There seems to be something new going on with blog comment spam. It’s been hitting me here at SuperAff as well as creeping into a few other blogs.
Characteristics:

It’s not autogen spam, it’s a human being taking the time to comment in a way that’s applicable to the blog post (at least kinda/sorta)
They’re sneaking in [...]

I have a few web directories that are getting stinkier and stinkier to work with over time. Ninety percent of the submissions are the usual MFA, Amazon knock-off, auto-gen mass reprint article content, and every type of splog imaginable. And so on. But the site quality for submissions is getting WORSE as time goes on.
Where [...]

Since the BusinessWeek article came out several days ago, it seems the ’spies’ that are reporting incentivized parked domains are seeing a bit more success getting stuff shut down when they report them. The ringleaders aren’t too happy about it all though, and one is shouting out threats of Wiccan Retribution:
I HOPE YOU LAUGH SO [...]

Wow, this is exciting! Businessweek has a great article out on click fraud: Click Fraud – The Dark Side Of Advertising
Quote from Business Week:
That confidence may be slipping. A BusinessWeek investigation has revealed a thriving click-fraud underground populated by swarms of small-time players, making detection difficult. “Paid to read” rings with hundreds or thousands of [...]

Most people *freak out* when one of their websites is hacked. I burst out laughing.
One of my directories (NiftyShops) was hacked and all files deleted and replaced with this scary red glowing demon skull thing with spine tingling wooooowooooo music playing in the background. Courtesy of RoDhEDoR & Linux_Drox & Dr.Jr7.
I noticed it [...]

A little while ago I did a google search for – Find web pages that contain the term “superaff.com” – and came across some strange stuff towards the last few pages of results.
There are several websites that are doing something weird:
“SuperAff.com” serps – Starting Page 5
Beginning halfway down the page (page 5 of serps), [...]

If anyone of us wanted to, we could be online media moguls that make our fortunes off popped porn, parasitic downloads, ripping scripts that hijack affiliate links, click fraud – yada yada.
I mean there are A LOT of lines one could cross if fast cash was all you wanted.
But there are a lot of [...]

Seriously, how any company, merchant or affiliate manager anywhere in the world ever thought that spyware was a useful, friendly neighborhood marketing method – should be shut down, locked up and tarred and feathered for good measure.
This is what we’re now reaping from the development and whitewashing of that fantabulous spyware crappola:
Massive identity [...]

In my blog post yesterday Who’s In Bed With Adware?, I was tempted to start writing about the actual advertisers who pay to use this crap, the people involved and whether they’d be held liable as well (hey they’re bankrolling this). Voila, a new article:
Will Spyware Be Spitzer’s Next Big Thing?
And don’t expect Spitzer to [...]

With the recent hubbub regarding adware, something occurred to me.
One thing I never understood is *why* some affiliate networks seemed to allow parasites to operate within their programs. Wouldn’t it have been in their *best interests* to keep the networks clean? Keep the majority of their affiliates as prosperous as possible (hey affiliates would be [...]

Things really seem to be cooking lately on the adware/spyware game. Download.com boots them, an Attorney General is getting cranky with them and anti-spyware movers and shakers are turning up the heat:
Adware & Spyware- The Heat is On
Loved this part:
I’ve said it before and I will say it again- merchant’s beware. The time of reckoning [...]

CNET Download.com has announced it has zero tolerance to spyware:
Download.com
Dear Downloaders,
When it comes to fighting unwanted adware and spyware, CNET Download.com has always been in your corner. During the past few years, we’ve brought you the best tools and tips in our Spyware Center, and we’ve maintained a strict policy toward adware by allowing only [...]

Claria Press Release
In January 2005, McAfee issued a report on the top threats for 2004 and inadvertently labeled Gator software as a malicious threat. Since Claria’s GAIN ad-supported software provides high consumer value and requires user permission and consent, these applications clearly do not pose any malicious threat. McAfee addressed their error in a release [...]

Well here’s one way to eliminate the competition I guess:
The Case Of The Hired Hacker
Our “Entrepreneur” was still living at home with his parents when he launched two online sports apparel businesses specializing in “retroâ€? or “throwbackâ€? sports jerseys. These jerseys are a booming, multi-billion dollar industry, crowded with competitors, and in the early going [...]

So how many of these ‘traffic exchanges’ are in the wild do you think? And how many of them know *just the right keywords* to use on their pages to grab those high bids?
One more reason to *uncheck* content on your adwords – thank you. What I’ve done too is really *lower* my cost [...]

This is a long (and disturbing) piece with lots of resources to read. Wayne Porter starts off with:
Prepare for a digital journey into computing hell…
SpazBox- Just Because You Don’t see it Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t There
My team spent this weekend doing a lot of research on a curious domain called spazbox. net (Warning- do not [...]

Supermarkets Next In Line For Phishing Attacks
Online retailers are likely to become the next target of ‘phishing’ scams, UK police warned last weekend. Scam emails that form the basis of phishing attacks attempt to trick users into handing over their account details and passwords. First seen in the UK approximately 18 months ago, phishing emails [...]

So while Google is building adware (think: AutoLink), AOL/Advertising.com is dumping it and the FTC is putting ‘firms on notice’. A few articles:
AOL Gets Out Of The Adware Advertising Business
Advertising.com Drops Adware
AOL’s Advertising.Com Ends Relationships With Adware Companies
AMERICA ONLINE’S ADVERTISING.COM QUIETLY STOPPED doing business with adware companies such as Claria, WhenU, and 180solutions last year, [...]

To continue on with this entry:
Busted: Google And Cloaking Scandal, let’s have some fun and list a few excuses Google could use:
Top 10 Reasons Why We Cloaked (Google Spoof)
10. Alegra went horribly, horribly wrong
9. Was that the title tag? We thought it was the keyword tag!
8. We knew that deal was [...]

Oh boy.
2005 is not shaping up to be the Year Of The Google now is it? First the Autolink scandal and now this flat-out-jaw-dropping-eye-popping newsflash:
From ThreadWatch: Google Caught Cloaking And Keyword Stuffing?
What’s all the fuss about? Cloaking is a method of manipulation used on search engines. You show one page to your visitors, and another [...]

Heads up and check your pages:
Obnoxious Cloaking Scam
The scam is perpetrated by a hosting company on its hosting clients. When a search engine spider, such as Googlebot, requests a client’s page, the host adds a bunch of links to the page that is returned. The client has no idea that it happens. The links are [...]

The movement against Google’s new autolink feature is gaining momentum with the just released video from BBN (Better Bad News) …
Google Pollutes Links Stream With Evil Precedent For Market Censorship
In this 12 minute Video Blogmash the Better Bad News panel re-mixes commentary and analysis of a pending threat to online free speech drawn from [...]

Danny Sullivan has written an in-depth article here Google Toolbar’s AutoLink & The Need For Opt-Out. It’s a long piece, but well worth the read and includes a few comments from Google’s Director of Consumer Web Products – Marissa Mayer.
I found the article to be fair and informative. I especially connected to Danny’s comments here:
My [...]

Earlier I posted about Google’s new toolbar using our own content to whisk our visitors away from our sites and drive the traffic to their own ‘features’:
Now Google’s Messing With Our Content
Well here’s the good news – a fix has been found over at threadwatch:
Code For Fighting Google AutoLink
What you need to do:
- Download the [...]

Sigh. We’ve got another one folks.
Google Gets Away With What Microsoft Couldn’t
Autolink in Google Toolbar
I understand some may feel this adds value for the ‘visitor’ and that this tool can be turned on or off (by the user) as they will so one does have the option whether or not to use it, but where’s [...]