ElementalTruths.Com ©

I received this message when I opened my site management page today

“Akismet has caught 1,041 spam for you since you first installed it.”

This is February and I installed Akismet in December.

I know many of those who read my work are vastly more knowledgeable in this area than I. So, here is my question. How do comment spammers make money?

I really don’t understand it. Even I my screener didn’t catch the spam, most of the messages don’t make any sense anyway. They are usually just a string of unrelated links. I can’t see what would entice anyone to select any of them. They don’t even relate to the content of my posts.

Here is an example I’ve copied and pasted here. I’ve replaced the actual links with strike throughs.

Jspwirwd | diwisahc@danywilde.net | danywilde.net/map.html | IP: 206.53.55.74

East are of ccluding pharyngitis modified by keflex
xanax pictures expectancy leads approx. Understanding cultural by video singulair munchies patients they medroxyprogesterone acetate indirectly. Citizen believes patients they buy clomiphene drug at variouslosartan interchange absorption. As malpractice also scattered capsule histex orange white laugh at zyloprim manufacturerrestoril for agitationpdr entries for the drug baycol meet minimum attorney baycol wisconsin needs. Two major insurance industry coreg affects on blood sugar will require toprol xl 25 mg side effectsmarezine versus meclizine congested. Association between midnight on course of tussionex ingredience the next prozac divorce gain. Following oral attitudes toward erwoid ecstasy vault neurotoxicity death rate of ruralbuy malco flextra in sidney ducks. Most but controlled deliveries metrogel topical antibiotic and management buy zebutal from the online drugstore expectancy. Plan when to subsidize losartan trial for duchenne to escape tricor thyroidism good start natural estrogen compared to premarinpolicy. Singapore used reflects lyavandia drug description rosiglitazone maleate healthscout duty of finasteride salesduty teracted ecstasy. recognized as potential. Glycine and laws in

It looks like gibberish to me.

Another type that puzzles me is the…

“I don’t understand all of the post you wrote on (insert post title here). But, it looks interesting. I guess I just need to do more research.”

Now, the first time I admit, this got past me. But, I still don’t see how this kind of bait could generate much traffic either.

On the other hand, I realize that as a student of human behavior I may be a bit myopic on this one. Somehow, a desired result must be achievable or it wouldn’t continue to happen.

 I passed the question along to my friend Ted Demopoulos who is quite well versed in this area. The following is Ted’s reply.

Hi Reg,A lot of things spammers do make no sense. Sometimes they are just trying things, experimenting, to see if something works.
For example, if they leave 100,000,000 gibberish comments will 1000  people click to their site? From their perspective, maybe it makes sense?I have friends who spend pretty much full time (as in obsessive) looking at malicious traffic on the Internet as low as the bits and bytes levels, and often they are mystified as well.

I’ve been getting more spam comments lately too. A few make it through the filters but not many

Ted

–
Ted Demopoulos, Demopoulos Associates, I consult, I write, I speak, 603-659-0500
Safely and Securely Profiting from the Information Overload Age
SANS Institute Certified Instructor
Effective Internet Presence (now required for success in business and life)

I also got a very insightful response from MT That MindTweaks Chick (aka Tori Deaux which is also a pseudonym I suspect), that I wanted to share. Bye the way, is reposting a comment to the body of a text plagiarism? Ah well, it will be worth the sacrifice.

Here’s my eddycated guess…

Most spam comments aren’t about directly increasing traffic, but in the hope of the links improving their search engine rankings. Most modern blog/journal software makes comment links “nofollow” by default, so they don’t count towards ranking anyway, but spammers work off the high volume approach. I’m just tossing out numbers here, but…. Spam a billion blogs, and a million of the comments might get through spam protections. Of those million, 100,000 of those blogs might not have “no follow” turned on in their comments. Not a high percentage results wise, but 100,000 links, will shoot search engine rank way up.

There are probably a few companies out there paying spammers for traffic per click, too… in which case the spammers don’t care if the click was from a visitor to your site, or from you, checking to see if it was spam. It still counts towards their numbers - and again, it’s all about volume, both for the spammers, and the companies that pay them. 

mindtweaks.com

So, my friends, what do you think? Are Ted and Tori spot-on on this one? How is this type of spam a profitable venture?

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 6:43 pm and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.