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So, are you going to try to sell your new spam filter plug-in for others to use?
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Admin: It will be released for free! I want to make spammers lives more difficult.

I like your concept of scratch my back marketing. Spammers are parasites and they take and give nothing in return. I agree with Bill. You gave a good faith offering and people exploited it. I wouldn’t let others direct your motivation. And the blame directed at you truly is not accurate.

I know this really sounds spammy but I like your site and learning more about your organization.

Regards,

Brendan

TanTan is the plugin I mentioned that I got from you, even gave you guys a shout out on it. And yeah, I still get drive-bys too, but no where near what I used to get. To be honest, you are far nicer than I am. On comments that are obvious spam, I change their anchor text to “spam”, then approve it.

I still contend that you are giving yourself WAY too much grief over this. Unscrupulous people, out for a quick buck, took advantage of a good faith offering. That happens in just about everything: internet, politics, government, I could go on and on. But to take so much blame for that is just, well… not accurate.

Let me put a bug in your ear. How about doing an article, poll, or series on “Did you know your blog is no-follow?” I truly believe you will be surprised at the number of people that have no idea their blog (WP or not) is a no-follow blog. Would be a great lead in for Scratch My Back wouldn’t it?

Thanks,
Bill

However, I have one observation/theory. You have mentioned that many of the blogs you listed have turned to “no-follow”. However, I do NOT think it had any thing to do with you. I submit that it is possible those blogs you mentioned may not know they have gone no-follow, especially if they are using any WP based blogging software.

A few “upgrades” back, WP made all upgrade installations no-follow by default. Unless you were actively looking and inspecting (how many blog owners actually read release notes?), you would not know your blog has just gone no-follow.

To take that even further, the latest upgrade from WP makes your blog “no-index”. So Google and other SE’s would drop you like a rock unless you actively inspect your new upgrade installation. Plus you have to really search to find out how to change it. Unless you are VERY familiar with code, the no-follow status has to be changed with a plugin.

Obviously this no-index and no-follow affects ad revenue that any WP blogger receives. Spammers or not, some of them do click on ads.

Don’t you think that is more plausible a reason for the blogs you listed returning to no-follow than blaming yourself?

Thanks,
Bill

Admin: Bill, First things first. Great comment put you used only keywords in the name field. That’s why I use Keyword Luv. When you do that you look like a spammer yourself. However, you are not and I know that, but I don’t provide links if you only use keywords.

Now, back to your point. Yes, you make valid points but I played a role in helping spammers and I regret that. That is one reason why I created the new anti spam plugin that I call Scratch My Back Marketing. It prevents those short drive bye comments.

Yes, I provided them with tools. Put I have learned to turn lemons into lemonade. I will be launching my Do Follow network site where we will provide Do Follow resources but with accountability built into the program.

Whatever I or others do, spam is here and its not going away so you just have to accept it and protect yourself. If you want to get ride of the auto bot spam you need to install the Tan Tan Noodles. I did and I now don’t get any auto bot spam. I was averaging 350 a day! WordPress is very slow to pick up banned sites, but eventually it does work. The only spam in Akismet these days is from banned commenters.

The Scratch My Back Marketing plugin will be released in a couple of weeks. It will stop the short drive by comments. However, eventually these spammers will just copy and paste longer comments to get around this as well. I recently spent a few hours on a Black Hat forum to see what they are up to and it was an eye opening event for me.

Thanks for sharing.

Anyways, thanks for dropping by my site and for the heads up, appreciated it.

Sheepishly, I have to admit that I’ve never heard of the “Bad Behavior” pluin or “Comment Luv” before reading your blog. Thanks for serving as such an important bearer of information.

After reading the possible repercussions that can happen to sites that are on such lists, do you recommend that webmasters forgo inclusion?

For example, there are “do follow” directories and search engines that seem to enjoy relative high traffic and visibility. Do you think it is a mistake to list one’s blog on such sites?

I welcome any feedback.

Admin: If I were doing things all over I would not want to be on these lists. I would add Bad Behavior plugin to catch bot spam. I would then add Comment Luv and promote that.

I also encourage my readers to comment responsibly and not to spam, but I can’t control them. No matter what comes along to benefit everybody, some people will take advantage of it and spoil it for everybody else. I don’t think that’s their intent. They just want the results without doing the work.

I do get criticized by some bloggers, usually those who tried dofollow and quit because of spam. (Yes it’s a bit more trouble to delete the spam, but spam filters do most of it.)

I actually like the controversy around dofollow vs. nofollow. It exemplifies the intensity of emotions involved, and demonstrates some of the problems with the present blogging community and Page rank system.

I have no plans to delete my list. Attacks on it and the dofollow trend don’t discourage me. But I do delete any blogs not wanting to be on my list, and add those requesting to be added with every Page Rank update.

Linda P. Morton’s last blog post..The Changing Role Of Human Resources = Diversity

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We are ranked #1 and # 2 for Tucson SEO and their may not be a huge number of searches for this query. However, we do SEO in Tucson so it doesn’t matter. We catch everyone in our market.

We also rank on the first page of Google for a dozen or so other searches nationally. We create content that matches the targeted keyword phrase. It is easy to make the search engines happy it is much more difficult to please the visitor.

I realize you don’t need a lot of content but Mr. Cutts has been preaching “content is king” for years and the seo community has followed. As a result, the web is full of pages built around such fascinating phrases as “pool cleaning in Tuscon Arizona.” You have to admit it’s slightly ridiculous.

Google has improved significantly since the Florida Update, but for every problem it solves, another is created. I think it’s time for a paradigm shift.

Anyway, thanks for the response. I’ll be investigating the rest of your site with interest.

Sincerely
Dave

Dave’s last blog post..Long Live The Built-In Gratuity

An FYI here: You don’t need bunches of words in your content to rank well in Google. In fact your targeted keyword phrases need only appear two or three times on your page. This piece of advice was provided by Mr Matts Cutts and was reported in USA today back around June of 08.

Look up Silicon Valley SEO in Google and check out the number 1 result. http://www.siliconvalletseo.com. It has four words of content! It reads SEO for start-ups and that’s it.

I’m sick of going to sites that are are text heavy because they’re trying to rank in Google. I can’t imagine the amount of man hours wasted building B.S. content for the search engines. Even simple city pages in the yellow pages have full city description. It’s ridiculous.

Dave

Dave’s last blog post..8 Traits of Highly Successful Chauffeurs

Admin: That kind of reasoning would never hold up in a court of law. While my intentions were good the net result was bad. Case closed!

Try adding the Bad behavior plugin. It will eliminate the bot comments.