For the last week or so, I’ve noticed that I get the odd site linking to me that has nothing at all to do with the subject or tone of my blog. I guess link-spamming has been happening for a while and I’ve just been lucky so far.
Since I don’t actually display those that link to me, it probably doesn’t matter; on the other hand, it means that things like technorati rankings become less valuable as a result (unless technorati have some means of discounting such stuff).
I realise that any attempt to constrain or muzzle linking goes against the heart of what the internet is about: we should always ensure that anyone can set up a site and then link to other sites.
So I’m not looking for a solution to the problem; I’m just wondering whether this is common or whether we are seeing something new. My hunch is that link-spamming is more expensive than e-mail or comment spamming, since there has to be a site and a host; my hope is that these sites are fly-by-night and disappear as quickly as they arrive; I’d love to know what others think.
Popularity: 1% [?]
I have some trouble on my Remote Access blog that usually seems to be targetted against a few posts. About a year ago I wrote something called “mp3 players in the classroom” and this still gets hits from web companies selling online music, ringtones, etc. The blogs of my students get hammered with this, but thankfully no porn sites, viagra being the most raunchy they get; which is bad enough on the blog of a 13 – 14 year old kid….. Mind you….They sometimes think it is hilarious.
Thanks Clarence. I think I got a few in similar vein because I was talking about downloads some months ago. What I can’t figure out is the “trigger word or words” I used last week to get the new link spam….. what you’re beginning to confirm to me is that link spam tends to be driven by keywords, even if I don’t use the keywords as tags. Interesting.
What you raise about your students and their blogs leads me to a different problem. My 14-year old son has just started blogging, and he’s really enjoying it. It’s mainly on photography. I wouldn’t want him exposed to some of the garbage that comes my way in comment form, and more recently in link form. So I need to figure out how to solve this in a least-intrusive way.
JP,
great business idea!!
lets build an anti-linkspam software, give it away to bloggers, get to critical mass and then sell it to Symantec :)
There’s a few wordpress plugins to assist with the blocking of this ever increasing nuisance. take a look at Spam Plugins for a list of plugins.
Hey Bobby, looks like the anti-spam aid to bloggers has been done. Should we build a Scobleizer replacement instead? :-)
Comment spam means one more thing to check on your web site, even if you don’t have a comment form. I’m seeing comment spammers abusing scripts that can be tricked into throwing off an HTTP redirect:
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/blosxom/www/goodbye-scripts.html
Thanks everyone. My comment spam seems to work well enough. Link spam is new to me, and I will learn.