Links á la Mode TECH: Social Media Spam

Links á la Mode TECH: Social Media Spam

2011-04-06 16:30 | Comments: 1

SPAM is nasty, regardless in which form it comes! Here is the follow-up post by Relatively Chic covering SPAM in blogs and social media with a comprehensive list of effective countermeasures.

Links a la Mode TECH: Social Media Spam

Hi, over the past several weeks the Links á la Mode TECH tips developed towards a kind of a meta meta fashion blog post for me. Meta Meta because it is a link list of fashion blog posts, dealing themselves with technical issues and tips related to blogging ;)

Hope you find it still interesting to get some background information about the issues bloggers are facing every day.

Last week IFB TECH links covered spam blogs & copyright, this time it is about the nasty direct spam we receive in our blog comments and social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter.

I am receiving comment spam every day in tons. Fortunately, most of it is blocked automatically by several countermeasures I have implemented so far: customized comment form (very important to confuse bots), CAPTCHA (helps to block bots, but not 100% reliable), blacklists (for the notorious ones), email notifcation and manual moderation.

Spam bots (computer programs, which automatically post billions of spam messages to blogs every day) often use Google to find blogs they can attack. Here is an actual attack vector I have seen in my logs, searching for zenphoto installations:

http://www.google.com/search?
q=allintext:shoes+Add+a+comment+Name+

E-Mail+Site+Enter+Captcha+RSS+%7C+Archive+View+%7C+
Powered+by+zenphoto&hl=en&prmd=ivns
&ei=UoJxTa69OISEvAP4q_G9AQ&start=40&sa=N

Interestingly, it also uses the keyword "shoes", obviously to find blogs, which are affine to the kind of spam they want to inject.

But the problem are not only bots, but also humans working in dubious "link building" companies, who are paid to write spam posts and the like.

More in Relatively Chic's How to Deal With Internet Scum, Part 2 post.

Here is the complete Links á la Mode TECH list:

Fashion Bloggers & Social Media: The Perfect Match

Edited by Joanne Faith

Fashion bloggers are natural social media experts. Beyond our blogs, you’ll find us on Facebook and Twitter, some are on YouTube, as well as a plethora of other connected communities (IFB!). I am confident enough in our abilities to say that we know how to use social media (effectively) better than most, and I probably don’t need to tell you what a wonderful skill that is to have right now! Naturally, a few week links related to issues around social media and I expect the topic to crop up only more often in the future.

I am excited to be apart of the first round of editors for Links A La Mode: Tech, and absolutely thrilled to encourage the sharing of these skills amongst other fashion bloggers. We are definitely not a brainless bunch, and features like Links A La Mode: Tech only prove that even further!

Links á la Mode: TECH – April 5th

  • Beautifully Invisible
    Social Media Dashboard – Why You Should Be Using One
  • Fuyume
    A Guide To Adding a Favicon To Your Blog
  • IFB
    Why Fashion Bloggers should Love Instagram
  • Joanne Faith
    The 5 Essential Skills Of Fashion Blogging
  • Miss Viki
    We Are Not Alone! Counting The Number Of Active, Non-Spam Fashion Blogs
  • Relatively Chic
    How to Deal With Internet Scum, Part 2: Spam
  • Style by Santina
    Five Reasons To Replace Blogger’s Built-in Comment System With Disqus
  • Styling You
    How Do You Balance Your Blogging Time?
  • Trend Alert Daily
    Should Fashion Bloggers Protect Their Tweets?

More Links á la Mode TECH
COPYRIGHT Issues | Fashion Web 2.0 | TECH Geeks

Comments ❤

Hmm spammers are found everywhere.

I have had a similar experience somedays ago with a self proclaimed celebrity artist. Spamming the hell out of my site. :(

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