What's the point of spam bots & comments?

8 replies
I, as most of you guys here, have to deal with tens of spam comments every day. Some of the comments might be even slightly related ( and still annoying because hitting the spam takes a bit longer with these), but for these, I can understand the purpose. Maybe get some traffic, maybe get some link juice ( though most comments today are No-Follow).
But as for the totally unrelated spam bots running around, these I can't understand. It might have been adding some link value a couple of years back, but now, these are more harming than helpful. So why are they still around? Who activates them? What's the value they seek in it?
#bots #comments #point #spam
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by IMPromocoder View Post

    It might have been adding some link value a couple of years back
    It didn't, really. Not even then. (Five years ago, possibly.)

    Two years ago they were idiotic nonsense, just like they are now (albeit that now, post-Penguin, they're more "actively dangerous"). But if you said so then, openly, here (as I did, at the time ) all that happened was that you caused great hostility and resentment. :p

    Originally Posted by IMPromocoder View Post

    but now, these are more harming than helpful.
    Definitely.

    Originally Posted by IMPromocoder View Post

    So why are they still around?
    There are still people misguided enough to buy them, and to buy services based on them. Fiverr has plenty of people selling services based on them. There are even some still for sale here - and they get customers, too. A lot of the difficulties that people have arise from the fact that they get their "information" from the people selling/promoting services to internet marketers, and the potential customers - through no great fault of their own - lack the judgement and experience to distinguish between myth and reality. Just as we all did, at least to some extent, when we started.

    http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...ml#post6021235

    http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...d-tactics.html
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  • Profile picture of the author mindwire
    Agreeing with previous poster.
    Just the fact that those spammy do not provide any worth for your site does not keep people from promoting it as such.
    People buying those services or gigs mostly have no idea from SEO, so there will always be a market.
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  • Profile picture of the author merezza
    From what I've seen on my own properties, it's almost always the same pharma type links being caught in my Askimet plugin. I'm guessing that it's a combination of people who don't know any better jumping on the pharma bandwagon and also the fact that a lot of whiter-hat linkbuilding services won't take pharma links.
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  • Profile picture of the author sethczerepak
    Believe it or not, some people still think that crap works.

    And considering...

    The Flat Earth Society

    ...I wouldn't be surprised if that nonsense goes on for years.
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  • Profile picture of the author IMPromocoder
    Just makes no sense to me. People are intentionally selling HARMING services. Not placebo but actually harming, and on the other hand customers not only should feel unaffected, but they should actually feel a hit in rankings. So, shouldn't the word spread? This is something that wastes so much resources - time, efforts, money (both clients and bloggers) and in the end everybody lose (besides the bots providers).
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by IMPromocoder View Post

      People are intentionally selling HARMING
      "Intentionally selling", yes.

      Not always "intentionally harming", perhaps: I suspect that some of them really are themselves gullible and/or ill-informed enough not to understand that. Doubtless many more "just don't care, either way" and don't think about it at all.

      Originally Posted by IMPromocoder View Post

      So, shouldn't the word spread?

      It does, but very slowly.

      The voice of vested interests and prejudice are often louder and more widespread than the voice of logic and reason.

      But it does, eventually, spread.

      An analogy: three years ago, whenever an experienced, successful article marketer pointed out here that "spinning" articles was complete nonsense, based only on a fundamental misunderstanding, and an alleged solution to a "problem" that didn't actually exist, s/he was outnumbered and outvoiced by ten people promoting spinning services. In those same threads now, there'll be ten experienced, successful marketers pointing out those same realities, and only one lone voice promoting a spinning service in his sig-file raising a stupid, ill-informed argument about "spinning" (which almost everyone will see for what it is, and ignore, anyway). The climate has dramatically changed, on that point. But it took three years to happen.
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      • Profile picture of the author so11
        Most of the time the purpose of these messages (that dont make any sense) isn't SPAM. Its automated tools/scripts that probing your Web forms for security flaws...

        If you see these messages, you should really rethink your security baseline, because something might be missing (ex. CAPTCHA, authentication, validation, etc.)

        good luck.
        Signature
        www.groupesoloviev.com
        We help businesses manage cyber risk and compliance requirements.
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      • Profile picture of the author R. Shawner
        I agree with most of the above, however there is a reason why people continue to do it: It flat out works if done in the "right" way, even post panda/penguin.

        How do I know that? From my own testing and numbers which you should always rely on, not some advice that link sellers are hammering into your head with their own interests in mind. The same goes for "anti-link sellers".

        However, I'm not saying you should do it, nor that it's ethical, nor that it's an evergreen strategy in terms of rank improvement or sustainability. Thats why personally, I don't use it alot since there are more effective ways to achieve better rankings.

        If you want to see the positive: Your blogs are a good enough target to spam, so you must be doing something right. ;-)
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