Do Kanye West’s Blog Ties Tell The Truth?

Hip-hop star Kanye West’s making blogging headlines – again.  Last summer, I was just one among hundreds of bloggers with stuff to say about Sandra Rose’s claim that Kanye uses a ghost blogger.  A professional ghost blogger myself, I understood Rose’s question ("How the h— does Kanye have time to update his blog so often?") only too well, because most business owners I meet don’t have time to keep up with blogging. As I explained (see Does Kaye West’s Ghost Blogger Say It For Him?) in my blog, that’s exactly why the demand for ghost bloggers is growing.

By my lights, Sandra Rose’s latest accusation is a lot more serious. "Is Kanye West A Ghost Jacker?", she says in her own blog, claiming the singer uses content and graphics from other blogs without crediting the source or linking to the source.

No hip-hop fan myself, I have no inkling whether there’s even a grain of truth in any claim of plagiarism on the part of Kanye West. In an earlier blog, Ties That Tell The Truth In Blogging, I stress the important of attributing content to its rightful owners, explaining that search engines actually reward this citing of sources through linking and back-tracking because it creates online "traffic" to and from sites.  So, even if you’re convinced you’ve added your own unique twist on material, you can link to the websites that gave you the original idea or that have other things to say on the subject.

As I’ve pointed out before when discussing comments posted to blogs, even critical comments help blog rankings.  Whatever Sandra Rose may think about the quality or the honesty of Kanye West’s blogs, there’s no doubt she’s done much to enhance Kanye’s search engine rankings by keeping all the controversial conversation about him alive!