Cookaholics Bulletin Board

Just deleted another spammer. They're getting more sophisticated; the latest one (JayC) actually had posts with some nonsense created by scan-and-frapee' of the thread it was attached to:



The spam, of course, was in his signature.

I read that post, Fuz and was puzzled....thanks for your vigilence

I agree, Fuzzy, thanks. I have a dumb question: what is the point of spamming? and planting viruses? Why would anyone think that's fun? Why would anyone come on a food board and advertise porn? Now, I read in Consumer Reports that companies are paying people to post good reviews about products, so now I tend to believe the bad reviews more than the good ones. Sheeesh. Rant over.

I saw that too and I thought that it was pretty tricky!

I miss all the good spam

KSS,

That spammer's sig line contained a link to a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) site. Since hardly anybody would hire an SEO company whose own website had a low Google rank, they were hoping to boost their relevance via links from spam comments and forum posts.

SEO is pretty much an entire scam industry, like telemarketing or vanity presses. If there are any honest firms involved, they're an isolated minority.

WOW, you learn something everyday.

KSS,

Actually, two more direct answers:

1) Spammers are paid. It's a whole industry now, making use of cheap labor in other countries and software to indulge in illegal advertising, junk mail, search rank boosting, and astroturfing (leaving fake good or bad reviews). This whole industry has received a boost recently due to the decline of paper junk mail and telemarketing (putting a bunch of shady firms out of work) and the increase in English-educated people in the Phillipines, the Ukraine, and China.

2) take the bad reviews with a grain of salt too. Dishonest companies hire spammers to leave fake bad reviews for competitors' products.