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greg_mitch
Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321
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Link Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 10:16 pm Post subject: Is it possible to restrict signature links? |
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To Club Members only? or to people with over 50 posts?
I think people come here to sign up and put a few posts with signature links just to drive up their websites traffic.
Some sort of SEO trick I guess. It is annoying.
PS - I do realize the irony of me complaining as I have a few links in my signature and one of them is not related to HT...
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kal Forum Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 17860 Location: Ottawa, Canada
TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7
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Link Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 12:27 am Post subject: |
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Signature links are indeed one reason why spammers will sign up and then post nonesense just to have their URLs listed. It's all about SEO (search engine optimization) as you mentioned. It's not so much that people will actually click on their links, but if they can use automated tools to sign up to forums in a few hours or days, they can quite litterally have tens of thousands of links to their site "live" on the internet that search engines then crawl which brings their ranking up.
I'm not sure I'd want to limit it to users with lots of posts however as I don't have any issues with members advertising their sites here, as you do. Go for it. When a spammer does post it's pretty obvious and we nuke them typically within hours. Not showing their signatures would lessen their SEO task but wouldn't stop them from signing up posting unfortunately.
Kal
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My basement/HT/bar/brewery build 2.0
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greg_mitch
Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5321
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Link Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 1:50 am Post subject: |
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kal wrote: | Signature links are indeed one reason why spammers will sign up and then post nonesense just to have their URLs listed. It's all about SEO (search engine optimization) as you mentioned. It's not so much that people will actually click on their links, but if they can use automated tools to sign up to forums in a few hours or days, they can quite litterally have tens of thousands of links to their site "live" on the internet that search engines then crawl which brings their ranking up.
I'm not sure I'd want to limit it to users with lots of posts however as I don't have any issues with members advertising their sites here, as you do. Go for it. When a spammer does post it's pretty obvious and we nuke them typically within hours. Not showing their signatures would lessen their SEO task but wouldn't stop them from signing up posting unfortunately.
Kal |
True...I guess they are mass signing up and don't stick around to see if the link works. I just hate it.
I check technorati once every few months and a few of the top 10 health blogs are just spam sites...I don't get the business model but evidently it is possible to make money somehow like this? Surely it isn't from Google Adsense?
Care to shed any light on how they make money? And is it worth it?
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kal Forum Administrator
Joined: 06 Mar 2006 Posts: 17860 Location: Ottawa, Canada
TV/Projector: JVC DLA-NZ7
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Link Posted: Tue Aug 31, 2010 2:06 pm Post subject: |
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Lots of different ways to make money... some sell actual products or services, some make money off advertising (Google Adsense or otherwise). By doing this spamming they're simply increasing their exposure which in turn gets more traffic to their site(s).
Is it worth it? No idea. It's done because the cost is basically nothing. People can post in thousands of forums or spam millions via email for next to no cost at all. If it doesn't work they're not really out much $$$ at all other than the cheap software to do it. Compare that to printing flyers and handing them out door to door or sticking them on car windshields in parking lots. That's labour intensive and costs money (paper, printing). Or worse yet, taking out magazine ads, newspaper ads, radio commericals, TV commercials, etc. Very expensive!
The good thing about expensive advertising is that because it's expensive (relatively speaking) as compared to spamming, the quality is better. That's why SPAM is typically so crappy and poorly written. The cost of entry is so low that anyone and everyone can do it for next to free.
Kal
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My basement/HT/bar/brewery build 2.0
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