jatiN mahindrA doT coM

SEO’s Nemesis, Ripoff Report, Caught Selling Links

Frank Watson wrote that RipOff Report Now Selling Links, Verifying Safe Cash4Gold. In short, he shows how they are selling links for certain “qualified” and “verified” businesses. What is the big deal if a site sell links? Well, it is not – it is up to the site if they want to take the risk of selling links and being penalized by Google for doing so. So what is the...

Defending Against Proxy Hijacks

We haven’t covered the proxy hijacks issue in a while, but a new WebmasterWorld thread has brought it back to life. The individual said his web site suffered a hijack in Google: Iv just notice that a russian website has Proxy Hijacked our website and got it indexed in G results.. We have noticed a steady decline in our SERP positions since end of Jan. I found the copy site by doing a “quote”...

Google Talks Spam Control for Buzz

Update: WebProNews contacted Google to find out how they handle Google Buzz spam. The company tells us: "We have several spam and abuse checks in place for Google Buzz content. On the abuse side, we recompress images that are uploaded, and links are scanned by the same technology that helps protect Google web search and browsers that implement our Safe Browsing data. Users can also click...

Stumbleupon? What about Spamupon?

I am one of the few people who didn’t throw a huge fit when the new version of Stumbleupon left beta. I admired the simplicity of the new interface and, as with most new things, decided to give the overhaul a fair shot before voicing my concerns about its limitations. In many respects, it’s much changed from the Stumbleupon the community had grown to love. The developers at Stumbleupon...

Stumbleupon? What about Spamupon?

I am one of the few people who didn’t throw a huge fit when the new version of Stumbleupon left beta. I admired the simplicity of the new interface and, as with most new things, decided to give the overhaul a fair shot before voicing my concerns about its limitations. In many respects, it’s much changed from the Stumbleupon the community had grown to love. The developers at Stumbleupon...

A Black Hat Debate At SES Chicago

This is the time of year when morality becomes mainstream; just try going a day without hearing references to "naughty," "nice," a scrooge, or a grinch.  It seems appropriate, then, that at SES Chicago, there was a session called "Black Hat, White Hat: Does It Really Matter Anymore?" (Coverage of SES Chicago continues at WebProNews Videos.  Keep an eye on WebProNews...

Google: Comment Spam Can Hurt Your Site’s Ranking

Google wrote a blog post named Hard facts about comment spam. I’ll sum it up for you quickly. If you do not protect your site against comment spam, Google will trust your site less and it can ultimately hurt your rankings. Most blogs these days have automatic comment spam solutions, but you need to make sure your blog is handling it correctly. I check comment spam here several times a day....

Twitter Continues Beta Testing of Retweet Feature

Update 3: Twitter is now telling me that I am part of a beta test group for the retweet features, so I guess it is no longer on hold. Those who are part of the test get the following message: Hi there, you’re part of a beta group receiving this feature, which means you may start seeing retweets in a new way. People who don’t have this yet will see your retweets prefaced by "RT". Update...

Spam Will Not Keep You Away from Email

With all of the spam out there and the increasing amount of malice that comes with it, it’s easy to look at the situation and think that email must be dying. Combine the overwhelming amounts of inbox spam and the ever-increasing popularity of communication tools like Twitter and Facebook, and you may ask yourself why you even need email. Well, I’ve got ten answers for you here. Don’t...

Spam is Getting More Malicious

Symantec has released two new reports for the month of November – the State of Spam, and the State of Phishing (both PDFs). The reports highlight a dramatic increase in spam that contains malware. On top of that, junk and malicious email now accounts for close to 9 out of 10 email messages. The security firm says that a new generation of "Spam Princes" are rising, and that the Asia...

Facebook Awarded $711 Million In Spam Case

Spammers may want to steer clear of Facebook in the future.  Late yesterday, a representative of the social network’s legal team announced that it was awarded $711 million in damages as a result of a case against Sanford "Spamford" Wallace. As Sam O’Rourke explained on the Facebook Blog, Wallace is "one of the spammers who accessed people’s accounts without their...

Beware the Emails of Halloween

Symantec’s MessageLabs released its Intelligence Report for the month of October, and it reveals the that the spammers behind the biggest botnets – Cutwail, Rustock and Donbot – are using the upcoming major holidays and world events as the themes for their the latest spam runs. This is not particularly surprising news, but it is news that people should be aware of nevertheless. According...

Twitter Fights Spam With New Reporting Option

Spam is something that can have a serious impact on Twitter: It annoys individual users, messes up lists of trending topics, and even makes the site look less suitable for businesses and monetization.  It’s a good thing, then, that Twitter’s going after spammers with a new spam reporting option. In the past, people who noticed a spammer would have to know about and contact a special...

Email Attacks Put Other Types of Accounts in Jeopardy

You’ve probably seen reports of big webmail phishing attacks over the week. A spokesperson for Symantec’s Message Labs tells WebProNews, however, that most reports have glossed over a key point to consider. That is that the potential impact on other aspects of victims’ online lives are in jeopardy as well. "The bad guys have more than just access to users’ email accounts,"...

Top 10 Most Spammed States in the US

Symantec’s MessageLabs revealed a list of the most spammed states in the US today, with some somewhat surprising results. And the award for state that receives the most spam is…Idaho. According to MessageLabs, Idaho is the spam capital of the US with 93.8% spam, far exceeding the global spam rate for September of 86.4%. MessageLabs says Idaho has jumped 43 spots since 2008, when it was...