1 Topic by Cherry (edited by Cherry 2007-07-11 23:57)

  • Registered: 2006-02-06
  • Posts: 19

Topic: the philosophy of spam?

I've read through most of the spam-related threads here, and in my lovely host's [Site5] forums. There are always lots of good suggestions - and they're usually shot down by experts. I am still mystified about why spammers spam?

First off, the problem:

    For most of us, who make websites for real people to use, it's that your ordinary user isn't so wedded to your client's subject that they'll mountaineer their way over a series of obstacles to post a reply. They have other things to do - like feed the baby, pour another drink, watch Coronation Street ... etc. We offer forums as a service to the client - who benefits from whatever user discussions are generated. In effect, our contributors are helping the website owner. There's a limit to their patience & committment. The more measures we put in place to reduce spam, the less engaging our websites become.  One of my clients had a major porn spam problem. I added captchas to all of his response pages - after which the spam stopped, but so did his genuine replies.

Question:

    What, exactly, does your spammer gain by spamming?  I chose this forum to post my question, because punbb (while imperfect - sorry, Rickard & co) really does have several 'intuitive' anti-bot mechanisms already built in tongue
    My forums are being spammed - it seems, on examination, by physical individuals, not bots (with the exception of limpy@privatepop3.com, who I think is a bot - s/he/it registers, whilst the rest seem to have discovered an exploit that I have yet to identify).  I appreciate that bot spam is mainly sent out from hijacked intermediaries - that still seems pointless to me but it probably was a brilliant idea to the person who originated it, way back when?!
    It's very easy to understand how a baby-programmer-to-be would spam; "Whoo! Look what I can do!! Kewl!!!" However, most ex-spammers/griefers quickly find a more profitable outlet for their skills ... and make great programmers. I can't believe any of them would persistently post bunches of ads for fake pharms and/or abuser porn.  So what's going on? Does anyone know why it happens?

One mystified Cherry

[edited to diminish smileys]

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: the philosophy of spam?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic)

Spamming is economically viable because advertisers have no operating costs beyond the management of their mailing lists, and it is difficult to hold senders accountable for their mass mailings. Because the barrier to entry is so low, spammers are numerous, and the volume of unsolicited mail has become very high. The costs, such as lost productivity and fraud, are borne by the public and by Internet service providers, which have been forced to add extra capacity to cope with the deluge. Spamming is widely reviled, and has been the subject of legislation in many jurisdictions.

  • Registered: 2006-02-06
  • Posts: 19

Re: the philosophy of spam?

Yes - and thanks, as ever, Smartys!

Still and all: I have a background in direct marketing and, regardless of entry cost, you wouldn't persist with a medium which alienated more prospects than it converted.

I can see that spam might generate new punters for illegal porn, assuming certain market conditions - but fake antidepressants? Fake cheap flights? You get enough genuine offers for the real thing, nobody would buy from a link they clicked on by mistake.

There's a difference between "email marketing" - another bugbear, but more suited to another forum - and the idiotically targeted crap that plagues forums & such.
It is targeted, and very clumsily: my complementary therapy client gets rubbish about C!aL1$ and yoga pills(??); my home-improvement client gets V1@gra and porn. You'll notice that neither of them receive spams from Aveda or Screwfix; genuine advertisers have more sense than to piss their prospects off that much.

If spam had any value, Screwfix for one (they're not averse to a well-placed unsolicited message) would be spamming. My suspicion is that the whole spam thang has created its own momentum and is, in fact, totally pointless.

I'd like to understand a bit more about it than that Wikipedia entry - which seems to be the only 'authority' ever quoted and is a bit simplistic! Because, if you don't know why & how it spawns, you can't hope to control it.

Yours directly tongue
Cherry

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: the philosophy of spam?

Spammers don't sell the products, they sell a service: namely, the ability to post your link all over the Internet. So they make money by posting the links all over the place regardless of how many people actually buy the stuff. There's an SEO aspect to that: get your link everywhere, your rank on search engines goes up for your search terms.

  • Registered: 2006-02-06
  • Posts: 19

Re: the philosophy of spam?

Smartys wrote:

they make money by posting the links all over the place regardless of how many people actually buy the stuff. There's an SEO aspect to that: get your link everywhere, your rank on search engines goes up for your search terms.

So spam is an SEO advantage?

Well, okay, it has nothing to do with the products advertised .... [excuse me, I'm thinking on my keyboard here] .... and the reason the spams seem 'targetd' is because of the search engines' improved relevance checking??

Blow me. I should hire a spammer.

sad cherry

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: the philosophy of spam?

I don't know how "relevant" forum spam is, it has always seen somewhat random to me tongue
And the search engines take steps to reduce the impact of these spammed links. And punish sites that take advantage of them (spamming your URL would be considered blackhat SEO)

  • Registered: 2006-02-06
  • Posts: 19

Re: the philosophy of spam?

Smartys wrote:

(spamming your URL would be considered blackhat SEO)

Well, they do seem to be targeted (in a very thick way, as outlined above).
The blackhat thing bothers me a lot. After going to a bunch of SEO meetings, I ended up thinking an Evil BlackHat SEO outfit would be a good choice for certain short-term offers!

But still ... So spams get you a load of links, which gets you a higher position (which means you're rubbish at providing relevant content & using your html tags, but never mind that) ... So visitors click on your site, take a 1-second look at it and click away. So how is that worth any expenditure? Somebody must be paying for it, somewhere down the line ....

I'm getting the picture.  But I'm still mystified: people aren't that stupid! Or are they?

  • Smartys
  • Former PunBB Developer
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2004-04-30
  • Posts: 7,844

Re: the philosophy of spam?

I would assume some small percentage of people actually end up buying products from these companies. If they didn't, then as you said it wouldn't be worthwhile.

9 Reply by Cherry (edited by Cherry 2007-07-12 01:48)

  • Registered: 2006-02-06
  • Posts: 19

Re: the philosophy of spam?

In the case of -ahem, minority (illegal) markets - it looks likely. But, in general, they wouldn't! No point asking "would you" coz you're a Web guru wink I bet your auntie wouldn't click on a spam link either, and that's the point, marketing-wise.

Thank you very much for making me think harder, Smartys. I'm dog-tired now & have to go to sleep.
Please will someone pick this up?

Cherry

[edited: overdid the smileys again]