SEO. If you're running Pligg (a Digg clone) a new tool has emerged that might just ruin the experience of your genuine users and it goes by the name of AutoPligg (I won't link to it directly but it should not be too hard to find). The tool essentially automates the content submission process to multiple Pligg-based sites (in fact, 5,000 come pre-loaded with the software). While you might think that it's only the most black-hat SEO's that are using it, the email I received indicated that many white-hat SEO's were using the software as well.

There are thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of sites running Pligg today, so this presents a major legitimacy problem for them. The benefit of automating the process for those in pursuit of links is that you could generate thousands of links quickly and free. In many cases, many of the links are from well established sites with a good PageRank. The software automatically registers for accounts, creates unlimited profiles and identities, automated pinging after each submission and displays stats to show successful submissions.

While I remain confident that Pligg is well aware of AutoPligg and future releases will render the software all but useless, it's imperative that you continually updates your Pligg installation (as you should with all available updates running on your server).