[tcraw1010]

In case you haven't noticed, the SEO section of the Forum has become a prime target for annoying spam-jockeys thinking that anyone here would be interested in the crap they're peddling.

BE VERY CAREFUL when looking at these threads and/or clicking on anything within the posts.

Brian and Kerry have been doing a pretty good job at spotting these spam threads and clearing them out as soon as possible . . . but it's best to simply be able to recognize them right off the bat and ignore them compeltely.


Now ... on with the REAL and USEFUL sarch engine optimization discussions.


TOM

[bgetting]

Just so everyone knows, I am actively banning the username, IP address, and email address of all spam posts. Since most are automated (I suspect) this really doesn't apply to anyone. However, to those that are doing it, be warned.

I am hoping to not have to do this, since we probably have legitimate Russian visitors, but I am really close to banning all email addresses that end in .ru since they seem to be a common thread among our spammers. However, I have not gotten that extreme yet.

Thanks for everyone's patience. I suppose it flattering that they want to spam us, but I realize that it is annoying to our users.

[erichar11]

On another topic, why do people spam forums in the first place? I've read a couple of articles on this from "blackhats" where they suggest the reason for spamming boards/forums is "link love" in a lot of cases. What's your thoughts on the reason for spamming.

In addition, a lot of these "blackhats" are paying someone to just sit there and enter span manually, rather than programatically like before. Seems tougher and tougher to prevent.

[bgetting]

It's funny but that probably was the original reason that people spam forums. However, as I understand it Google and possibly some other search engines are able to recognize common forum platforms (like phpBB) and actually lower the value of links out of them since they know that forums are not terribly reliable sources of relevant information and that they are spammed a lot.

I'm not sure why people do it. I suppose it's like playing the numbers game on the internet. If you generate 10,000 spam forum posts, you might expect to see 5 or 10 of them generating some tiny bit of traffic.

I like to think it's devious developers out there spamming people to point out vulnerabilities. In reality, it's some guy in Russia trying to sell bootleg Vi*gra. Poor guy, I wish him luck.

[erichar11]

hmm, intersting thoughts. Over the weekend, I'm going to do some more research on this. It's really an interesting subject as it applies to blogs as well as forums. Let me see what I can come up with. It may take a couple of days because I'm leaving for a couple of days.