12.03.2005

Spammers adapt again ...

It shouldn't be news to anyone that people are trying to abuse your website to sell viagra, market a pyramid scheme, or invite your visitors to some insidious site. This was particularly popular among Slashdot trolls** who would link to websites containing things you didn't know were possible, beyond your imagination in the worst sort of way. (**I hesitate to link to this article and highly recommend that you not click on any links without thinking about whether you want to see something horrible. It's not worth it.)

So, where were we? Ahh, yes the spammers have a new tactic that is using the system which is in place to help you find information and abusing it to promote their own sites or that of their customers. By creating members, with profile links to bad places, in forums that are spidered by search engines these sites are linked from high-trafficked sites with "normal" content. This boosts their relative search rankings and leaves you with less effective searches and more face-time with scams.

If you are the administrator of a community or even a devote user, Read the article. Understand the current wave of "silent spam" and do what you can to make it go away.

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