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A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

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Re: A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

#11

Post by coderdude »

One way to combat this problem is to deny new users the ability to post links by replacing the link text with [removed]. HN has a karma system with thresholds that must be passed in order to get additional privileges (like down-voting). If you have a site that assigns karma to users (even if it's a secret number) then you can set a threshold for allowing links to pass through. It's not perfect but it's better than letting brand new accounts post links, IMO.

Another solution is to hide all links when a page is viewed by a user who isn't logged in.

Re: A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

#12

Post by javajosh »

bradleyjg wrote: post #10
javajosh wrote: post #8

The problem here is the work. The solution is to write a program. Have the white hat SEO people write a program that spiders the site with admin privileges and removes offending posts. It should come with a "dry run" mode that lets you spot check it. When they get it right, you can run it for them. It's a win-win: your forums get cleaned up and they did the work.

It's not really a win-win. Any time he spends on this is a loss from his point of view since the SEO's client already ruined his forum. It's some chutzpah to get annoyed when your victim refuses to help you hide your misdeeds.

If they do the work to undo the sins of the past, it helps the OP recover the value of his forums for far less effort than if he'd undertaken the job himself. I'd call that a win.

Re: A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

#13

Post by markdown »

coderdude wrote: post #11

One way to combat this problem is to deny new users the ability to post links by replacing the link text with [removed]. HN has a karma system with thresholds that must be passed in order to get additional privileges (like down-voting). If you have a site that assigns karma to users (even if it's a secret number) then you can set a threshold for allowing links to pass through. It's not perfect but it's better than le…

> Another solution is to hide all links when a page is viewed by a user who isn't logged in.

No, this is almost as bad as what medium.com does with all its links (rewriting them to point inwards towards redirects for tracking purposes).

A web link should be respected.

Re: A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

#14

Post by 33degrees »

Scramblejams wrote: post #7
jedireza wrote: post #5

You could shoot the hostage and add rel='nofollow' to all outbound links. You should be able to programmatically do this. Then with an auto-reply (or 'link policy' page) inform 3rd party sites that the link-juice (good or bad) is no longer flowing.

Does this constitute a long-term solution to the problem for active communities? That is, default to rel='nofollow' for an untrusted class of users, which presumably includes all the spammers?

that only works if the spammers realize their links are no longer effective; I'm not certain that that will actually happen...

Re: A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

#15

Post by coderdude »

markdown wrote: post #13
coderdude wrote: post #11

One way to combat this problem is to deny new users the ability to post links by replacing the link text with [removed]. HN has a karma system with thresholds that must be passed in order to get additional privileges (like down-voting). If you have a site that assigns karma to users (even if it's a secret number) then you can set a threshold for allowing links to pass through. It's not perfect but it's better than le…

> Another solution is to hide all links when a page is viewed by a user who isn't logged in. No, this is almost as bad as what medium.com does with all its links (rewriting them to point inwards towards redirects for tracking purposes). A web link should be respected.

> (rewriting them to point inwards towards redirects for tracking purposes)

I like this idea a lot. It has more than one use. Tracking is one but eliminating the "PR bleed" is another and it should deter spammers who are looking for link weight.

I understand the sentiment you're conveying but a link isn't sacred. If you allow users to post content to your site then you should be taking measures to ensure that new users aren't spamming. I don't think the "go in and clean it up later" method cuts it.

Re: A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

#16

Post by tracker1 »

Scramblejams wrote: post #7
jedireza wrote: post #5

You could shoot the hostage and add rel='nofollow' to all outbound links. You should be able to programmatically do this. Then with an auto-reply (or 'link policy' page) inform 3rd party sites that the link-juice (good or bad) is no longer flowing.

Does this constitute a long-term solution to the problem for active communities? That is, default to rel='nofollow' for an untrusted class of users, which presumably includes all the spammers?

I'd say rel=nofollow ALL user generated content.. but hey, that's just me.

Re: A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

#17

Post by tracker1 »

33degrees wrote: post #14
Scramblejams wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does this constitute a long-term solution to the problem for active communities? That is, default to rel='nofollow' for an untrusted class of users, which presumably includes all the spammers?

that only works if the spammers realize their links are no longer effective; I'm not certain that that will actually happen...

If you have a relatively small site.. curating content isn't too bad... limiting the tail of articles so that comments can only be added for X days helps with that. Only allowing logged in users to comment (and making login easy via oauth sites like facebook/twitter/g+ etc) I kind of like Disqus, but would rather have something more home-grown.

Re: A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

#18

Post by greggman »

kkowalczyk wrote: post #9

Blaming google for seo spam is not productive - spammers are legion and in constant battle to game google's ranking system, whatever it currently is. This won't change as long as google is used to search for things. There is a solution to his particular problem: better forum software. I don't want to trivialize the problem of writing spam-resistant forum software but it's not such an insurmontable problem (this forum…

I'd attribute it to your custom software. Break phpBB and you can infect thousands of sites. Break your custom software you get to infect 1 site.

I ran a forum using SimpleMachines. Turned on all the spam fighting stuff. Didn't matter. Bots or Mechanical Turks made 10-30 new accounts a day. I tried moderating the accounts but who wants to spend time every day to delete the fefRFGR34@foobar.com account.

I gave up and shut it down.

Re: A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

#19

Post by markdown »

coderdude wrote: post #15
markdown wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another solution is to hide all links when a page is viewed by a user who isn't logged in. No, this is almost as bad as what medium.com does with all its links (rewriting them to point inwards towards redirects for tracking purposes). A web link should be respected.

> (rewriting them to point inwards towards redirects for tracking purposes) I like this idea a lot. It has more than one use. Tracking is one but eliminating the "PR bleed" is another and it should deter spammers who are looking for link weight. I understand the sentiment you're conveying but a link isn't sacred. If you allow users to post content to your site then you should be taking measures to ensure that new use…

> I understand the sentiment you're conveying but a link isn't sacred.

It damn well should be. The link is the basis of the www.

> If you allow users to post content to your site then you should be taking measures to ensure that new users aren't spamming.

Of course, but breaking legitimate links as a form of spam control is just lazy.

We're going OT here, but...

> eliminating the "PR bleed"

There is no such thing. PR doesn't work this way, and the existence of outward links doesn't negatively impact the linking website in any way.

Re: A painful tale of SEO, spam and Google's role in all

#20

Post by skore »

greggman wrote: post #18
kkowalczyk wrote: post #9

Blaming google for seo spam is not productive - spammers are legion and in constant battle to game google's ranking system, whatever it currently is. This won't change as long as google is used to search for things. There is a solution to his particular problem: better forum software. I don't want to trivialize the problem of writing spam-resistant forum software but it's not such an insurmontable problem (this forum…

I'd attribute it to your custom software. Break phpBB and you can infect thousands of sites. Break your custom software you get to infect 1 site. I ran a forum using SimpleMachines. Turned on all the spam fighting stuff. Didn't matter. Bots or Mechanical Turks made 10-30 new accounts a day. I tried moderating the accounts but who wants to spend time every day to delete the fefRFGR34@foobar.com account. I gave up and…

To be fair, though, SimpleMachines is a very atrocious piece of software (not to mention their equally atrocious licensing, although it seems they're in the process of changing that[0]...), so it's no wonder.

I could say similar things about phpBB, but that's quite a dead horse to beat (hey, at least they use a proper license).

[0] http://www.simplemachines.org/about/opensource.php

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