Recognizing Spam

[TheSeedObsesser]

Wait a minute - would my last two posts count as spam? Oopsies!

 

[digitS']

No.

Spam is a hustle to gain sales or if it isn't scam . .

. is just a wait and a "c" away from it.

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Thistle is the resident id winner usually, but I serve a useful purpose at it!

Ever have a boss struggling to get something done, and say to the boss, "here let me do it, I'll get it".

Know what that does? Suddenly the boss summons all strength and brains and gets it done!

Course, then next thing ya do is say to the boss, "you're welcome for my help!" Ha!

Couldn't'a got it done without me saying here let me do it, I'll get it.

I think that one seemed kind of like a Red Lake Currant, but I'll go check again.

 

[MontyJ]

What harm does spam do? I agree, a great question. It will be fun to hear Niftys perspective. I cant remember who, but someone else on here has run forums before also. Their perspective will also be interesting.

Spam is a great way to spread viruses. Be careful in opening links in anything that looks suspicious.

If you open a link in spam, that might tell the spammers or spambots that is a real address. You can get swamped by spam.

Spam is aggravating. Youre trying to hold a conversation with someone, spam is an interruption. If a forum is swamped with spam to the point people cant hold conversations, they quit going there.

I used to run a gardening forum.

There are different levels or types of spam. Some is just someone trying to direct traffic to their own website. If their site is also a gardening site, you can understand the conflict. Others try to sell a product, which if garden related isn't necessarily a bad thing, unless the sale itself is a scam. Still others are trying to spread viruses through infected links. It's all a problem of one sort or another.

The main purpose of a forum (in my personal opinion) is to help inform people about a subject I enjoy, and to learn from those same people. If I have to sort through hundreds of spam posts to follow an interesting conversation, I'll eventually go elsewhere.

Some forums can also generate a profit (some more than others). If your site is polluted with spam, its ranking will drop in most major search engines. That results in fewer hits, fewer members and lower possible advertising profits.

And finally, consider where you would trust the most to get information. Site A: Hundreds of spam posts about everything from male enhancement to bungee jumping when all you want is a recipe for canning tomato soup. OR Site B: A clean site with no spam and the recipe right there at the top of the search; with people discussing gardening and recipes in threads that can be easily followed.

The trick to catching a spammer is to watch their posts. Some are obvious. They will join and immediately post to several threads with meaningless comments such as "I like that" or "Good idea" even if the comment doesn't fit the thread. Others are trickier to spot and you have to wait them out. They will eventually show themselves.

With the software I used in my forum, it was very easy to kill a spammer and all of their posts with a click or two of the mouse. They could also be banned by several methods including screen name, email, and ip address.

 

[Nifty]

Fantastic discussion! I think y'all nailed it regarding spam and why it is "bad". Of course, not all "spam" is the same. Some is REALLY bad (links to viruses, big porn pics, etc.) and some is just annoying (like the spammer that keeps coming back here to get links to their kitchen website in the UK).

So, some spam is dangerous to the users (viruses), or to the credibility of the site (porn), or just annoying and makes the forum messy (kitchen links).

Regarding the latter: I've seen some forums that are no longer managed and robot spammers find a way in and wreak HAVOK to the forum... millions of spam posts all over trying to promote their sites.

On a related note: Google's updates now penalize sites that use spammy techniques, so website owners like me are now getting flooded with emails from site owners asking that their spam links be removed. See more about this here: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/11/15/seo-spammer-link-removal-request

When I get the emails from these sites I basically tell them: "You paid someone to spam my site with your links... now you can pay me to remove them!"

 

[digitS']

Ha!

That'll teach the jerks!



Steve

 

[Nifty]

What's crazy is the sheer number of companies that are hiring "SEO experts" directly or indirectly to spam their links cross the internet and not knowing they are shooting themsleves in the foot with Google. Even more crazy is the industry of "link removal specialists" that you can pay to get your spam links removed... which are often the same companies that are out there also getting paid to put links up in the first place!

So, it's like this:

Company hires "SEO firm" to help get their sites ranked
"SEO firm" hires a $3/hour guy in India to spam the site's links all over the internet
Sites like TEG have to work hard to block / remove the spam
Company gets hit by a Google algo update and their traffic dives
Company hires "SEO Expert" to fix the problem
"SEO Expert" hires a $3/hour guy in India to email site owners like me demanding that their links be removed or legal action will be taken

Here is the email I'm sending the spammers / spam companies demanding we remove their links:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting support. We've reached out to our tech team about this very important issue and here is their response:

"It looks like that link was posted by a spam company with the intent to drive traffic from our site to theirs and to increase their ranking in search engines. We've seen a huge increase in the number of these requests. This is due to the recent changes in how Google, and other search companies rank site traffic (Panda and Penguin) these sites are now penalized for paying for and supporting web spam. These companies often say they don't know how the links got placed, but there is no reason why any other company would pay to have links posted to other sites. The phrase "follow the money" comes to mind, and in these cases, the sites that would have benefited from the links are the ones that often paid to have them spammed.


We can remove these spam instances at a price of $50 per incident. We suggest you pass this cost (plus any additional fees you want to add) onto the companies responsible for, and benefiting from the spam. Please let us know how you would like to proceed."


Hopefully that information above is helpful and makes sense to you (it is a bit over our head). If you'd like us to have the link removed we'll be happy to put the request through to the tech team and we won't charge a premium over the $50 that is required for the spam removal. We can take payment over PayPal and then pass that onto the tech team.

Best Regards,

Support Staff

 

[897tgigvib]

It sure is a crazy world out there Nifty. Reminds me of how a trespassing thief can sue the property owner if he trips on something in the dark while trying to steal.

 

[Nifty]

Ooohhh... I remember that specific example when doing business law in college!

 

[897tgigvib]

I learned that one at Heald Business college!