The Google+ Spam Gate Is Opening

I knew it was just a matter of time. I knew, in fact, it was just around the corner. And I was right. The Google+ spam gate is about to open wide.

Last night, I blocked my first Internet marketer on Google+. I feel purged.

It happened on Twitter, now it’s happening on Google+. Here’s the short version.

I approved the couple for my circles a couple of weeks ago. Right away I noticed that their profile picture was just “too perfect.” It was a nice looking 20-something couple, clean-shaven, fit and beautiful. They look like they’re living life well. The name on the profile is a male name, nice upper middle-class yuppie name. Very non-threatening.

The profile’s tagline proves his professional status:

Online marketing expert
Author
Google+ Ninja
Business Enthusiast

How could I go wrong?

The couple’s Google+ About page makes me think they are super-trustworthy. The man loves his wife more than anything. Entrepreneurship is his second love (awwww). They have two dogs and live in a “wonderful” 100 year old home in Denver. They are the perfect suburbanites and they’re going to teach me how to dominate Google+ in 30 days – because they did. In fact, they’ve written an e-book about it.

I remember very well all the Twitter “experts,” “gurus,” and “ninjas” coming out of the woodwork to teach all the neophytes and uninitiated how to use Twitter to spam the world and make a million dollars. Only most of them ended up with blocked accounts, or their followers did. And they taught people how to do all the things that legitimate Twitterers find annoying. I suspect the same thing is going to happen on Google+. Don’t listen to these gurus.

One of the principles the Google+ domination e-book teaches you how to do is to “scrape.” It sounds sneaky, doesn’t it? It even sounds like you might get away with something you shouldn’t get away with. Not true.

Scraping is nothing more than visiting the profiles of people in your circle and adding to them your circles. This Google+ spaminator refers to it as “targeted marketing” on Google+. How original.

I love how he tells you to make it look like your profile has a “natural look.” Post two or three public messages on personal general topics. Then, go in for the kill. Start posting to your circles. Post messages with strong calls to action specific to your target market. Yada yada yada. Just like in the halcyon days of Twitter. Only Twitter is now a haven for bots, spammers and marketers of various stripes of ill repute.

I have consciously decided not to link to this person’s Google+ profile or their e-book landing page. I don’t want to give the false impression that I endorse them. All statements in this blog post are paraphrases of claims made by this marketer, not direct quotes.

Personally, I think Google+ will be able to deal with the spammers better than Twitter ever did. Blocking people is easy. And — here’s the best part — when you block someone in your circles, they aren’t notified by Google that they’ve been blocked. You’ll stop getting their messages in your stream, but they’ll still be able to see your public messages. How’s that for sneaky?

Goodbye ninja. Hello sanity.

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