I always wander if anyone really does plan to become a link spammer. I mean is it some kind of new career guidance option? You’d be forgiven to think it actually was considering the amount.
My only weapon so far has been a rather droopy sword of removing all html commenting. I don’t like doing this and would love to give the option. I plan to infact, but I have yet to figure out a fool proof way to get around the link spammer. The unfortunate product of this security knee jerk reaction is the number of empty posts I have. The total today was a record breaking 23 for this site.
There is an interview Register of a link spammer. In it “Sam” lives the life of riley due to the profit from PPC (pills, porn and casinos). Rather nice for him life is too with the jaguar car, good house and kids. In this interview, one of the main bits that interests me is the quote from this spammer :
“You could be aiming at 20,000 or 100,000 blogs. Any sensible spammer will be looking to spam not for quality [of site] but quantity of links.”
I have seen a lot of people saying “oooo I got link spam therefore I am” – this kind of wees all over that declaration. Along with this the rather nice co-point of “hits and comments only don’t maketh a site”.
One thing is sure that considering what is outlined as the theory on how you link spam, the content of the site isn’t the thing. It is the pound stretcher bargain basement approach to advertising. Along with it’s close cousins email and form spamming, link spamming is a part of the online world and probably they are all set to stay.
Just a quick google can help with ways to bash them on the head. I have been looking into this lately and thinking of applying some of the things I have been looking at. Ultimately, I don’t like the idea of not enabling html in posts. It kind of feels like using a rocket launcher to squash an ant.
My first look comes to the subject of only allowing comments from users. I really don’t like this idea and as a result won’t be using it. Basically, I don’t think blogs should force a sign up – you have to sign up to breathe online lately and it gets rather tired. So, what else can I do apart from tiping the balance to a one-sided view and removing comments totally?
Of course, all of this would be easier if I just gave in and used wordpress or moveable type. I still at this point don’t want to so this is sort of not in the mix of consideration. For me, I like having written my own blog front and back. It might be a rather vain and ego thing, but it as I have posted before this is an experiment I am rather enjoying.
It appears I have to do a bit more thinking on my tackling of this. I might even need to dust off the old thinking cap that has been put away due to migraines. If anyone has any idea I would be going the php route for this endeavour.
