Credibility could be harmed by blog errors, says study
Friday, 31, Oct 2008 10:41
Companies setting up a blog may want to be extra careful when it comes to spelling and accuracy following the results of a new survey by GooseGrade.
The user copy-editing service conducted a poll of 175 consumers that showed 39.1 per cent of respondents have occasionally encountered a web article or blog containing spelling or accuracy errors and decided that the site was an unreliable source.
Over a quarter of consumers said they had experienced this often, with 13.8 per cent doing so very often. One-third admitted to abandoning a site immediately after seeing such mistakes.
Almost six in ten people agreed that spelling, grammatical and factual errors help to contribute to the perception that blogs can be less reliable than traditional media.
"It appears that grammar, spelling, factual and other errors do affect reader opinion as well as how likely they are to share or link to an article. These errors also seem to dictate the reader's opinion of the author's skills as a writer," GooseGrade said.
A recent study by comScore found that blogs are becoming more popular in the UK, with 14.5 million Britons accessing at least one blog in August.