A Strange Kind of Spam
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Just now I found the following pingback on my dashboard waiting to be moderated:
A new pingback on the post #3008 “I Used To Like Ralph Nader” is waiting for your approval
http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/2008/02/24/i-used-to-like-ralph-nader/Website : Presidential election 2008 |Republicans Vs. Democrats » I Used To Like Ralph Nader (IP: 74.208.16.150 , infong644.lxa.perfora.net)
URL : http://2008usapresidents.com/i-used-to-like-ralph-nader/
Pingback excerpt:
[…] Howard Martin wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptIt might be different if Hillary Clinton were the front-runner — if it was Obama’s campaign that was all but finished. I don’t hold out any hope that a Clinton presidency would be any different from the current one, except that Hillary … Read the rest of this great post here Posted by […]Approve it: http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=mac&c=882
Delete it: http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=cdc&c=882
Spam it: http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/wp-admin/comment.php?action=cdc&dt=spam&c=882
Currently 1 comment are waiting for approval. Please visit the moderation panel:
http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/wp-admin/moderation.phpAs might be obvious, I am not Howard Martin, but that excerpt is from a post I wrote, and the link is to my blog.
This has happened, now, three times. Each time they referred to me by a different name. The first time this happened, I clicked on that embedded url link for the source of the pingback and told them I appreciated the link, but I was not Fred (the name they used that time). The second time it happened I marked the comment as Spam. Now it’s happened a third time.
On the one hand, I know that these comments or pingbacks are not getting onto my blog, because I’m moderating them. On the other hand, it’s very annoying to see them, and it kind of creeps me out, too, because I don’t know what the purpose of it is. What is this other website getting out of putting in a link to my posts, with the wrong name?
I checked my comment preferences, and the options to have readers fill in their name and email address before a post can go through is checked. So what explains this and what can I do about it?
As always, thank you for any help you can offer.
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[…] Howard Martin wrote an interesting post today….
[…] celebritywriter wrote an interesting post today…
[…] uextykze wrote an interesting post today…
They’re common. I spam them to train Akismet, most bloggers do. If you go to these sites, you’ll see they are running ads, and are linking to your stories. While someone linking to your stories is a good thing, the difference is your story wasn’t read before it was linked to, it’s an automatic software of some kind they are using. It’s also not a quality site linking to you, they’re already ‘known’ for doing what they did to you, or will be very shortly.
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What do you mean when you say you “spam them to train Akismet?”
And I still don’t understand *why* they’re linking to my stories, and why with these different names. What are they advertising? I went to the site (it was the same site for all 3 pingbacks), and I don’t see any advertisement that has any connection to my blog.
Is there some way I can stop it?
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Their site has Google ads. Perhaps 0.5% of people who visit that site will click on an ad. That earns them a few cents. By trying to get as many other web sites as possible to link to theirs, they increase their traffic, thus increasing their ad revenue. If you approve that comment, your post page will include a link to their site. That’s why the comment (which is automatically generated spam) starts with “Howard Martin wrote an interesting post..” – they’re trying to trick you into approving the comment.
Click the “Spam it” link when you see something like this. That will help to teach Akismet that their site is spam, so it can automatically block them in future.
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I guess the reason why they use a made-up name, then, is because since the comment is automatically generated they don’t have my name. They have no idea what sites they’re linking to; it’s all done by the software.
Thanks, telly. Appreciate the info.
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Actually, I have one more question. Since this is automatically generated spam, why doesn’t the requirement to fill in name and email address stop it?
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