Comments on: Fighting Spam — All Kinds http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/ Web site and blog for Maria Langer, freelance writer, commercial helicopter pilot, and serious amateur photographer Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:42:06 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Pingback Spam « Spam Wars http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-129205 Pingback Spam « Spam Wars Thu, 14 May 2009 13:29:21 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-129205 [...] blog defines it pretty well. Pingback spam is a comment that appears as a result of a link on another [...] [...] blog defines it pretty well. Pingback spam is a comment that appears as a result of a link on another [...]

]]> By: Cameron Mackay http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-128136 Cameron Mackay Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:28:51 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-128136 Thanks for the great info. Received my first pingback spam today and had no idea what it was. I thought it was cool to have another site linking to mine, but now I've read your comments on splogging, I can see it's not really that cool at all! <abbr><em>Cameron Mackay´s last blog post: <a href="http://freedomtoworkfromhome.com.au/blog/workathome/water-for-weight-loss" rel="nofollow">Water For Weight Loss</a></em></abbr> Thanks for the great info. Received my first pingback spam today and had no idea what it was. I thought it was cool to have another site linking to mine, but now I’ve read your comments on splogging, I can see it’s not really that cool at all!

Cameron Mackay´s last blog post: Water For Weight Loss

]]> By: Gordon http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-120379 Gordon Sun, 14 Dec 2008 02:04:37 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-120379 Thanks for the prompt reply! I just finished tracking 3 of them back. Two were on-topic blogs but the 3rd was definitely just scraping feeds. I have the blogs on feedburner, technorati and feedage as well as a couple of ping services. So they are taking our content which I don't mind so much as long as the article links are left intact. But I am wondering the wisdom of doing these feeds as it seems to me content posts could easily get spidered on another site sooner than ours and we lose credit for the content??? Although we get stuff spidered pretty fast on our site (I've seen as low as 20 minutes). Anyway I've done some reading and come to the conclusion that this is spam and installed spam free on one site to see how it handles it. But it also occurred to me that it isn't all bad. The pingbacks are all moderated. That means a link exists to us UNTIL I APPROVE IT. Assuming they have any google position at all that gives a link in our favour. After a week or so I just delete it. Temporary perhaps but at least we get the advantage of what they're doing :-) But then again as I said I'm new to this so perhaps I'm missing something. Gordon Thanks for the prompt reply!

I just finished tracking 3 of them back. Two were on-topic blogs but the 3rd was definitely just scraping feeds. I have the blogs on feedburner, technorati and feedage as well as a couple of ping services. So they are taking our content which I don’t mind so much as long as the article links are left intact.

But I am wondering the wisdom of doing these feeds as it seems to me content posts could easily get spidered on another site sooner than ours and we lose credit for the content??? Although we get stuff spidered pretty fast on our site (I’ve seen as low as 20 minutes).

Anyway I’ve done some reading and come to the conclusion that this is spam and installed spam free on one site to see how it handles it.

But it also occurred to me that it isn’t all bad. The pingbacks are all moderated. That means a link exists to us UNTIL I APPROVE IT. Assuming they have any google position at all that gives a link in our favour. After a week or so I just delete it. Temporary perhaps but at least we get the advantage of what they’re doing :-)

But then again as I said I’m new to this so perhaps I’m missing something.

Gordon

]]> By: Wonkie http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-120378 Wonkie Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:55:14 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-120378 Gordon.. it's generally pretty easy to spot a spam blog. If you check out the referring site and it's got your post replicated on it (i.e. duplicated, not simply referring to it or quoting part of it) it's likely a splog so don't approve the pingback. Maria, I've checked with google since your last message and splogging can influence your google pagerank in a number of ways besides just the link juice element. Search engines do not like duplicate content and these splogs duplicating your content can cause issues with indexing your original work properly with SEs. If you find the same blogs pinging you on certain keywords and duplicating your entire post as I've spotted on my cartoon blog, I suggest you write to the blog owner and tell him not to do it. Failing that, and I have done this a couple of times already too, report them to google with details (Google have a DCMA section that addresses copyright infringement issues particularly for this kind of thing) Cheers Pratish Gordon.. it’s generally pretty easy to spot a spam blog. If you check out the referring site and it’s got your post replicated on it (i.e. duplicated, not simply referring to it or quoting part of it) it’s likely a splog so don’t approve the pingback.

Maria, I’ve checked with google since your last message and splogging can influence your google pagerank in a number of ways besides just the link juice element. Search engines do not like duplicate content and these splogs duplicating your content can cause issues with indexing your original work properly with SEs. If you find the same blogs pinging you on certain keywords and duplicating your entire post as I’ve spotted on my cartoon blog, I suggest you write to the blog owner and tell him not to do it. Failing that, and I have done this a couple of times already too, report them to google with details (Google have a DCMA section that addresses copyright infringement issues particularly for this kind of thing)

Cheers
Pratish

]]> By: Maria Langer http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-120375 Maria Langer Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:56:55 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-120375 The pingbacks are likely just what you think: someone's attempt to pump up their Google juice. Do you check the URLs for these pingbacks? Do they have anything at all to do with your blog post? Or are they simply spam sites sucking content off your site with a link back? If they're not legit, don't approve them. The pingbacks are likely just what you think: someone’s attempt to pump up their Google juice. Do you check the URLs for these pingbacks? Do they have anything at all to do with your blog post? Or are they simply spam sites sucking content off your site with a link back? If they’re not legit, don’t approve them.

]]> By: Gordon http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-120374 Gordon Sat, 13 Dec 2008 23:38:11 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-120374 Interesting article. I launched a couple of blogs a few months ago and now it seems I'm getting around 20 of these pingbacks (and the odd trackback) daily for each. I check out both to make sure they are legitimate but I've noticed the few I do approve that the link disappears off the wordpress dashboard the next day. I'm wondering if this is some kind of link spam whereby they make a pingback and when you accept it they immediately delete it so they have a one way link back to their site. Of course that improves their google position and does nothing for ours. I can't seem to find anything about it on wordpress and of course just being a beginning blogger I don't know enough about the system to make an informed decision. Any ideas? Gordon Interesting article. I launched a couple of blogs a few months ago and now it seems I’m getting around 20 of these pingbacks (and the odd trackback) daily for each. I check out both to make sure they are legitimate but I’ve noticed the few I do approve that the link disappears off the wordpress dashboard the next day.

I’m wondering if this is some kind of link spam whereby they make a pingback and when you accept it they immediately delete it so they have a one way link back to their site. Of course that improves their google position and does nothing for ours.

I can’t seem to find anything about it on wordpress and of course just being a beginning blogger I don’t know enough about the system to make an informed decision.

Any ideas?

Gordon

]]> By: Pratish http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-119851 Pratish Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:46:04 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-119851 Thanks for the tip - it took all of 1 week with my new venture to discover what splogging means which is pretty sad actually :( Found some random site had basically scraped the content from my site and posted it on theirs (along with a few dozen ads on either side of it!) I don't have much time to spend on SEO related stuff either -actually would much rather spend the time making cartoons for my site! Do you advertise your blog anywhere or have you just built up a loyal following over the years? Thanks for the tip – it took all of 1 week with my new venture to discover what splogging means which is pretty sad actually :( Found some random site had basically scraped the content from my site and posted it on theirs (along with a few dozen ads on either side of it!)

I don’t have much time to spend on SEO related stuff either -actually would much rather spend the time making cartoons for my site! Do you advertise your blog anywhere or have you just built up a loyal following over the years?

]]> By: Maria Langer http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-119832 Maria Langer Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:26:58 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-119832 Pratish, I'm not sure if I'm qualified to answer your question about Google and pingback spam. Frankly, I don't bother with all that SEO stuff. I just blog and earn page rank based on my content. I should make something clear here. If you delete a pingback that you think is spam, you are NOT removing the link on the other site to yours. You're just removing the reciprocating link in your comments list back to that site. So there's definitely no Google penalty for deleting pingback spam. I don't tolerate pingback spam here because of two reasons: (1) Most of the pingbacks are an illegal use of my own content in another blog (splogging). I can't stop the sploggers, but I can certainly stop pingbacks on my own site from linking back to theirs. (2) Other pingbacks are often a thinly veiled attempt to get a link on my site to another site. They're spam, plain and simple. Hope this helps. Good luck with your new blog! Pratish, I’m not sure if I’m qualified to answer your question about Google and pingback spam. Frankly, I don’t bother with all that SEO stuff. I just blog and earn page rank based on my content.

I should make something clear here. If you delete a pingback that you think is spam, you are NOT removing the link on the other site to yours. You’re just removing the reciprocating link in your comments list back to that site. So there’s definitely no Google penalty for deleting pingback spam.

I don’t tolerate pingback spam here because of two reasons:
(1) Most of the pingbacks are an illegal use of my own content in another blog (splogging). I can’t stop the sploggers, but I can certainly stop pingbacks on my own site from linking back to theirs.
(2) Other pingbacks are often a thinly veiled attempt to get a link on my site to another site. They’re spam, plain and simple.

Hope this helps. Good luck with your new blog!

]]> By: Pratish http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-119829 Pratish Mon, 03 Nov 2008 14:45:03 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-119829 I've just started my first blog called Wonkie (great now you've made me paranoid about leaving my blog link anywhere!) - in any case I would like to understand how pingback spam affects your site ranking on google for example. Probably a newbie question but I thought it's good to have other sites link to your blog? And would a spam pingback ever be visible to users of my site? (I can totally understand why I wouldn't want comment spam because that would make for horrible user experience but I'm not sure about the demerits of pingbacks) - thanks I’ve just started my first blog called Wonkie (great now you’ve made me paranoid about leaving my blog link anywhere!) – in any case I would like to understand how pingback spam affects your site ranking on google for example.

Probably a newbie question but I thought it’s good to have other sites link to your blog?

And would a spam pingback ever be visible to users of my site? (I can totally understand why I wouldn’t want comment spam because that would make for horrible user experience but I’m not sure about the demerits of pingbacks) – thanks

]]> By: Link Dump Sunday Series Volume One « randomoli http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-112886 Link Dump Sunday Series Volume One « randomoli Sun, 13 Jul 2008 06:06:43 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-112886 [...] Pingback Spam: A bit more technical here.  Pingback spam constitutes the majority of the spam we’ve received so far on randomoli.  Supposedly education is the best defense, so have a peek. [...] [...] Pingback Spam: A bit more technical here.  Pingback spam constitutes the majority of the spam we’ve received so far on randomoli.  Supposedly education is the best defense, so have a peek. [...]

]]> By: Maria Langer http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-39791 Maria Langer Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:04:55 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-39791 Yes, those are pingbacks, but they're from another site I manage, so they're legit. Any posts on this site that are of interest to WordPress users are also posted to that site. That site then pings this site if there are any links to this site in the post. There are two of them so you see two pingbacks. I'll probably leave them, since they do provide readers of the pinged posts with another source of information. Normally, my posts on this site would ping other posts on this site. But I installed software to disable that, since I often link to related posts here. Sounds confusing, but it's not once you get an idea of the relationship between the posts. Yes, those are pingbacks, but they’re from another site I manage, so they’re legit. Any posts on this site that are of interest to WordPress users are also posted to that site. That site then pings this site if there are any links to this site in the post. There are two of them so you see two pingbacks.

I’ll probably leave them, since they do provide readers of the pinged posts with another source of information.

Normally, my posts on this site would ping other posts on this site. But I installed software to disable that, since I often link to related posts here.

Sounds confusing, but it’s not once you get an idea of the relationship between the posts.

]]> By: Daryl http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/fighting-spam/#comment-39787 Daryl Thu, 12 Apr 2007 14:46:35 +0000 http://www.marialanger.com/2007/04/12/pingback-spam/#comment-39787 So then the first two comments listed on your sideboard as of 7:44 am MST are pingbacks? I hate this junk! Talk about a waste of all our time and bandwidth! And I like to waste time and bandwidth. So then the first two comments listed on your sideboard as of 7:44 am MST are pingbacks?

I hate this junk! Talk about a waste of all our time and bandwidth!

And I like to waste time and bandwidth.

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