SPAMMERS are great for keyword research! Do you own a forum or blogs?!

[Adam Roy]

I run a vbulletin forum. A pretty darn popular and constantly growing community.

One thing my moderator and I have to do constantly...is delete and ban users who sign up and add links to their homepage field and signatures.

(Most of these accounts created with bots/software. I'm sure of this because the profile fields are all filled out very similar, bio: man, interests:nicaragua, occupation:nicaragua, homepage: freespamlinks.info)

We get about 5-10 of these ridiculous, automated accounts created every day. (still can't figure a way to dissallow the homepage option in profiles. However, I do require 2 posts before using a signature)

If you run a forum, I'm sure you know what I mean.

But recently I thought to myself, wow...all these spammers are trying to rank for a keyword, which is usually an exact match to the domain they spam on the forum.

Man am I getting some great keyword ideas before I delete these freaks!

For example, someone just signed up as plumighihesk or something like that.

They were trying to sneak a backlink to the site, industrialcoffeemachines.info

Sure enough, 'industrial coffee machines' is a great keyword!

The same thing goes for just about all of my wordpress blogs. (I have many)

All the spammers who try to leave irrelevant comments on blogs, actually can provide some great keyword ideas!

Another good keyword was 'antique tin toys' which is also a great keyword to target.

Anyone else get some good keyword ideas from the spammers who abuse our sites?!

Take the time to see what they're trying to backlink to...It might just give you a brilliant idea.

[activetrader]

OMG! This is great! I've never thought of it but from now on I will be sure to pay attention!

[Adam Roy]

Originally Posted by activetrader

OMG! This is great! I've never thought of it but from now on I will be sure to pay attention!

Haha yea. And if they are ranking for the term in their domain...Well, that just goes to show spamming does work lol.

[David Bleidt]

yea the idea is quite good but I wouldn't suggest to go for the exact same keyword because you see that you have at least one competitor doing his work. But it is quite good to get some niche ideas.

David

[Zeb]

LOL...The site industrialcoffeemachines.info is just waiting to get banned big time by adsense. It has a huge click me (sort of) picture beside it's adsense ad.

[David Bleidt]

great website really ^^ I checked the keyword and it has ~720 searches per month so I don't think he will lose a money stream

David

[Zeb]

Originally Posted by David Bleidt

great website really ^^ I checked the keyword and it has ~720 searches per month so I don't think he will lose a money stream

David

Yea but what if he's making alot from adsense from other sites combined?
It will jeopardize his whole adsense account. Adsense doesn't allow pics next to it's ads. Especially huge "click on the ads" pic

[David Bleidt]

Originally Posted by Zeb

Yea but what if he's making alot from adsense from other sites combined?
It will jeopardize his whole adsense account. Adsense doesn't allow pics next to it's ads. Especially huge "click on the ads" pic

yea I know but do you really think he earns much money by adsense without knowing that what he is doing against the adsense TOS?

David

[EagleImagery]

Great idea about 'intelligence gathering'. Might just do that.

[Canonical]

This is a great idea. I should probably be checking all of the spam blog post that Akismet is trashing when looking for new niche's to delve into.

[Tom Goodwin]

Originally Posted by friend

But recently I thought to myself, wow...all these spammers are trying to rank for a keyword, which is usually an exact match to the domain they spam on the forum.

Are you saying that the majority only link to exact keyword match domains? Or do you simply mean that they are trying to rank for the keyword they are using for an anchor text (which obviously makes a lot of sense).

Does it happen? sure, but I would highly doubt that would be a majority.

[Kael41]

I like to actually reverse engineer their posting patterns. You never know what kind of authority site that they're able to post to that YOU can piggy back off of them...
EDU blogs, forums, gov't sites, etc.

[Adam Roy]

Originally Posted by Zeb

LOL...The site industrialcoffeemachines.info is just waiting to get banned big time by adsense. It has a huge click me (sort of) picture beside it's adsense ad.

Wow you're right. Didn't even notice that at first glance.

Not a very smart marketer, that guy.

[yukon]

Lol, you don't have to own a forum/blog to see what anchor-text backlinks others are trying rank for.

Man am I getting some great keyword ideas before I delete these freaks!

What you see as spam on your forum, I see the same thing in your Sig. on this forum, does that make you a freak?

Your getting a free backlink.

If you don't like someone posting a backlink on your forum then why do you have your forum setup to allow any backlinks at all?

Also, grabbing keywords from anchor-text isn't the best idea unless you do your own research for those keywords, as far as you know the guy posting the backlink may not have done any keyword research of his own.

[Adam Roy]

Umm...I believe there is a big difference between me, my sig, and spamming.

Do you know what spamming is exactly?

[yukon]

Originally Posted by friend

Umm...I believe there is a big difference between me, my sig, and spamming.

Do you know what spamming is exactly?

Tell us what the difference is.

Your getting a free backlink that benefits you in some way, otherwise you wouldn't have the Sig./backlink.

You allow backlinks on your site/forum then complain when a backlink is posted, that doesn't make much sense to me.

You have complete control over your sites source code, so why do you waste time deleting accounts rather than to not allow a backlink in the first place, looks counterproductive to me.

Edit one line of code or consistently deleting accounts? I pick the code edit.

[Adam Roy]

You're ridiculous.

I push a button, send 1000 links out promoting my buyviagra.com site, automatically posting and creating accounts...no matter what the sites are. THAT IS SPAM. Obviously. If you disagree with that, I don't know how to communicate with you.

If I participate in a forum, and include a link in my sig because i'm a contributing member, THAT IS NOT SPAM.

If I use a piece of software, and send out 1,000 blog comments about my buyviagra.com website...THAT IS SPAM

If I make a relevant, contributive comment on a blog, THAT IS NOT SPAM.

Do you not understand the difference between spam and non-spam yet?

What world are you from?

[deloriagod]

This is actually a good idea. I might have to go through a bunch of my old spam comments and see if anyone left me some good ideas. I'm thinking the "girls peeing on things" spam I've been getting lately isn't going to be a top of the line idea though lol

[yukon]

With all that work how do you still find time to do anything else?

Again, why do you keep allowing backlinks on your site If so many thousands of bogus profiles are being built?

Looks like wasted time to me. Whatever works for.

Good luck...

[Adam Roy]

Originally Posted by yukon

With all that work how do you still find time to do anything else?

Again, why do you keep allowing backlinks on your site If so many thousands of bogus profiles are being built?

Looks like wasted time to me. Whatever works for.

Good luck...

Because people who ARE NOT SPAMMERS...I do not mind that they leave a backlink...Obviously.

Have a good one.

[tryinhere]

I spend day and night deleting the crap, they are worse than vermin, and I don't care what they are linking to, they are relentless and non caring, the good thing is i don't care as well, & just wipe them out / most of it paid to post spam by these so called seo people peddling forum link posts.

[Dellco]

Running a Dofollow blog with PR also gets you these same "side benefits" as a forum, lol. Especially if your blog ends up on one of those DoFollow lists that are passed around.

Every day you will get all kinds of comments and to be honest, most of the sites they link to, would classify as "spammy." I would say 90-95%...of the lot.

[Adam Roy]

Originally Posted by tryinhere

I spend day and night deleting the crap, they are worse than vermin, and I don't care what they are linking to, they are relentless and non caring, the good thing is i don't care as well, & just wipe them out / most of it paid to post spam by these so called seo people peddling forum link posts.

It really is obnoxious. I really...really hope that Google has a good 'footprint' detector of some sort.

I'm sure they do, but good god it's so persistant...that it's literally become a daily chore.

Which is why I have moderators

[jesda]

spammer are really clever in selecting keyword before they spamming so this is the value gem if you could use it nicely.