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Spamming Google News
from the sneaky,-sneaky dept
Stories about spamming Google to get listed high up in the results are nothing new, but being able to spam Google News is much more surprising. Google News only includes a few thousand hand-picked news sites, so you would think it's not nearly so easy to get into that index. However, it appears that some spammers have figured out how to do so by putting spam links into the forums on the site of Vibe, the music magazine (in this case on a search for ringtones). You'd think that Google's algorithms would be smart enough to know that the forums are not news, but apparently they don't. Yahoo News also has a similar problem, but from a different site which isn't even a news site. MSN apparently hasn't been tricked yet. Either way, it's a reminder of just how far spammers are going these days to try to show up just about anywhere. At this point, you have to wonder just how much content online is simply made up of spam that's trying to game various search engines. In the meantime, can anyone explain who is so clueless that they actually follow these links in trying to find something like ringtones?
Reader Comments
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"In the meantime, can anyone explain who is so clueless that they actually follow these links in trying to find something like ringtones?"
A majority of people that go to those sites.
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Bastards
That is just so wrong. And you can read all about it at my.ringtones.com
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Re: Bastards
Dramasell -- You didn't include the cats & coffee warning, so you owe me a new keyboard.
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can anyone explain who is so clueless that they actually follow these links in trying to find something like ringtones?
LOL, you don't spend near enough time with the "average" computer user. Many, if not most, computer users know less about their computers and the interent than most drivers know about their cars (and ask an decent mecahnic how little most people know about cars). Hell, and decent tech worth his salt would consider me a rank amatuer at best, and yet there are still pelnty of people I know who look at me like I'm some sort of guru or something just because I've learned a few tricks over the last six years.
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iPod?
I'm not sure, but I filled out 100 forms to win a free iPod and still haven't received mine!
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Free Ringtones...
Download Free Ringtones NOW!!
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Free Spam
I'll cut out the middle man and let you downloadfreespam.com
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Job posting spam on Google news
I've seen job postings creep into some of my Google News searches, especially when I sort the items by date. More than a bit annoying.
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