Saturday, August 20, 2005

(Insert Uncharitable Adjective Here) Spammers!

I'VE RETURNED THINGS BACK TO NORMAL.

IF I START GETTING LOTS OF THESE (HAD ABOUT 12 YESTERDAY) I"M NOT SURE WHAT I'M GOING TO DO


My comments box is being spammed.

7 Comments:

Blogger Susan Rose Francois, CSJP said...

My spam problem goes in phases. So far, I've found that a vigilant deleting on the day of the attack makes them go away for a good while. There are so many other unsuspecting blogs to attack I suppose.

But don't you wonder what motivates them? Do random adds left as a blog comment really prove effective? You wouldn't think so.

11:51 AM  
Blogger Mark Mossa, SJ said...

I can't imagine it has any effect beyond being a nuisance to the person whose blog it is. I don't see anyone rejoicing at finding in my comments box just what they were looking for for their thinning hair (or other problems)! Hopefully they will realize its not worth the effort.

1:02 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's not that they think you will click on the ads. They do it in order to increase their Google rankings. Google ranks based upon the number of links that a website has back to itself, so the more people linking to, for instance, your blog, the higher your ranking in Google and the more likely that your site will pop up on the first page of search results for the word, "Jesuit", just as an example :)

3:31 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I should probably clarify. If they can fill 100s of blog comments with links, then they can make it look like all these sites are linking to their site and and improve their google rankings. Unfortunately, the google robot doesnt' detect if you've voluntarily linked to them. It's only looking for and counting the links. Basically, spam-bots are all google's fault. Heh.

3:34 PM  
Blogger Mark Mossa, SJ said...

Doesn't Google own Blogger?

Maybe they could do something about it then?

5:39 PM  
Blogger Christopher Blosser said...

Google should give bloggers the ability to ban IP addresses (individual or range) -- that's why I still use HaloScan as a commenting system. It's not a completely effective device -- since spammers can hijack somebody else's IP -- but if you notice comments coming from the same IP, you can effectively block it at its source.

7:04 PM  
Blogger Kathryn Judson said...

Help is available.

I just found out today that Blogger has added a "word verification" option to the comments settings. It makes commenters type out a word that shows up in skewed letters that a machine can't read. I added it to my blog today and have my fingers crossed that it will help. (It sure seems like it should.)

12:49 AM  

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