I learned a new term today, “Link Spam.” The title of this post is a deliberate misspelling so that people searching for information on the subject would not accidentally link here expecting something else.
It started this way, I have a very handy WordPress plug-in called Akismet. It is also available free for other platforms, and has just one purpose, stop spam. Yes, blog spam has become such a problem that most blogs have you sign-in with a name and a valid e-mail, as well as having you type in some form of displayed code that is deliberately distorted in such a way that a human eye can read it, but a computer scanner cannot. But, spammers hire people to do mass manual postings in order to defeat that system. So, Akismet looks at the post and uses several algorithms (rules) to determine whether it is spam. If it is, it holds it for you in a separate “space” from pending comments so that you take a special look–with a beady eye–at that post.
Two days ago, I saw a post in Akismet’s holding area that appeared to be legitimate. No advertising, a simple comment, and the comment seemed relevant. So, I went to the poster’s blog and it looked like a legitimate blog, with multiple days of comments, all sticking to the basic subject area of the blog. I approved it. Yesterday, Akismet caught another post from a different blog. I did the same check and all looked legitimate, it was a separate blog with multiple days of comments, and so on. But, what caught my eye was that the comment was very similar to the first comment, but about a separate post. It was enough of a coincidence that I looked at the IP address of the posters. Guess what? Yep, they both use the same exact server. So what was happening? I did not know, but I deleted both posts and the links to my blog. Then, I did some research.
There are two possibilities as to why these comments were being posted. The first is that my blog was being set up for access by spammers through approved commenters. But, that is silly as I get to see every comment made lately when I first sign up, and that type of spam would not last long at all. (Though Akismet has cut a high number of porno spam, so they do try.) The second is what is called link spam, that is, the attempt to influence search engines by having your blog linked to a high number of other blogs. Search engines will rank blogs, in part, by the number of other blogs linking to them or being linked to by them. So, there is a constant attempt to fool search engines by the use of false keywords, inappropriate links, etc. Since number of links is important, these “spammer” blogs will access a high number of blogs and post a one sentence phrase, most often a stock phrase that is generic enough to appear to be an actual comment. You will not see that poster again, but they hope that they have managed to go up in search engine rankings, even if just by a little bit. [Mind you, there is a third option that they could be a splog (spam blog).]
There are many other variants of techniques designed to misuse your blog to benefit someone else. So, for my fellow bloggers, if you were not aware of some of what I have commented in this post, then I urge you to do your research to try to prevent your blog being abused for someone else’s benefit. And, install a good spam blocker on your blog.
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