Pet Peeve: Blog Spam

Re-posting excerpts, pictures, movies, etc. (otherwise known as Blog Spam) bugs me. I just have to say that. It's prevalence can't be ignored, especially when you see highly dugg links to such things on Digg and I get emails to URL's where the domain itself gives it away. They escape the Page Rank problem by voraciously marketing themselves more than the original host and thereby get more links and viral attention. Thus their entry appears more relevant and shows up in search results.

I don't know what the answer is, but perhaps giving more weight to the age of something, e.g. respect your elders. Not necessarily scoring stagnant stuff better, but originating sources which have been around longer on the same specific spot should count for more than new blogs and sites which pop up and die within months.

The problem goes beyond proper credit, but the general "health" of all links. I believe the original host of something popular, whether they get sufficient credit or not, will stick around longer than the crusty echoes. It doesn't seem to matter until you go looking for "that one thing" and the link your email is broken.