Got an email address? You're getting spam. Your mail provider might be doing a good job of screening you from420 it, but spam on the Internet is as common as Botox at the Oscars! Unfortunately email spam isn't the only spam variety. There's also link spam.
Unless you run a website you might not know about link spam. It's a way for 'blackhat' webmasters to pump up the value of their sites and it all relates back to how search engines work.
Not only do search engines check the content of websites they also check to see who trusts or depends on those website. That's shown by links. So, for instance, if you own a website and link back to AppScout (we are forever grateful) you are bestowing a little of your goodness on us. That's how Google, Yahoo!, Bing and the others interpret your largess.
But if you run a site that's not trustworthy and no one in their right mind would ever link to you how can you still achieve search engine greatness? One way is to game the system with link spam. We see it in our comments here on AppScout all the time (though we work hard at policing against it).
"Great post. That's really well thought out," is typical of comment spam. The content of the comment is meaningless. The commenter is really trying to get his/her URL listed alongside the comment. If he does--Bingo!
News 4 months ago
