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Went Hot: August 8, 2008 - 3:28 am
Posted By: annie7 117 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://seoroi.com)
Category: SEO
21 Comments
Went Hot: August 8, 2008 - 3:28 am
Posted By: annie7 117 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://seoroi.com)
Category: SEO
21 Comments
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Comments
Cool title.
Very interesting idea. I wonder how well it works, since people will gradually get more strict about their comment policies, which will render any such list pretty useless... especially if we are talking about blogs with high traffic...
That's the point - finding the people who don't have strict comment policies, automatically. Then come back with the real payload. Avoids showing your linkspam targets to report-minded admins as well.
Blog spam is years old - but someone is only just figuring out some of the methods and it's headline news??
And then people wonder why others are critical of Sphinn?
Hater :P. Did you even read the article? The point is about a new technique in comment spam.
Honestly, if you had to criticize noisy posts that are rehashing old stuff, I really think you're
1) Going after the wrong post
2) Going after the wrong author, as I intentionally don't promote those things I write which have limited value.
FYI, I care about Sphinn as much as anyone else here.
Brian, I do have a bit different approach to Sphinn. Sphinn is not all about news. It's also sharing experience and ideas. Not all people know as much as you do so far, and for many this is new too.
why not just go to a cooler SEO community where everyone is an expert, all the posts are unique and insightful, and there isn't any spam? lol
Using unique identifiers in comment spam has been around for literally years. Being submitted to Sphinn isn't surprising, but getting a string of votes is.
Does that mean Sphinn is run by newbies for newbies?
If so, how do you think that reflects on Sphinn's usefulness as a SEO resource?
You wouldn't believe how hard it is for me to hold back from being destructively negative about Sphinn - I'm trying to be more diplomatic here.
But posts such as this, and the astonishing news that links help with rankings, show why there really needs to be a process of editorial control at Sphinn - if it's going to have any real respect in the SEO community.
Just my 2c.
so why did you sphinn it ?
some people mistake sphinn for their private RSS reader
"But posts such as this, and the astonishing news that links help with rankings, show why there really needs to be a process of editorial control at Sphinn - if it's going to have any real respect in the SEO community."
Without a few thought leaders devoted to Sphinn, no matter how many newbies Sphinn attracts, the Sphinn community won't survive with its rep intact. Sure people will still submit stuff and vote stuff up but the level of conversation will be relatively low because there's not enough high-level content to keep jaded/experienced SEOs from exiting the conversation.
I'm not saying this post is bad or that Sphinn needs to cater only to the elite or that Sphinn can't be social. But its pointless to ignore an obvious problem. If Sphinn decided to build in personalization and filtering maybe that'll solve it - different people will see different posts on the front page. But Rob apparently thinks personalization isn't necessarily since there are cat nav links up top (which I hardly ever click on).
one's person basic level is another person's advanced level. This site is called "Internet Marketing News and Discussion Forum". Not "Advanced Internet Marketing News and Discussion Forum". Nobody is an absolute expert in all fields of SEM so some linking trick may be interesting and novel for 90% of the people may be yesterday news for Debra or for Wiep or some other linking expert.
There are a lot of posts that do not bring anything new to my table either, but I don't confuse my table with everyone else's table.
Brian, I was agreeing with you the other day about how that post saying links are important should not have gone hot. But I really don't feel you're being fair about this post being a rehash or something widely known. I spoke to experienced BHs about this post and they thought it might have been Google Bowling because of the mashable link ... going on to say that "comment spam is about MASS." I'm willing to bet that a majority of advanced SEOs would not know about 'unique identifiers' in comment spam as you put it.
Besides that, if the signal-to-noise is a problem that means so much to you, and you classify this as noise, desphinn it. Be my guest. But then also go ahead and be more regular with the desphinn on the what's new/hot-in-upcoming pages. And most importantly, why not contribute some original material here yourself?
But then, maybe you have a personal issue with me ... because a post talking about ... unheard of ever before ... content is king ... seemed to be fascinating to you: http://www.internetbusiness.co.uk/14072008/content-is-seo-lyndon/
The flip side is that you have covered topics no one's paid attention to that I can tell, like AdWords phishing:
http://www.internetbusiness.co.uk/27032008/google-adwords-targeted-in-phishing-attacks/
Yet neither you nor your friends decided to submit that to Sphinn. You wrote it up in March, and here I am submitting it in August. http://sphinn.com/story/64250 .
Signal-to-noise is the responsibility of everyone in the community, and you can do a lot more to up the ratio by participating positively and desphinning the average/rehashed stuff than by whining.
Note: I'm not knocking Lyndon there, just saying that particular post wasn't exactly new to anyone.
@iBrian a year ago you wouldn't need to run through all those hoops. Send out a massive barrage and see what worked. Now the filters are harder to get through and require newer methods.
Not saying this started last week, but a lot of people have never done a bunch of comment spamming and would maybe like to know how it's done.
"one's person basic level is another person's advanced level."
Yeah, obviously. The problem is Sphinn tries to please everyone and ends up only pleasing some people some of the time.
I see no problem with people submitting "basic level" material. That's all relative. It's not the responsibility of the blogger or submitter to read people's minds and figure iBrain or anyone else already know about this stuff. I didn't.
The problem is there's no easy way to filter out stuff I'm not interested in, like tips on blogging, Cuil, Stumbleupon, or whatever else. If Sphinn was personalized so that when I visit the front page I never see a single post about Cuil it wouldn't break my heart.
Footprint dropping is pretty old-school, the success rate is really low. Building more complex systems that niche topic target and bypass basic captchas first time is the best way to use comment spamming. Dropping footprints and submitting to footprinted pages is easily captured by Akismet etc.
@ Halfdeck - I like that suggestion; sounds worthwhile to me!
@ Rob/monkey - Didn't know that at all. But, glad to get a mini-tutorial on being a more effective spammer ;) lol.
@Gab - There's nothing personal at all intended - I hadn't even realised you were the author of the submission. If it sounds like I'm shooting the message, it's only that - I respect the messengers - yourself, Ann, and everyone on this thread even where difference of opinion exists.
"But then also go ahead and be more regular with the desphinn on the what's new/hot-in-upcoming pages. And most importantly, why not contribute some original material here yourself? "
It is a good point and what it really comes down to.
When Sphinn is good, it's a great point of reference - so I guess as a user I keep expecting to see the standard rise overall, and keep coming back to look.
I try not to be negative about Sphinn and refrain from outright bashing because I appreciate that it is a work in progress, and that tweaks have and are continually in development to improve the experience. Somethings that become popular just surprise me, though.
"content is king ... seemed to be fascinating to you"
Heh, when I first came to SEO in 2003 mainstream SEO didn't believe in link building - seriously. Everyone just claimed "content is king - build and they will come. Links aren't so important for Google". It's an old argument I spent a lot of time fighting against, and it still fascinates me. :)
Anyway, I'll chill a little here - I think the only point proven so far is that Sphinn has a diverse audience with diverse levels of learning. I'll try and take time to be a more positive contributor to the overall learning process.
We did talk at one time about an 'editor's choice' stream here, which was a great idea (although more work for Rob or Danny). That kind of filter would add a lot of value to Sphinn. The more experienced marketers can them set that URL to be their home page and stop being bugged by the recycled or basic information.
That idea still has merit. :)
Going back to the original post - a basic quick tip as I don't have time to blog a detailed post today - just as comment spammers use unique identifiers to see where their spam is being published, you can use this method for tracking content and links from your own publishing.
Adding a unique alphanumeric reference to syndicated content, such as press releases, articles, and Creative Commons content means you can avoid complex search operators and simply search the unique reference to see where the content is being republished, and track what potential benefits you may be getting in terms of links from these.
Additionally, if you suspect your blog content is being republished, add a link in the Wordpress template to always be published at the foot of your blog posts, which contains anchor text to a specific page of your site using a keyword combination you neither use, nor expect to be used by third-parties linking naturally. That allows an easy way to track your site work in Google, gain potential extra link benefits from content theft, and/or take copyright action against unauthorised publishing as required. :)
@Nick - Funny, I've been trying to email you as I'm looking to get the Z-list newsletter started again and was hoping you'd be an editor. The principle is the same - take submissions from non-A-listers, filter through experienced editors, pass on to A-listers who pledge to at least read the posts and consider linking... email me: moc (tod) niamod ym ta bag
"The principle is the same - take submissions from non-A-listers, filter through experienced editors"
I don't dislike the idea but I prefer an automated filtering mechanism. Besides knowledge-level, we also have personal tastes to consider. For example some people are interested in PPP, some people aren't.
Filtering information through an editorial process via DMOZ also feels a little too old skool. It can't be that hard to implement. I'd be willing to help code it if people at Sphinn is interested in trying to implement it.