Guys, be on the lookout for this when replying to threads...

As many of you, I've noticed a lot more spam going on here at the WF over the past week or so... no doubt due to the WF going back to the "free" membership model. This thread isn't for debating free vs paid membership though - I'm sure Allen & crew have good reasons for whatever they do.

What this thread is for, is to give you guys a quick heads up about a couple popular spammer tricks, and how to nip them in the bud (and a lot of you here will already be wise to this, but many of the newer members may not be).

A lot of times a spammer will start a thread asking what sounds like a legitimate question... but the thread title, post body, and sig text will all be "keyword optimized" (for SEO purposes), and meant strictly to get a backlink to their site via the hyperlink in their sig.

For example, I've seen a handful of threads started in the web design section lately from brand new members that will ask a generic question, like "hey guys, can you tell me where I can get a good website designed for cheap?".

And then several members will post an answer, not realizing that the OP's sig contains a keyword-optimized hyperlink for... you guessed it... a web design company! (either theirs or their "clients").

Or a new member will ask... "hey guys, can anyone recommend a good course about X?".... and then they'll have a link in their sig to their sales page or squeeze page that... surprise surprise... features a course about X.

And in either scenario, the OP could care less what the responses to their thread are, because they just did a "hit and run", and will most likely never even be back to read the replies to their thread.

I've seen this happen so many times over the years, it's ridiculous.

Also, many times a spammer will dig up a really old thread (which may already be ranking well in the search engines for their desired keywords), just to post a generic one line reply, like "thanks, great info!", or something similar.

So... before you reply to what looks like an innocent post...

1) Look at the date that the original post was made. If it's an older thread that hasn't been responded to in a while, and then someone digs it up to post a generic one line comment, then it should be obvious what that person is trying to do (especially if the product/service they're pushing in their sig is related to the topic of the thread).

2) If it's a brand new thread, look at the OP's sig. If they ask a ridiculous question (ie a question that the product/service in their sig would be an obvious answer to), then again, that should be an obvious tip-off as to what they're trying to do.

In either scenario, just report them and move on. For those that don't know how to do this, simply hit the "triangle" button under their username in their post, then type "spam" (or whatever description is appropriate).

Again, I know this is old news to those of you who have been here a while, but for those who haven't, it's just a friendly heads up.