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You can search for the longer phrases in the spintax and find all of the places this spam was dropped before it apparently "barfed its recipe." It's pretty fasc

You can search for the longer phrases in the spintax and find all of the places this spam was dropped before it apparently "barfed its recipe." It's pretty fascinating - Google returns over 600,000 results: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=%22time+to+make+some+plans+for+the+future+and%22+%22time+to+be+happy%22 https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=%22time+to+make+some+pl... Looking at this link (http://prophesyagain.org/radio/#comment-98 http://prophesyagain.org/radio/#comment-98), it looks like this spam was left for a URL that redirects to http://www.itunescoms.com/ http://www.itunescoms.com/, a fake looking iTunes knockoff that probably drops all kinds of nasty adware/malware on your PC. For those unindoctrinated in SEO spam, the trick is to get past the spam filter, then leave a link in the name/username. You generate hundreds of thousands of backlinks to one page, which Google considers "votes" for your website. You can either send links directly to your "money site" or you can send them somewhere else and do a 301 redirect, passing the link juice. Usually a spammer starts using something like Scraperbox and a lot of proxies to find thousands of blogs or forums with open comment fields, then use a script like the OP plugged into something like XRumer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XRumer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XRumer). The syntax of the OP is called spintax, and it basically chooses a random word inside of the {}s, creating an infinite number of comments. You find a few hundred thousand open comment fields to post in, ride a little wave of SEO boost until Google finds you and kills your site, rinse and repeat. Nowadays most spam syntax as simple as the OP will be caught in filters or penalized by Google, but most spammers are actually really bad at what they do (as you can see by them forgetting a bracket and dumping the entire spintax).

mortehu 12y ago
> Google returns over 600,000 results Tip: The result count estimate on the first result page is often off by several orders of magnitude. Often it's possible to navigate to the end of the results pretty quickly, and the number drops to something like 469: https://www.google.com/search?q="time+to+make+some+plans+for+the+future+and"+"time+to+be+happy"&num=100&safe=off&start=500 https://www.google.com/search?q="time+to+make+some+plans+for...
- devindotcom 12y ago
  Yeah, I'm curious about that. My guess is it has 600,000 results for things it thinks matches your query, based on how it interpreted it. But if it's not in the top 10 or 20, your query must be interpreted more strictly, and synonyms or slight misspellings or related pages fall off the radar.
- strathmeyer 12y ago
  515,000 of the results are youtube comments.
- guelo 12y ago
  It's so annoying when people use that useless number to make a point. Journalists do it all the time.
  - pdabbadabba 12y ago
    I agree that is's annoying when journalists do it to demonstrate that a topic is important/controversial/etc. But I'm not sure there's anything wrong with it when the point being made it literally (and only) about the number of times a specific piece of text appears on the Internet.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      The number is wrong so using it to make a point about the number of times a phrase appears on the Internet is sub-optimal.
- toephu2 12y ago
  why is that?
  - adventured 12y ago
    Google knows people rarely browse beyond the first few pages of results. Everything else is derived from the days when it was important to show off how big your archive is. They're basically still performing that vanity game. 600,000 results, nearly all of which are of such low quality it'd be embarrassing for Google to show off what they pretend is a valid result so they can fake a large result count (but they know users don't go there, so it doesn't matter).
jordanlev 12y ago
Fascinating, thanks for the explanation. I'm curious: I thought blogs/forums/etc output user-supplied links with rel="nofollow" so google ignores them... so how is the link actually beneficial (even for a short period of time)?
- user_0001 12y ago
  varied link pattern, you don't want all dofollow. indexing / spidering pages that do contain a dofollow google doesn't completely ignore nofollow
  - jordanlev 12y ago
    Thanks for responding, but I don't understand what you're saying. The 3rd sentence is clear (although it seems absolutely crazy to me that google wouldn't ignore it since it was their idea in the first place to combat this exact kind of spam). But I am unclear what sentences 1 and 2 mean -- care to clarify?
z3t4 12y ago
A new technique that I've seen is they do not link directly to their "money" site, they link to a page, that link to another page, that link to their money site. So if they manage to put a link on your blog, the next step is to make spam links to Your site. Google needs to scrap the pagerank and come up with another metric. Lately I've seen a drastic decrease in quality where 9 out of 10 pages in the top-10 is just garbage. Even if I copy a whole sentence from a site with low pagerank, it will be hidden deep in like page 4 o 5 in the google search result.
- ssharp 12y ago
  We don't know: 1) how much of a factor pagerank still is and 2) how pagerank is calculated. Google may very well be beating down pagerank as a factor, while simultaneously adjusting how pagerank gets calculated so these spam links matter much less. My bigger gripe is how awful it is to get rid of bad links, either as a result of your own past discretions (or past discretions you've inherited) or from negative SEO.
- blumkvist 12y ago
  If by "new" you mean 7 years old, then yeah. Tiered link-building is new.
- sireat 12y ago
  Actually this pyramid technique has been around at least a few years and probably goes back to beginnings of google.
spacecowboy_lon 12y ago
They also look for forums where you can post links I had a major UK Publication get a UGC penalty from google a couple of years ago. The editors had started clamping down and banning users for spamming the forum so I suspect some agrived spammer reported us to google out of spite.
Cthulhu_ 12y ago
I really wonder how effective comment spam like that really is; most platforms with user comments mark outbound links as nofollow, meaning Google and other search engines won't consider them and making them useless for dark SEO practices. They'd still work - for maybe 1% of viewers - for clickthrough though, of which another 1% might get infected with the malware on the target page - which, I guess, can be a good enough return on investment. It's all a matter of scale I guess.
arca_vorago 12y ago
I had an employer that did this on purpose, insisting because it worked so well for a time that it was the best way to do things for SEO. We owned almost 400 domains related to the business, and just had tons of comments and backlinking pushing juice the the handful of real websites. I complained and explained it was only a matter of time before the whole thing fell through and got hit by an update or blacklist, but he didn't listen. I did at least redesign the main websites to be html5 with good metadata to mitigate it. This is what happens when C-levels think it's still the dot-com era.
murbard2 12y ago
If Google penalizes it, does it mean some people can frame competitors by doing false-flag spammy SEO?
- rograndom 12y ago
  Yes, but you can use the Disavow tool to try to fix it. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en

mortehu 12y ago

> Google returns over 600,000 results Tip: The result count estimate on the first result page is often off by several orders of magnitude. Often it's possible to navigate to the end of the results pretty quickly, and the number drops to something like 469: https://www.google.com/search?q="time+to+make+some+plans+for+the+future+and"+"time+to+be+happy"&num=100&safe=off&start=500 https://www.google.com/search?q="time+to+make+some+plans+for...

devindotcom 12y ago
Yeah, I'm curious about that. My guess is it has 600,000 results for things it thinks matches your query, based on how it interpreted it. But if it's not in the top 10 or 20, your query must be interpreted more strictly, and synonyms or slight misspellings or related pages fall off the radar.
strathmeyer 12y ago
515,000 of the results are youtube comments.
guelo 12y ago
It's so annoying when people use that useless number to make a point. Journalists do it all the time.
- pdabbadabba 12y ago
  I agree that is's annoying when journalists do it to demonstrate that a topic is important/controversial/etc. But I'm not sure there's anything wrong with it when the point being made it literally (and only) about the number of times a specific piece of text appears on the Internet.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    The number is wrong so using it to make a point about the number of times a phrase appears on the Internet is sub-optimal.
toephu2 12y ago
why is that?
- adventured 12y ago
  Google knows people rarely browse beyond the first few pages of results. Everything else is derived from the days when it was important to show off how big your archive is. They're basically still performing that vanity game. 600,000 results, nearly all of which are of such low quality it'd be embarrassing for Google to show off what they pretend is a valid result so they can fake a large result count (but they know users don't go there, so it doesn't matter).

jordanlev 12y ago

Fascinating, thanks for the explanation. I'm curious: I thought blogs/forums/etc output user-supplied links with rel="nofollow" so google ignores them... so how is the link actually beneficial (even for a short period of time)?

user_0001 12y ago
varied link pattern, you don't want all dofollow. indexing / spidering pages that do contain a dofollow google doesn't completely ignore nofollow
- jordanlev 12y ago
  Thanks for responding, but I don't understand what you're saying. The 3rd sentence is clear (although it seems absolutely crazy to me that google wouldn't ignore it since it was their idea in the first place to combat this exact kind of spam). But I am unclear what sentences 1 and 2 mean -- care to clarify?

z3t4 12y ago

A new technique that I've seen is they do not link directly to their "money" site, they link to a page, that link to another page, that link to their money site. So if they manage to put a link on your blog, the next step is to make spam links to Your site. Google needs to scrap the pagerank and come up with another metric. Lately I've seen a drastic decrease in quality where 9 out of 10 pages in the top-10 is just garbage. Even if I copy a whole sentence from a site with low pagerank, it will be hidden deep in like page 4 o 5 in the google search result.

ssharp 12y ago
We don't know: 1) how much of a factor pagerank still is and 2) how pagerank is calculated. Google may very well be beating down pagerank as a factor, while simultaneously adjusting how pagerank gets calculated so these spam links matter much less. My bigger gripe is how awful it is to get rid of bad links, either as a result of your own past discretions (or past discretions you've inherited) or from negative SEO.
blumkvist 12y ago
If by "new" you mean 7 years old, then yeah. Tiered link-building is new.
sireat 12y ago
Actually this pyramid technique has been around at least a few years and probably goes back to beginnings of google.

spacecowboy_lon 12y ago

They also look for forums where you can post links I had a major UK Publication get a UGC penalty from google a couple of years ago. The editors had started clamping down and banning users for spamming the forum so I suspect some agrived spammer reported us to google out of spite.

Cthulhu_ 12y ago

I really wonder how effective comment spam like that really is; most platforms with user comments mark outbound links as nofollow, meaning Google and other search engines won't consider them and making them useless for dark SEO practices. They'd still work - for maybe 1% of viewers - for clickthrough though, of which another 1% might get infected with the malware on the target page - which, I guess, can be a good enough return on investment. It's all a matter of scale I guess.

arca_vorago 12y ago

I had an employer that did this on purpose, insisting because it worked so well for a time that it was the best way to do things for SEO. We owned almost 400 domains related to the business, and just had tons of comments and backlinking pushing juice the the handful of real websites. I complained and explained it was only a matter of time before the whole thing fell through and got hit by an update or blacklist, but he didn't listen. I did at least redesign the main websites to be html5 with good metadata to mitigate it. This is what happens when C-levels think it's still the dot-com era.

murbard2 12y ago

If Google penalizes it, does it mean some people can frame competitors by doing false-flag spammy SEO?

rograndom 12y ago
Yes, but you can use the Disavow tool to try to fix it. https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en