A new kind of S P A M ?

[Bill_Thompson]

I am suprised whenever someone registers on my web site since it really isn't completed. Three people seemed to register on my site in 10 days but I was curious since most people do not CHOOSE to have cryptic usernames like "Sonya76" in a user's discussion forum.

This link may not direct you to the page I am talking about.

Then I found that their "personal" web sites are:

http://jenny-mccarthy.nm.ru/jenny-mccarthy/sitemap.htm

and

http://rx-shop.info/vicodin-online

So I am sending these people an email:

Is this a new kind of spam?

Why did you register on my web site and post your web site one that clearly cannot be a personal web site. There are, in fact, two "people" with the same "personal" web site.

Who are you and what do you expect to gain from registering on my site other than increasing hits on your corporate web site my illiminating ad cost at my expense?

All three had the same email address, I might add.

These bots are getting clever. I have been on chat on Yahoo and have been hit by a bot that I have had amusing exchanges with where I end up swearing with them and they parse my words to form new questions back to me.

[Lance]

Yes, that is a new kind of spam in a way.

One of the things that determines how high a web site ranks in Google searches is how many other web sites link to it. By spamming your memberlist with their URLs, it looks like more sites link back to them.

[Bob B.]

One of the things that determines how high a web site ranks in Google searches is how many other web sites link to it. By spamming your memberlist with their URLs, it looks like more sites link back to them.

So all these people out there who have links to my old URL aren't doing me any good.

I find it very fustrating when people don't keep up with their Web pages. When ever I find a bad link to my site I'll send an email requesting an update. I'm lucking if 1 in 5 actually do anything about it. :x

[Lance]

Exactly... Not only are they not helping, they may be hurting. In a perfect world you could keep the old site and put a redirect to your new site at that location. There is actually a "permanent redirect" meta tag that you can put in an old site that will even update the SEs when they encounter it.

Webmaster World is a good place to learn about things like that.

[Bill_Thompson]

Yes, that is a new kind of spam in a way.

One of the things that determines how high a web site ranks in Google searches is how many other web sites link to it. By spamming your memberlist with their URLs, it looks like more sites link back to them.

OH MAN!!

That gives me a killer idea !!

I could have members agree that if they register on my web site, and if they post the names of their web site, I requre them to mention on THEIR web site MY web site.

[Lance]

Link exchange is a fairly common, and quite effective way to boost your ratings. Beware of "link farms" though. SEs will disregard pages that are full of nothing but many links.

Put a link in your sig and post on lots of different sites. I think that tactic still works. Of course, if you start spamming me here, you're gone. :wink:

If this site weren't closed and private, my sig would be helping Godlike Productions.

[Bob B.]

Exactly... Not only are they not helping, they may be hurting. In a perfect world you could keep the old site and put a redirect to your new site at that location.

I had a redirect at my old site for about a year, but I recently dumped that service so it no longer exists.

Unfortunately my site has moved around quite a bit. There are five different URLs floating around out there that are no good anymore. Every now and then I find a page with a link that's 7 or 8 years old. About a year ago I finally registered my own domain.

[Lance]

Try Googling your old URLs. You may be able to find the other sites that still have your old links that way. Perhaps at least some of them would respond to an email request to update your address.

Doesn't hurt to try, anyway.

[Bob B.]

Try Googling your old URLs. You may be able to find the other sites that still have your old links that way. Perhaps at least some of them would respond to an email request to update your address.

I've done that every time I've changed URLs. The last time was about a year ago when I registered the domain name. I'm planning to give it one last try.