Since we have our own blog here, I thought I'd ask a few questions about blog spammers. Basically, how and why do they do what they do? One blog that I help manage is for a company that runs a virtual trading platform for investors. Every single day I receive comments on any number of recent blog posts from blog spammers, who usually post nothing more than jumbled words and web sites. The better spammers post a few words having to do with investing along with their web site, which usually is not relevant at all. Finally, the best of the best link to websites promising great stock tips and investing information along with form messages like, "I just added your blog to my blogroll" or "The market is tanking! Our government is so stupid, isn't it?"
First and foremost, how do they build the programs that produce all of this spam? What do they actually look like? How long do they take to make? I'm presuming that all of these spammers, especially those who post only jumbled words and websites, can't reproduce these messages manually over and over again on blogs like ours day after day. Second, I'm having a hard time trying to get inside these spammers' heads. Why do they do this? Does history show that the main goal of blog spam is to find additional clicks for their sites or to acquire sensitive information from blog administrators? I can't imagine that the marginal difference of a few misguided clicks every day could substantially improve a site's authority or advertising bottom line, so for now I'm betting on the attacking reasoning. Third, whatever the aims behind these efforts are, how successful has blog spam been in achieving them? Given the amount of spam that I have seen every single day, it seems that they have, unfortunately, been very worthwhile. Finally, what is the best way to protect against these annoying and threatening messages? It seems like these guys walk through the provided blog spam protectors (on WordPress, at least) and I have no idea how to set up anything else.
What does everyone think?
Brendan
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
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Blog spam is really annoying. From my understanding blog spammers want people to click on their links into to gain a higher rating for their site. There are a few things you might be able to do. You could block people from posting links. If you don't want to block all links here is another idea. I read an article about a "nofollow" rule which you might be interested in researching. It doesn't allow the linked sites to gain a rating, basically. Another thing you could do is make the person posting a blog type in a security code from a picture (like you have to do when you setup an email account), and that might reduce the amount of spam.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's hard to see a great benefit for blog spammers, and that it is definitely an annoying occurence. Because people do accidently (or purposely) click on the links, I don't think we can expect bloggers to stop anytime soon (much as we can't expect phishing scams to stop anytime soon). I think adding security to blogs could definitely be beneficial, but too much security could be a doule-edged sword. Blogs were created to allow a variety of people to comment on different issues and topics. Blocking non-members all together could be detrimental in certain situations. The most effective way may be to require people to register, but have limited requirements for registration.
ReplyDeleteI think both ideas posed were good ones however If you make them go through a whole dog and pony show to post whatever they want to post i feel as though these people will do just that. I think there should be some type of accountability from the site owners. The people running the blog sites should maybe step in and get involved. It does appear that these blog spammers have very little to gain but one can only guess. There should be a way to deny all blog spamm like or at least Label as such so people won't accidently click on it.
ReplyDeleteIn response, web applications which accept and display hyperlinks submitted by users are at highest threat of spammers. Obviously blogs are included in this category. And, as Cassie mentioned - adding links that link to the spammer's web site increases the site's search engine ranking (increased ranking often results in the site being listed ahead of other sites for certain searches, while increasing the potential for visitors and paying customers). Presumably, owners or affiliates of such web-sites see blogs and the like as easy means of advertising (and probably fail to realize that visitors will see the spam as a deterrent to the linked web-site).
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