Interesting spam: Wikipedia trackbacks
-
I've been getting some very interesting spam on my wordpress blogs lately: trackbacks on wikipedia articles that are obviously spammy. By that I mean that the comment on wikipedia are obviously spam and the link to my blogs are removed before I even arrive at the page or get the notification. The trackbacks are posted on valid wikipedia entries.
My concern is that this is a move by an unsavory competitor to try to get my sites in trouble. I can't really see how this would be effective though. All I can come up is that it might eventually get my domains banned from being linked to in wikipedia. I can't think of any problems this would cause in google or other SE's.
What could be the purpose behind such a spam campaign?
Any feedback?
-
This is by far the most likely explanation as far as I can see. Thanks for checking it out Takeshi!!
-
Hi Ryan,
I hope you are well.
I had the exact same thing yesterday, by the time I got to the page it had been edited. Well, I'm sceptical it was ever there actually because I could not find it in the edit history.
Funny thing is, is that it was that exact same wiki page! I just deleted it, perhaps Takeshi Young is right then
Someone must be experimenting with that page.
-
I did some research, and apparently trackbacks are really easy to fake (they just ping your blog with fake info). The comment "we arrived across a neat internet site that you could possibly like. Just take a look if you need..." sounds like there might have been a link there, that got cut out.
So basically spammers send these trackbacks that look like they're coming from legitimate sites hoping that they'll get approved so they can get their link posted on your site.
-
I looked at this page and others that have come in like it, and cannot find the links.
-
Weird, do you know when you received the trackback? You can see the edit history for the page here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fort_Dobbs_(North_Carolina)&action=history
-
Yes. A trackback as if its a link from Wikipedia. I can't find any record of the link being on wikipedia however. Its all very confusing.
Edit: Added a screenshot of the (temporarily) approved trackback. At the bottom the link "North Carolina" points to the wikipedia article mentioned above.
-
Ok, so a trackback is generated when someone links to your site from another site. This will show up on your site as a trackback.
Are you saying that you received a link from Wikipedia? Or that the trackback includes a link to Wikipedia? Or something else?
-
Example:
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Dobbs_(North_Carolina)
Comment: Awesome web sites...
we arrived across a neat internet site that you could possibly like. Just take a look if you need...
It looks like a comment, but when I approve it goes under trackbacks. I'm assuming wikipedia doesn't have an army of blackhat spammers hitting up blogs to increase their rankings
-
Do you have any examples? You should be able to see the edit history of the page to see who added the link to your page and in what context.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Blcoking Analytics Spam Referral Traffic
Hello, I'm starting to find some of our sites being heavily affected by spam referral traffic. I've been doing a bit of research, but it seems advice is changing all the time (or trying to sell me a service) Does anyone have any suggestions (or links to point me to) on the best way to block spam referral traffic (All our sites are Wordpress). Is there a way of blocking from past data or only future? Will blocking affect past moz data or is that permanently contaminated? I really don't quite understand what is in it for these spammers. Any advice greatly appreciated
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wearehappymedia0 -
Spamming Backlinks - doesn't seem to be detrimental enough?
Hi, We have noticed sites such as http://www.rattanfurnitureoutlet.co.uk & http://www.supremerattanfurniture.co.uk/ have huge numbers of what appear to be spam like and invaluable backlinks yet they have both maintained a great ranking for their search terms despite this. We would like to know why, does the good outweigh the bad so to speak?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | birdmarketing0 -
Why Link Spamming Website Coming on First Page Google?
As we all already know about link spamming. As per Google Guidelines Link building, Exact Keywords Anchor Link Building is dead now but i am looking most of the website coming on first page in Google doing same exact keywords linking. I think directory, article, social bookmarking, press release and other link building activity is also dead now. Matt always saying content is more important but if we will not put any keywords link in content part then how website rank in first page in Google. Can anybody explain why is website coming on first page because when i am doing same activity for quality links with higher domain authority website then we are affected in Google update.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dotlineseo0 -
Pages linked with Spam been 301 redirected to 404\. Is it ok
Pl suggest, some pages having some spam links pointed to those pages are been redirected to 404 error page (through 301 redirect) - as removing them manually was not possible due to part of core component of cms and many other coding issue, the only way as advised by developer was making 301 redirect to 404 page. Does by redirecting these pages to 404 page using 301 redirect, will nullify all negative or spam links pointing to them and eventually will remove the resulting spam impact on the site too. Many Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Modi0 -
Is this a 'real site' or a spam site for backlinks
I have been asked what type of site this is? What kind of page is this? [http://www.gotocostarica.com/](http://www.gotocostarica.com/) In my opinion it is site put up to create back links and should be avoided (especially in the light of the new Penguin and Panda updates coming). But I don't want to give wrong advice. What are your opinions?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Llanero0 -
Who's still being outranked by spam?
Over the past few months, through Google Alerts, I've been watching one of our competitors kick out crap press releases, and links to their site have been popping up all over blog networks with exact match anchor text. They now outrank us for that anchor text. Why is this still happening? Three Penguin updates later and this still happens. I'm trying so hard to do #RCS and acquire links that will ensure our site's long-term health in the SERPs. Is anyone else still struggling with this crap?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | UnderRugSwept2 -
Have I created link spam.....
Howdy fellow Mozzers.... Since Googles Penguin Update I am overly cautious when reviewing our link profile. I spotted 2 domains linking to us yesterday, 80+ links from each domain to our homepage. This looked superstitious, site wide links effectively. At first inspection I couldn't spot the links....they turned out to be two individual comments, but as the site had a plugin with "most recent comments", 1 link became 80. The link is an exact match of the individuals name who made the comment. And is a result of filling out the comment form. Name: Website: Comment: By filling out the name and website the name becomes the anchor text for the link to the website. Long story short...do you think this is penguin esq. link spam? Is it not? Or is it just not worth the risk and remove them anyway???
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RobertChapman0 -
Has anyone seen this kind of google cache spam before?
Has anyone seen this kind of 'hack'? When looking at a site recently I found the Google cache version (from 28 Oct) strewn with mentions of all sorts of dodgy looking pharma products but the site itself looked fine. The site itself is www.istc.org.uk Looking in the source of the pages you can see the home pages contains: Browsing as googlebot showed me an empty page (though msnbot etc. returned a 'normal' non-pharma page). As a mildly amusing aside - when I tried to tell the istc about this, the person answering the phone clearly didn't believe me and couldn't get me off the line fast enough! Needless to say they haven't fixed it a week after being told.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | JaspalX0