Music blog aggregator Hype Machine have begun taking action against blogs which they believe to be complicit with attempting to ‘game’ their Popular chart.

In a blog post last week, site founder Andrew identified rogue PRs becoming contributors at blogs and giving their clients favourable coverage as one of main issues at hand. “For maximum impact, the same person would then get a spot at multiple blogs to create the appearance of broader support for the release” he explained. “In some cases, the people running these blogs were aware of this, in others these discoveries have come as a surprise.”

He says that they have stopped indexing blogs who either support this behaviour or who have not taken steps to adequately vet their contributors. “While blogs are an integral part of music marketing in 2015, we want to support bloggers, labels, and PR agencies that operate with integrity.”

Click to enquire about MN2S label services.