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How Do The Comment Spammers Find Blogs?

by Dan C. Rinnert
28 replies
Do they look for recently registered domain names and then check to see if WordPress is installed? Seems like a lot of work (or computer processing cycles) to find a place to spam.

I registered a domain name back in April 2009, I think. And set up a WordPress blog almost immediately. Never promoted or linked to the site from anywhere. Didn't have WordPress set to ping anything or any of that. I just set it up so I could work on the design.

It fell on the backburner, and it's been sitting there, design in place, but with the default WordPress content, for almost two years.

A short time after setting it up, I started receiving comment spam. It all went into moderation, of course, and none of them were ever approved.

Traffic has continued to grow. All from spammers, I imagine. Do they pass around lists of blogs to spam or something? Doesn't seem like mine would be a valuable one to waste time on, considering that, in almost two years time, the only approved comment is the WordPress default comment.

Just seems to me that spammers do a lot of work (automated though it may be) to just be lazy.

At any rate, I took down the WordPress site today, and redirected the domain to another site, which is where the content originally intended for that domain will be put. So, no more comment spam. Yay! The new site allows comments, but only by registered users, so the little spambots will be out of luck.
#blogs #comment #find #spammers
  • Profile picture of the author Shazia Mirza
    There are actually softwares that find these blogs like:

    Comment Kahuna and Comment Hut.

    Lol, your post is pretty funny.
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    • Profile picture of the author Michael Shook
      You can harvest blog urls with query on google. One of the price discrimination factors in buying the services of a blog spamming service is the size of their database of harvested blog URL's.

      They probably do not trade them around, I don't know that, but I would guess they do not.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
        But, how do any of those services find the blog, especially if it's not yet even been picked up by Google?
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        • Profile picture of the author Backlinks Weekend
          Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

          But, how do any of those services find the blog, especially if it's not yet even been picked up by Google?
          When you create a Wordpress blog, its ping mechanism has let Google know that your site is visible already, unless you select the option of not letting Google know when you first install your blog, there's no way that Google can't see you
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  • Profile picture of the author Gene Pimentel
    There are many tools to locate "commentable" blogs. Such as CommentHunt.com - Get Links from High Page Rank DoFollow Blogs
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonmorgan
    But, how do any of those services find the blog, especially if it's not yet even been picked up by Google?
    Google isn't the only search engine.

    And as the others said, it's completely automated. A combination of footprints, keywords etc... the ingenuity of mankind.
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    • Profile picture of the author Matt Morgan
      How Do The Comment Spammers Find Blogs?
      Why?

      are you thinking of becomming one?

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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by jasonmorgan View Post

      Google isn't the only search engine.

      And as the others said, it's completely automated. A combination of footprints, keywords etc... the ingenuity of mankind.
      No, but, at some point in the chain, someone must be checking WHOIS records for registrations, no? Because, if I never linked to the site or did anything to get it noticed, the only way I can see that it could be found is through the WHOIS record. Or DNS tables.
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      • Profile picture of the author Ken
        This method works for me when I want to comment on a related blog.
        Maybe it also works for spammers.:confused:

        bicycle:inurl:blog "leave a comment" -"comments closed" -"you must be logged in to comment" (860,000 results)
        This for do-follow blogs.

        If I didn't care about follow do-follow then a simpler term is used.
        "bicycle"+inurl:blog site: (5,140,000 results)

        I have no bicycle sites. Just replace bicycle with any term you wish
        to use.

        Ken

        PS: Just copy and paste into google to see the results for yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonmorgan
    No, but, at some point in the chain, someone must be checking WHOIS records for registrations, no? Because, if I never linked to the site or did anything to get it noticed, the only way I can see that it could be found is through the WHOIS record. Or DNS tables.
    Are you sure your site hasn't been found by a search engine? I've had sites that are picked up by SE's that are like yours, default Hello World and forgotten.

    The spamming tools aren't checking WHOIS or anything like that (as far as I know), it's mostly an automation of search operators, footprints and keywords. The same stuff most of us do through google directly. The only difference is something like scrapebox can run a massive search and save the list as a txt file.

    But who knows what those automation spam kids are up to these days. I can't keep up with them anymore and don't have much of an interest.

    But... I can't say I haven't been tempted to dust off the 'ol scrapebox and send out a personalized 'hello warrior forum' blast just to see how many of you I could hit.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by jasonmorgan View Post

      Are you sure your site hasn't been found by a search engine? I've had sites that are picked up by SE's that are like yours, default Hello World and forgotten.
      It's indexed currently, but I'm reasonably sure it wasn't when I started getting comment spam. And, if it was, it would have to have been the search engines finding it in the WHOIS records, or someone publishing a list of recently registered domains and the search engines finding that, or something.

      What I am sure of is that I didn't do anything to try to get it found. I mean, I have ways of getting something indexed in minutes, and I didn't do that here.

      It's just amazing that spammers can find and start abusing a site that isn't even complete or publicized and for which there is absolutely no value in trying to get a link.
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      Dan's content is irregularly read by handfuls of people. Join the elite few by reading his blog: dcrBlogs.com, following him on Twitter: dcrTweets.com or reading his fiction: dcrWrites.com but NOT by Clicking Here!

      Dan also writes content for hire, but you can't afford him anyway.
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    • Profile picture of the author dmpeterson
      On the bottom of WordPress Blogs is "Powered by WordPress"

      A simple google search will find your blog.
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      • Profile picture of the author Ken
        "powered by wordpress" is a useful phrase, but not all blogs are powered by wordpress.

        Ken

        Originally Posted by dmpeterson View Post

        On the bottom of WordPress Blogs is "Powered by WordPress"

        A simple google search will find your blog.
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        • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
          Originally Posted by Ken View Post

          "powered by wordpress" is a useful phrase, but not all blogs are powered by wordpress.

          Ken
          That's why there are LOTS of variations on the theme - wordpress is just one platform and you can find many others in similar ways.
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          nothing to see here.

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          • Profile picture of the author Ken
            Originally Posted by Andyhenry View Post

            That's why there are LOTS of variations on the theme - wordpress is just one platform and you can find many others in similar ways.
            Andy,

            That's why I posted an all encompassing blog search term above.

            Ken
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonmorgan
    It's just amazing that spammers can find and start abusing a site that isn't even complete or publicized and for which there is absolutely no value in trying to get a link.
    I hear ya, but it's all automated so they just hit the 'Go' button and resume playing XBOX.

    It's similar to the mentality of email spammers, a pure numbers game. Even if 5% of 10,000 sites spammed result in a backlink, it required very little work to get them.
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    • Profile picture of the author frankfihn
      All blogs have footprints unless you modify the source code and get rid of it. For instance...

      "Powered by Wordpress" + "Leave a comment" + keyword.

      See for yourself. There are tons of comment programs that will automate posting on your blog as well.
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    • Profile picture of the author James Clark
      Someone one sent me an email saying they were going to crack down on the spammers. Well I don't know how they find us, but they are a pain in the patootie!
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  • Profile picture of the author tpw
    Search "powered by wordpress" keyword, and it is often best to search RSS feeds...
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  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    It's easy.... There are lots of tools for doing this stuff - and as some people have said, if it's been indexed then a search on the relevant SE with the right parameters will find it.

    Take the WP footprint for example. You could do a manual search or just plug that into a tool and let it find them all for you.

    Or you could just find a site that spams blogs really quickly (like the ones finding you) and just let a tool find all the links they have and then filter them for blogs.

    It's really very easy. I'm not going to mention tools etc because I don't want to encourage people to do this.
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    nothing to see here.

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  • Profile picture of the author mondays
    platform code footprint!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    no escape
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    I CAN FUND YOUR IDEA IF I LIKE IT!!!

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  • Profile picture of the author nmh
    I don't have a problem with these tools finding blogs for those who want to post USEFUL COMMENTS!!!! My site got hit so much that I approve ALL members and look up who they are before I approve them. If they look 1/2 way sketchy, I delete them. If they email asking why, I have them provide me more proof. I have over 3,900 members! If get one complaint of a spammer that made it through with one click I can delete ALL of their content. I can't stand those rank packets or automated systems that do this and junk up your site with phony names and info answers to questions. Take the time and moderate your most important sites. AGAIN, if you are contributing GOOD INFO then find but most of the time it just link stuff. Those that junk it up will eventually ruin your ALEXA and GOOGLE score b/c the info on your site will be completely irrelevant to the topic of your site and it will not only turn off those that come b/c it looks like you don't keep up with it but also will over time put the words related to you keywords etc. all over the place. I have see this happen to a few people I know and they had to go back and rebuild.

    I hope this helps someone or anyone!!!
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

      It's indexed currently, but I'm reasonably sure it wasn't when I started getting comment spam. And, if it was, it would have to have been the search engines finding it in the WHOIS records, or someone publishing a list of recently registered domains and the search engines finding that, or something.

      What I am sure of is that I didn't do anything to try to get it found. I mean, I have ways of getting something indexed in minutes, and I didn't do that here.

      It's just amazing that spammers can find and start abusing a site that isn't even complete or publicized and for which there is absolutely no value in trying to get a link.
      Dan, I think you may have tipped the search engines off by putting up the blog. If I'm not mistaken, there's a default in the ping list field and pinging is on by default. If you changed a post at all, it would have pinged the default list. Now you're indexed.

      If you installed a Google sitemap, that could be another source.

      Once you're in the index, finding you is duck soup...
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      • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
        Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

        Dan, I think you may have tipped the search engines off by putting up the blog. If I'm not mistaken, there's a default in the ping list field and pinging is on by default. If you changed a post at all, it would have pinged the default list. Now you're indexed.

        If you installed a Google sitemap, that could be another source.
        I can't check now, because WordPress is already deleted and ancient history, but I am reasonably sure I turned all that off as one of the first things I did when I set up the site, because I did not want it found by search engines yet.

        And I didn't install a Google sitemap.

        At any rate, the comment spammers are out of luck now. Some hits on the registration page, but no submissions, so either they are not filling out the form or their bots are unable to do so. Ha ha! Score!
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        Dan's content is irregularly read by handfuls of people. Join the elite few by reading his blog: dcrBlogs.com, following him on Twitter: dcrTweets.com or reading his fiction: dcrWrites.com but NOT by Clicking Here!

        Dan also writes content for hire, but you can't afford him anyway.
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  • Profile picture of the author mriley08
    No WEB site is completely cutoff. There is always a link/data trail. Eventually, it will be found. The only way to prevent the Comment SPAM is to limit commenting capabilities. My bog is on Wordpress. I allow comments, but most of the spam ones are caught by Akismet.
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  • Profile picture of the author mello
    Between Akismet and wp-hashcash 99% of spam comments are caught. It's just a pain to have to wade through the volume and check if there's any genuine comments caught as well.

    If the comments are reasonable it may be ok to delete the links and approve the comment.

    Where they find how to target sites ... no idea. Just gotta protect and deal with the detritus!
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  • Profile picture of the author terrapurus
    There are multiple resources to find blogs. I will mention just one - google blog search. There are of course many others, but even Google will give you a blog search.
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