Blog du Wren

Blog Spam

As some of you noticed recently, Blog du Wren was "validated" with a barrage of blog spam. Many questions have arisen from this about why, how, etc. I thought now would be as good a time as any (better even, because I don't have anything of value to post about) to examine the phenomenon of blog spam.

Wikipedia has a great write up on Spam in blogs, although it is a bit skewed towards eliminating it rather than explaining it. Basically, an automated script goes around posting comments on blogs with a link to their own site in hopes of raising their site's search engine rank. (Search engine ranking is based on how many sites link to yours, among other things.) These scripts recognize a site as a blog (or guestbook, etc.) by their format and programming (which leads to my feelings of validation because BdW is put into the same formatting/programming arena as the professional blog software packages).

What has been very interesting is to see where these spam comments come from. With the IP tracking I added as part of the BdW 2.0 revamp, I have the ability to look at the comments last known transfer point. This is what I came up with: RUSSIAN FEDERATION, CHINA, INDIA, PAKISTAN, POLAND (with repeats from Russia and India).

In an attempt to spare us all from this initially interesting but quickly annoying phenomenon, I tweaked the way I do comments. Since every little change I make might make everything stop working, I would appreciate if you keep your eyes open for any bugs, esp. you mac users out there. Cheers!

Friday March 30 2007

File under: blog

Toggle Comments (5)

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on Fri 30th Mar, 2007 08:41 am PST Wren said:
Oh, while coding up the new comment process, I forgot to check if it works in IE, so here it goes... (feel free to test your own browser's ability to comment by leaving your own test comment.)
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on Fri 30th Mar, 2007 09:06 am PST Saxtor said:
Hello please, I am would liking to offer you a greatest of opportunities to obtain LEGALLY!!!!! an prescriptions of V14GGRA!!
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on Fri 30th Mar, 2007 02:34 pm PST jenelle said:
i ate indian food today and now my spam is all blogged up.
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on Sat 07th Apr, 2007 10:37 am PDT Wren said:
Okay, I had to change up the routine a little again because my last attempt to outsmart those pesky spammers failed. Again, if things ain't working, let me know...
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on Sun 08th Apr, 2007 05:38 pm PDT Wren said:
Another tweak in the continuing battle against blog spammers...
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