Comments on: Exposing a spammer: First-Rate.com

By: Smart Alec

Smart Alec — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:07:05 +0000

* * ***** * * **********
** * * * * *
* * * * * * * ****
* * * * * * ****** * *
* * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * *** * *
* ** * * * * * ***
* * ***** * * ********* *****

Sorry poor Joke,

By: Freidrich

Freidrich — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:53:38 +0000

Sorry for the hijack/pseudospam, I just had to post that given the irony… I guess you could just delete it…

My view on the article is that the web is still wild – don’t complain about the freedom – it comes with the territory. Let’s just be smart and use technology to nullify it (there are enough ways to do this!) and forget about it and move on…

Fred

By: Freidrich

Freidrich — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:40:33 +0000

Oh, how weird…

I received this golden reply from my friend the other day – his name has been deleted by his request.

It’s a small world, eh Michael?

Fred

———- Forwarded message ———-
From:
Date: 2008/5/13
Subject: Re: SEO Training for Web Developers-Monday
To: Michael Brandon

You’re correct that if my email is published – then yes it is technically legal. However, can you show me the page where you got my email from? I haven’t been operating my web development business for a while so technically you are spamming me. I also would never be interested in hiring you to teach me SEO. At the risk of sounding cocky, I probably have more experience than you.

Just to clarify, I think you’re a bit of a w*nker for harvesting addresses like this. But I feel good to see the calibre of your clients – your probably not going to get anywhere with getting a decent sized SEO project. Especially by grabbing web development companies email addresses off their sites. Also a piece of advice – take away the photos. No one wants to see your beard.

2008/5/13 Michael Brandon :

The interesting part of Marketing ;) You have a web development website and you have your contact details available. And SEO is rather web related. Close to but technically not spam.

Sorry to be intrusive – the unsubscribe button also exists. Need to get the word out somehow.

Kind Regards

Michael

—————
From:
Sent: 13 May 2008 5:03 p.m.
To: Michael of SearchMasters
Subject: Re: SEO Training for Web Developers-Monday

Did I signup for this?

2008/5/13 Michael of SearchMasters :

Search Engine Optimisation Training – this Monday 19 May, Stamford Plaza Hotel, Auckland
http://www.searchmasters.co.nz/seminars/

The key to achieving better results in search engines is search engine optimisation (SEO). If you or anyone in your team is looking to up-skill in SEO, you have the opportunity to learn from the best – SearchMasters. <– note the ego.

Blah blah blah dull dull buzzword weasel-speak dull blah. Yawn.

Give yourself the skills to deliver results for your clients!

Kind regards

Michael

Michael Brandon
SearchMasters

By: Rob Scott

Rob Scott — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:43:19 +0000

I’m happy that Askimet is so good at trapping spam – on our blog we’ve just logged 100,000 spam comments. That’s not funny. However, I often think that a lot of comments we receive are just there to add an extra link to the commenter’s website rather than to add anything meaningful to the post / debate. That said, the occasional ‘gem’ does come along: when you get a lot of people making valid comments and responding to what is being said.

Is it wrong to remove a person’s URL from his or her comment if you believe it is their primary reason for commenting?

By: Michael Brandon-SearchMasters

Michael Brandon-SearchMasters — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:13:12 +0000

Getting inbound links is an incredibly hard business. But getting links from blogs such as this that have nofollow on the links “a rel=’nofollow’ href=” is rather a waste of time. There are blogs around that are “dofollow” blogs (nofollows not added) where the links give Google Page Rank and link text voting for the links.

But getting links from such blogs is not easy for exactly the point that you raise. It looks rather spammy.

However, dofollow blogs by there nature invite comments from people, and comments make a community. When other people see comments on a blog, it invites more comments. So while such comments can be a little left field, it can be something that you can let slide on occasions.

Personally I have dofollow on my the Search Engine Optimisation blog which is part of my site. If comments are interesting then I take off the nofollow and even allow link text as well as having a persons name.

By: Aral

Aral — Sun, 11 May 2008 11:24:08 +0000

Hi Marcus,

I don’t think it does. This is _not_ the kind of publicity they want when they get new clients. I’m sure that many of their clients do not know or understand the underhanded tactics that they use to “optimize” their sites.

By: Marcus Stade

Marcus Stade — Sun, 11 May 2008 00:02:39 +0000

I hate to be a party pooper, but doesn’t the fact that you dedicate an actual blog post to them sort of make them win? I agree though (how can I not?), spamming – wether it be on blogs or not – is a pain.

By: Aral

Aral — Sat, 10 May 2008 19:35:42 +0000

Thanks for the heads up — I’ve reported them to Google. Let’s see what happens.

By: Ill

Ill — Sat, 10 May 2008 18:03:59 +0000

It may or may not be illegal, but I see that they are a Google Adwords Qualified Company, and Google usually don’t like the wool being pulled over their eyes by a marketing partner. I personally know they pulled a large Adwords contract from a company called Geosign in Canada, that cost them about $160 million.

A different tactic being employed here by First-Rate.com, but equally as sneaky, so I’d say report it to Google.

By: Bartek Drozdz

Bartek Drozdz — Sat, 10 May 2008 17:19:56 +0000

Should be illegal, I agree. I just got my first spam comment on my blog today, and I am afraid it’s just a start of a struggle I will have to carry on. For the moment I think deleting spam comments + some antispam plugins is the only way to fight with it.