Who Doesn’t Love Daegan Spam?
Or “Delete to Avoid a Google Penalty”

Fantastic! Someone thinks my post is fantastic!! See?

Daegan wrote a fantastic post today on “Dear John Reese: Are Tampon Sample â

Admittedly, the author is a bit muddled about my name, but they dropped me a link. Isn’t that exciting?! …Well….No. I know if I leave the trackback, my blog risks a Google penalty!

That trackback will soon link into a “bad neighborhood”. If you read further, you’ll discover why out-link to bad neighborhood’s could cause Google’s algorithm to suspect a blogger of posting paid links resulting in Google penalty!

But first: How to identify “Daegan Spam”:

1. A trackback will quote some of your post, nearly always attributing your words to someone else. I’ve been called “Daegan”, “AnnPlugged” and a variety of other names.
2. Often, the “Blog” consists of nothing but very, very short quotes. They don’t violate copyright and won’t cause you duplicate content issues. This may lead you to shrug it off and permit the trackback.
3. On some blogs — when the spam is fresh- the collection of links are sort of interesting.

   For example, today, a link lead me to a forum where someone advertised a LinkShield Link Protection, a service that will cloak affiliate links. That’s a type of product I might want to learn more about.

So, if you are aware of the danger, the spam is pretty easy to identify. Yet, it seems innocuous doesn’t it?

How could a link to that blog result in a Google penalty?

As the spammy trackback ages, the blog content becomes truly spammy. Idea Hustle, which originally left a trackback on my Duplicate Content Plugin, now redirects to a probably worthless paintball directory site, which could become anything in future.

If I leave this link in place and allow it to “follow”, I suspect I will soon be linking into into a site Google considers to fall in a “bad neighborhood”.

That’s bad for me because we know:

1. Google’s algorithm examines what we link to determine our trust and page ranks.
2. That paintball link look very spammy; after all, bloggers are often paid to link to these sorts of products.
3. Google has been penalizing even very good sites for anything Google considers or suspect to be a paid link.

So, clearly we need to keep links like that off our blogs — especially if we “dofollow”. Luckily, the solution is easy!

Send “Daegen Spam” to Akismet!

Sending these to Akismet gets it of my blog, and also protects all blogs from this sort of spam.

Better yet, even if I miss one or two of these, I never actually give these places a dofollow. Lucia’s Linky Love won’t give the follow until they drop at least 3 trackbacks. And after I get up date all my plugins (insert some cursing at WP here), I’m going to add a feature to LLL so I can periodically review sites that are currently “dofollowed”, that way, I can catch things retroactively. (I keep saying this… some day I’ll even do it! )

Tags:Spam trackback spam

Related Posts:

• Block Spammers From Your Trackbacks
• Pips Spam
• Blogrush Spam. . . Sigh. . .
• Thank You Spam!

Comments

Pips Spam

Look what I found in the Akismet bin “Big Bucks Blogger”:

Pips | [email protected] | pipsnet-technology.com | IP: 78.51.114.143
This is an interesting blog. I´m here for the second time and find every day new interesting details.

I also found it in in Akismet for “The Knitting Fiend”:

Pips | [email protected] | pipsnet-technology.com | IP: 78.51.114.143
This is an interesting blog. I´m here for the second time and find every day new interesting details.

Pips sure is an interesting name for a spammer who visits blogs twice.

When I searched “This is an interesting blog.” “time and find every day new interesting details”, I discovered that Pips has hit lots of interesting blogs.

If you’ve been hit, you may want to delete any comments left by “Pip” of “pipsnet-technology.com”. Or at least make them nofollow. Lucia’s Linky Love would would let you follow most your links, while nofollowing Pips. After all, he never visits three times.

Tags:Spam

Related Posts:

• Who Doesn't Love Daegan Spam? Or "Delete to Avoid a Google Penalty"
• Blogrush Spam. . . Sigh. . .
• Thank You Spam!
• Jessica Spam!

Comments

Blogrush Spam. . . Sigh. . .

I know everyone is sick of reading about Blogrush. I know Jill is going to puke if she reads one more story. Heck, I’m sick of reading about it

Still, I’ve got the widget up during the early periods because I’m curious about how Blogrush is panning out. I’ve decided that I’m going to click at least one link on the widget every day for a period of time. That way I can learn whether the blogs are generally targeted, good, bad, indifferent, sploggish or what - not.

So, naturally, if I see something odd or interesting, I’m writing about it. And today, I saw something “flavors” didn’t fix.

Likely through the magic of redirect, I learned about an “exciting” new ebook I can buy for $6.97. Buying it will also earn me the right to sell unlimited quantities for $6.97, earning 100% commission.

I guess Blogrush Spam was inevitable. Sigh. . .