Does spam thrive during economic decline?
Are laid off IT workers discovering that sending spam is easier than getting a job these days? It sure seems that way, even with mollom running on all forms around a hundred spam comments get through every week, and they seem to get more clever every time.
I just found the following comment below my review of the Drupal 6 Javascript and jQuery book:
Submitted by san diego real estate (not verified) on Wed, 10/21/2009 - 18:55.
The only reason why I like this book is that this book developers deep into the usage of jQuery in themes and modules and there is interesting stuff in there for developers of any experience.
I can understand mollom didn't get that message because even I thought it was a real comment. I was much surprised to
see the comment was posted by "san diego real estate" and that the linked site wasn't even made with Drupal...
Who's to say that is a spam
Submitted by Sean Bannister (not verified) on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 14:15.
Who's to say that is a spam comment? I mean, is this a spam comment :)
I think just because someone links to a business site doesn't make the comment spam unless the comment itself is useless.
- Sean Bannister
True, so I guess the question
Submitted by peach on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 10:46.
True, so I guess the question is where to draw the line. What would you think about a very well written and relevant comment with a backlink to a site that sells v i a g r a by a username that spells buy c h e a p v i a g r a.
I don't dare to spell those words properly on my site because it will probably attract even more spambots!
it is spam
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 04:59.
It's spam if It looks like a Mad Lib with random keywords from the original comment sprinkled in.
I bet you could make a mean spambot looking for posts with keyword "book" and "review" with a long vague run-on sentence comment sprinkling in the 3 most used words in the post...
I'm having the same problem
Submitted by CoolGoose (not verified) on Sun, 01/10/2010 - 14:27.
Spam bots seem to be smarter and smarter, I'm having spam problems with recaptcha and some of them really do seem like authentic ones.
(Excepting the fact that the user is Bob and his website is cheap pills).
Hehe We think
Submitted by keywords removed to prevent attracting spambots (not verified) on Sat, 03/13/2010 - 20:52.
Maybe they are up to it. And oh, spamming is the new marketing.
Not really, spamming is just
Submitted by peach on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 20:26.
Not really, spamming is just a part of black hat SEO and black hat has existed as long as there is "white hat" SEO. Possible even longer!
I think, from what I've read about black hat SEO, and checking some of the software, that black hat marketing is way more difficult than building a valuable brand the "correct" way.
I also think that the biggest fallacy of spam marketing is the lack of longevity. Its extremely competitive and your methods will only work for a long as google isn't "screwing you", or as long someone else isn't publishing your methods and creating competition in the "area" where you are spamming.
In order to be a succesful spammer you need to be a brilliant computer engineer as well a a creative mind. Like for example the guy from blue hat SEO, I enjoy reading his crazy spamming tricks: http://www.bluehatseo.com/
Aside from the technical difficulty there is of course also the moral argument against spamming, though I think you could probably spam without causing harm.