Google Has Begun Linking to commandlinux.com in Google News, But It Seems to be a Slopfarm
commandlinux.com isn't a new site:
However, we'll show why it appears to have become a slopfarm and Google News should consider delisting it
In Slopwatch we called out prolific culprits such as Serial Sloppers. This week Google News added a site called commandlinux.com; I wasn't the only person online or the only one to notice that (the site appears many times in results for "linux" searches) and many if not all images feel or seem like slop. The text too contains many hallmarks of LLM slop, including a "FAQ" at the end and smooth-sounding word soups.
The site has this very old page that says (under "What We Don’t Accept"): "Plagiarized or AI-generated content without significant human editing and expertise"
Maybe they wrote that a long time ago and "words are cheap" (especially coming from LLMs, aside from the hardware/power bills shouldered by operators). Let's examine some recent 'articles'.
What really stands out everywhere, including the front page, is abundant use of slop images. See the below:
Well, many of us learned to recognise slop elements with generic "assets". We very strongly doubt the above are human-made, they're generated by slop generators based on syntactic input/s.
All the latest HowTos follow the same structure/formula, are preceded by slop images, and got published under the same name.
It doesn't take some "hey hi " genius to smell something funny here.
That suspicion is affirmed by some tools:
This is the latest article by the person who runs the site:
It sounds and looks like a computer-generated marketing brochure, not just to us but also reputable slop scanners:
It's not clear is all or some or an "increasing amount" of that site is slop, but it is worrying that Google now gives it more visibility. Remember that Google itself is a purveyor of slop; it sees nothing wrong with the practice, but people who use Google do.
This is not innovation, it's sloppiness, laziness, and a modern form of plagiarism. █