Tag Archives: WOT

S Is For Spam Comments

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Spam is just something that we have learned to live with these days, but no matter where you look, whether it’s your email Inbox, Blogs or Blog Posts, or even Comments left on Blog Posts, there it is – spam spam spam!

Learning to deal with Spam is something that all bloggers are having to come to terms with, and for the most part it doesn’t take any effort, however you do not want to approve any spam comments, as this provides the spammers with backlinks to their sites, and adds to their value, rather than taking away from it.

Fortunately if you use blogging software like WordPress, there is an excellent plugin called Akismet, which continually adapts to spam, and does manage to catch 99% of the spam comments.   Unfortunately it also on occasion traps genuine comments, and site owners ought to check their spam comment lists regularly to make sure that there are no genuine ones that add value to the blog showing as spam.

How To Identify Spam Comments? 

This is really very easy 99% of the time.  Comments consist of 3 parts – the senders Email Address, Web Page (optional) and Comment.  Spam comments usually have an odd email address, or a web page that is trying to sell something, or the comment does not relate to the article which the comment is left on.   Often the comment is gibberish or is stuffed with keywords, and sometimes it’s huge, containing 50+ links to a spam website.

This month I have noticed a new trend on this blog, and this is undoubtedly a new tactic that the spammers are using to try and get comments approved.

Look at the image below (you can click on it if necessary to see a larger version.

Spam Comments

Spam filters like Akismet often flag comments from addresses that the blog is not familiar with as Pending, until you have approved several of their comments that is, and then following comments from them will be automatically approved.

These comments in the image are ALL SPAM, however Akismet did not identify them as such, and do you know why?   Look at the web sites that they are linking to… Bing, Yahoo… both well rated web sites.

However, look at the comment text, and every single one is full of mis-spellings, probably deliberate, who knows, and they do not relate to the articles.

If you were to approve comments like these, then the next time a comment arrives from that IP Address or Email Address, it will be automatically approved.  Now that is something that none of us want to happen is it!

Some Spam Comments are actually really funny when you read them, and this inspired me to make a collection of the best, and the result is my Funny Spam Comments lens on Squidoo.

Finally, before I allow you to leave… if you are really fed up with Spam and all the scam websites that these comments are promoting, there are ways that you can Fight Back At Spam. 

Their websites only get traffic and trick people into making purchases, for good that are invariably fake, or just never arrive, if the visitor does not realize that they are accessing a dubious site.

There is an Add-On for all the major browsers (including MSIE) called Web Of Trust (or WOT for short), and this shows a Green Circle against any website that is trustworthy, and a Red Circle against those that are not.   If you try to access a dubious site, it presents you with a warning screen, prior to displaying a dubious page, so that visitors can be warned of potential dangers.

What you can do is to (a) Install the WOT plugin yourself, (b) make sure your friends know about it, and if you come across any dubious sites, Rate Them in WOT to let others know.  This information and more can be found at Fight Back At Spam on Squidoo.

I hope this information proved useful, and helps you in the fight against spam.  The one thing I have found from participating in this April Blogging Challenge is that the number of comments that have been trapped by the spam filtering has increased dramatically. 

If it’s been happening on my blog, it’s likely to be happening on yours too.  I hope that you too will take a stand and join in the fight to battle the spammers.  If so, don’t just delete spam comments, rate their web sites down, or if nothing else, make sure that your friends are equipped with tools like Web Of Trust so that they know to not visit spam web sites.

2011 Brings New Waves Of Link Spam – Use WOT To Help Pay It Back

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This article was previously published on Associated Content.

Almost everyone who has a blog or web site these days, who writes articles or creates pages on sites like Squidoo etc, will be familiar with what is commonly called Link Spamming.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, I am sure you have seen comments on articles that advertise shopping sites, where to get Viagra, get rich quick schemes or dating sites etc.   These comments are almost always completely unrelated to the content of the original article, and the creators try to get backlinks to them by adding them to Guestbooks and Comment boxes wherever they can.

This is Link Spam!

Link Spam used to be an irritating problem until several years ago, however now there are at least several Chinese consortiums who are doing this on a large scale, as well as all the other people that are spamming across the internet. 

These consortiums are registering hundreds of domains selling fake goods, or phishing for personal information, and they use a combination of automated scripts and peons to add the same junk comments to articles on articles and blogs by their thousand.

The problem is a two-fold one.   Firstly, these sites are unreliable, usually selling fake goods, but very often taking the customer’s money and then they never see anything in return.   Secondly, the spam comments are becoming a plague, destroying the integrity of guestbooks and article comments, and on sites where the author can delete these, they are taking a lot of time to manage.

There are, however, ways in which you can both frustrate the originators of these link spam comments, and also help to safeguard unsuspecting online shoppers who are potential targets for these villains and who are naive enough to fall prey to their sites.

FIGHTING BACK AT LINK SPAMMERS

You may have heard of WOT or Web Of Trust, which is a Plugin that can be used in any web browser.

If you have WOT installed in your browser, it warns you of any web site that you try to visit which is a threat, whether it contains a virus, hacking scripts, or attempts to phish for information.

This is a very useful tool to have, and if you are doing for example a search in Google, it shows the rating for each site that is displayed, so you know which ones to not click on.

As a member of WOT (free to join), you can also rate web sites and add comments to highlight why they are good or bad.

As well as deleting (if possible) any comments that have been left on your articles, you now have the power to rate the web sites that the spammers left in their comments as being promoted using Link Spam and to give them a low rating.

Now, if you or anyone else tries to visit that site, WOT will warn them that is has been rated as unsafe, and to access it at their own risk.

PROTECTING SHOPPERS FROM ONLINE FRAUD

One of the best things that you can do to protect the unwary internet novice is to get them to install the WOT plugin in their browser.

You can do this by emailing the address for Web Of Trust to your friends, or even better email them a copy of this article.

You can also share this article on Social Networking sites such as Facebook, My Space etc, to help warn your friends about these web sites and to advise them to install the WOT plugin.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU FIND A LINK SPAM SITE

The first thing to do is to visit the site, to see if it has already been rated as Spam or Unsafe by WOT.  

If if has not yet been rated, it’s important to give it a rating to warn future visitors.   Even if it has been rated previously, the rating is given more credence if you also rate it, and add a comment to say why you are rating it that way.

Another thing that you can do is to add the link spam site to the list of sites that spam at Fight Back At Spam which is a lens on Squidoo.   For anyone who has a few minutes to spare, it’s a good idea to visit each of the sites that has been listed on this lens, and to rate it as being promoted using link spam.   This way, the sites that spam are given more powerful spam ratings, which reduces their ability to sell their wears and to trick innocent people out of their money.

THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO FIGHT BACK AT SPAM

If you want to do your bit to help stop the spread of link spam and to reduce their ability to profit from the innocent, don’t forget to:

  • Install the WOT plugin in your browser
  • Rate spam sites as unsafe in WOT
  • Add spam sites to the list at Fight Back At Spam
  • Tell your friends about WOT to protect them
  • Share this article on Facebook or other social networks

Let’s all be safe out there in the cyber world, and do our bit to help others stay safe too.

See Also:

Web Of Trust

Fight Back At Spam

Web Of Trust – How To Protect Yourself Against Malicious Web Sites

Article Summary 31st May 2010

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This is a list of articles that I have written on Associated Content in the last week, I hope you will take a look at them and also enjoy them.

I write on a number of topics, usually it depends on what comes into my head on any given day, so it could be a travel story, memoirs from my life, something from the daily news, or even a poem inspired by something.

This is what I have published in the last week, enjoy:

If you enjoy my writings, poetry and photographs, why not register with Associated Content, and then you can get an email every time I publish something.

Now that I am back writing I already have a number of additional articles published.  You can also Click Here to see my latest articles, rather than wait for the next summary posting.