SE Spammer Revealed

Rorschach · 2005-07-01, 06:40 PM

No offence but IMHO you will struggle to make a dent...

All SE spammers work on the assumption that their shit's going to get banned sooner rather than later, and if you're smart then you'll build everything different so it's difficult to catch algorithmically... all those combined man hours of trying to report spam are nullified by running the script a few more times. It's a simple equation of money in vs. money out... time is not a factor for the spammer except for the development time of the scripts themselves, and the established spammer can afford to throw as many servers as is required at the problem. All you will do is turn a proportion of the small LL owners to the dark side by revealing black hat tricks of which they would otherwise be ignorant. Small LL owners and free site builders just cannot compete with the sheer volume of stuff, the tools, the high level of optimization or the volume of linking power that either spammers or more accomplished white hat SEOs can bring to the table. I should add that I have heaps of respect for the Penisbot/ Dangerdave style white hats with real volume, and I think that is an awesome business model, just not one that interests me... but there is no room in the world of SEs for the miniroller if you want to make real money... IMHO. The advantage of the group reporting system is that the big dog white hats get the little yappers to do their shit work for them.

Bill · 2005-07-01, 11:24 PM

There is some truth to that, BUT...

1. There is no market force to stop scriptspammers from pushing the button and adding even more pages to google.

The one thing that is absolutely certain, is that if we don't counterattack spam, spam will continue to grow and take money from our pockets.

2. By definition, every scripted spam network of 125,000 pages we knock out will increase the number of dollars in our pockets.

3. Google's new patent with it's ageing implications, if it is active, may level the playing field a bit, as may other changes in search technology.

Scripted "junk" content is an information problem that will be solved sooner or later.

4. It might warm the cockles of our hearts to be the ones putting the shaft to the spammers, as opposed to the alternative.

---

As far as I'm concerned, the primary issue here is the question of wether or not the spamreport can actually be effective.

It obviously _should_ be done, the question is _can_ it be done...

Rorschach · 2005-07-03, 06:36 PM

So can someone tell me why you don't think that sponsors should not accept perfectly legal traffic? For example, with the filehandler.biz guy's stuff - no laws are being broken, no mainstream surfers are being forced to look at porn, there's no blog/ wiki/ ref spamming, about the only thing he's guilty of is adding some hidden links to the bottom of the pages on his own site and using a content delivery method that the SEs themselves use. The guy isn't filling up the internet with hardcore free porn for minors to look at (except for the single hosted galleries to which he sends some of his traffic). In my view this is certainly no worse than expired domain traffic (with which a far greater proportion of mainstream surfers get sucked into looking at porn) and no one ever bitches about that.

Oh sorry, I forgot, he's "cheating honest webmasters."

SPAM = Site Positioned Above Mine

Bill · 2005-07-03, 07:33 PM

An old argument.

And the truth is many sponsors don't care a bit.

Many sponsors will just ignore such complaints.

But, it would be interesting to see what happens.

If just a few big sponsors decide that their long term interests are better served by avoiding se spam traffic, at least we would know those companies were a good choice for long term support.

I mention the sponsor thing only because any counterattack to spam would work best if you attacked on several fronts at once - and sponsors are one of the weak points that could be attacked.

I agree it is a weak tactic.

But some se spammers steal copy, so if we find stolen copy on a spam page, well, suddenly we have a stronger hand against the sponsor who is profiting from stolen copyrighted material.

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2005-07-01, 06:40 PM	#1
Rorschach Shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-tip! Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 115	No offence but IMHO you will struggle to make a dent... All SE spammers work on the assumption that their shit's going to get banned sooner rather than later, and if you're smart then you'll build everything different so it's difficult to catch algorithmically... all those combined man hours of trying to report spam are nullified by running the script a few more times. It's a simple equation of money in vs. money out... time is not a factor for the spammer except for the development time of the scripts themselves, and the established spammer can afford to throw as many servers as is required at the problem. All you will do is turn a proportion of the small LL owners to the dark side by revealing black hat tricks of which they would otherwise be ignorant. Small LL owners and free site builders just cannot compete with the sheer volume of stuff, the tools, the high level of optimization or the volume of linking power that either spammers or more accomplished white hat SEOs can bring to the table. I should add that I have heaps of respect for the Penisbot/ Dangerdave style white hats with real volume, and I think that is an awesome business model, just not one that interests me... but there is no room in the world of SEs for the miniroller if you want to make real money... IMHO. The advantage of the group reporting system is that the big dog white hats get the little yappers to do their shit work for them.

2005-07-01, 11:24 PM	#2
Bill Selling porn allows me to stay in a constant state of Bliss - ain't that a trip! Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 3,914	There is some truth to that, BUT... 1. There is no market force to stop scriptspammers from pushing the button and adding even more pages to google. The one thing that is absolutely certain, is that if we don't counterattack spam, spam will continue to grow and take money from our pockets. 2. By definition, every scripted spam network of 125,000 pages we knock out will increase the number of dollars in our pockets. 3. Google's new patent with it's ageing implications, if it is active, may level the playing field a bit, as may other changes in search technology. Scripted "junk" content is an information problem that will be solved sooner or later. 4. It might warm the cockles of our hearts to be the ones putting the shaft to the spammers, as opposed to the alternative. --- As far as I'm concerned, the primary issue here is the question of wether or not the spamreport can actually be effective. It obviously _should_ be done, the question is _can_ it be done...

2005-07-03, 06:36 PM	#3
Rorschach Shut up brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-tip! Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 115	So can someone tell me why you don't think that sponsors should not accept perfectly legal traffic? For example, with the filehandler.biz guy's stuff - no laws are being broken, no mainstream surfers are being forced to look at porn, there's no blog/ wiki/ ref spamming, about the only thing he's guilty of is adding some hidden links to the bottom of the pages on his own site and using a content delivery method that the SEs themselves use. The guy isn't filling up the internet with hardcore free porn for minors to look at (except for the single hosted galleries to which he sends some of his traffic). In my view this is certainly no worse than expired domain traffic (with which a far greater proportion of mainstream surfers get sucked into looking at porn) and no one ever bitches about that. Oh sorry, I forgot, he's "cheating honest webmasters." SPAM = Site Positioned Above Mine

2005-07-03, 07:33 PM	#4
Bill Selling porn allows me to stay in a constant state of Bliss - ain't that a trip! Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 3,914	An old argument. And the truth is many sponsors don't care a bit. Many sponsors will just ignore such complaints. But, it would be interesting to see what happens. If just a few big sponsors decide that their long term interests are better served by avoiding se spam traffic, at least we would know those companies were a good choice for long term support. I mention the sponsor thing only because any counterattack to spam would work best if you attacked on several fronts at once - and sponsors are one of the weak points that could be attacked. I agree it is a weak tactic. But some se spammers steal copy, so if we find stolen copy on a spam page, well, suddenly we have a stronger hand against the sponsor who is profiting from stolen copyrighted material.