Have you ever just looked in a combination of amusement and wonder at the gibberish spammers try to get onto your blog with their surreptitious software?
People moan about Akismet but it seems rock solid for us, but then as we aren’t on any of those pesky dofollow lists or engines we still aren’t being bombarded with too many manual spammers yet and so its easy enough for it to spot the automatic stuff. But that’s the point, anyone could spot this stuff, and yet still they ramp it up and press the button every night.
So knowing their success rates here (zero) and their likely success rates with Akismet in general (nil) you would have to assume that this cant be a very productive exercise in general? So we got to wondering who and what was trying to be achieved anyway, and this is where this latest batch got a bit more interesting.
This looks to us as may be second hand SEO company work, ie some of the benefactors of these links (should they successfully land anywhere) look like the kind of companies, organisations and sites who probably wouldn’t, and definitely shouldn’t) be engaging in blackhat blog link-spamming practices, and that any SEO company declaring itself “ethical” would not be recommending nor engaging in this on behalf of clients. But a lot of SEO companies sub out their link-building to cheaper companies, because they have not the expertise, or the time to do it for their clients themselves.
There’s one particular individual this week from IP: 200.63.42.136 who is going to be our volunteer lab rat for his cheek, so lets have a look through some of this guys clients, or at least sites or documents he want to link to for one reason or another.
..Happily he’s done a few flyby spam dumps lately so there’s plenty of example “client” sites to choose without having to use anything unsavoury, which in his defence, he does at least seem not to do, and that is to deal in really unsavoury spam 
..sorry, phrase making us giggle.
So first comment one from Dee Ann(allegedly) ..well, we like little animals even if they are spammers, so she actually gets to keep her link. deeannstreasures.com
And then we’ve got multiple comments all from different names at the same IP as above all containing 8 ridiculous automatically and randomly generated words, like
lucubration perceptionism alephs skeleton refurnishment bothrium israelitism fibrotic
I mean wtf? why not at least use something legible? so it has half a chance of a lazy moderator missing it? Then there’s exactly 8 links in the body of each comment, with all sorts of one-off companies included, but randomly shuffled into different lists. We’ve sorted out the most interesting of them all into a few groups.
Firstly, lets start with the Church. There seems to be a good proportion on behalf of the Good Lord. Lets put them all out there, maybe they can come and tell us the scenario, whether they are:
- God’s Chosen Mighty Spam Army, a-spammin’ in the name of the Lord!
- Leaving it to the SEO company doing their linkbuildin’, they are aware of what they do, its all in a good cause.
- As above but we not aware that our SEO company uses Spamanic internet practices and sacrifices cute little blogs in an obscene orgy of Linkspam lust.
Were going to be nofollowing their cheeky-assed links until we know their game at least. And because without wasting time inspecting their sites, well who are we linking to?
- Saint Andrew’s Lutheran Church, Grand Rapids, Minnesota ELCA
- Providence Presbyterian Church, Virginia Beach, Virginia
- Grace United Methodist Church, Baltimore
- Berkmar United Methodist Church
- Trinity Lutheran Healthy Church
- Dallas Baptist University
..and it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t have some Alien superhuman religion lumped in there too - the good ol’ Scientology loons.
- http://www.scientology-losangeles.org / Celebrity Centre International …love this one, nice touch with the “celebrity” Sciento-freaks
We call on all of you doing the Spamlord’s work to renounce your sins! ..Come hither and confess and ye shall be saved.
and they hail from all sorts of companies, towns, tourist boards and civil service, fire, emergencies services etc presumably spamming on behalf of their town, nation or civic pride?Official sites spamming our comments
- Department of the Interior (DOI) Jobs
- King’s Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council
- Lyon County Tourist Commission
- Morro Bay National Estuary Program
- First Nations’ Emergency Services Society
And then we have various small and not-so-small businesses represented
- J Kinney Florist
- Skyline Office Interiors
- Richey Resources
- A.F.Cruden Associates
- http://www.sevenowldojo.com
- Vivino, Jerry
- http://www.massageforeveryone.com/
- Greater Kansas City Dog Training Club
- http://www.alstom-sig.com/
- University Advancement
- http://www.faridaspassions.com
- Torros
- http://www.sbtravel.com/
- Grantham and Newark Sunbeds
- http://cindersite.homestead.com/
- Shawgo, Ryan
Now most of these could be said to be semi, if not respectable looking sites, depending I suppose on your idea of respectability. We haven’t dug into them for hidden text or any other No-No’s or anything, we can’t be bothered, after all they may not even know they’re being promoted by these relentless spam comments.
We did have a flick around one or two of them quickly though and some of them are the real deal. Proper real sites, and often with Pagerank to match.Mostly 3’s and 4’s with a couple of PR7’s floating about.
So what’s going on here? are these sites supposedly, (or possibly, bearing in mind the likely low success rates of this) benefiting from black-hattery on their behalf that they’re not aware of? Or that they are aware of?
Or is someone trying to damage them by including them on these type of comments without their knowledge? Maybe the spammer is hiding one paying customer in amongst lots of innocent victims. Or just grouping all his clients into 8’s ? …Or what exactly ?
Now what we’re really hoping is that (one of) our (7) readers will go off and work it out and report back via comments. that would be Ace
But actually they probably won’t so plan (b) is that someone contact someone who knows these people and they report back via comments. that would be almost as good.
And actually that probably wont happen either, so at some point we might have to go and have a snoop around and maybe mail some owners or something.
Anyone who comes over here and tells the story can have a real link to their site and if anyone hasn’t told you Ibiza linklove is hot. ..much better than some spam comment link we promise.
We’re not internet detectives or anything, but I mean, I would want to know if mine or anyone else’s sites I knew, were on these comments, it probably doesn’t do you a whole lot of favours Google-wise with the types of places these comments do get through, and it’s quite likely you’ll find your company link in the company of some pretty unsavoury or nasty stuff on unguarded and heavily spammed blogs.
So if in the spirit of the Olympics someone else wants to pick up this particular baton and run with it, do be our guests, we’re off to the beach.
PS Or if the soppy SEO “company” (or hardcore blackhat team) whatever you are, objects to your fame or notoreity too strongly please contact us and let us know your story and depending on how nice you are, or scared of you we are we’ll go from there.
Really if you could just stop your nonsense on our blog that would be all we ask.
