Does Google Mail care about this?
Yes, but since many of the e-mail addresses are phony, they never impact the Google POP servers. The problem there is Google is offering up what are basically throw-away e-mail addresses, so how should they determine who can have one and who can't. I have a Gmail address (hardly ever used) I acquired back when you had to have an invitation from Google, in order to get one. I use an auto-responder on that address, which warns people I never use the account, so they should e-mail me at my regularly-known address. It also informs them if they don't know that regularly-known address, I really don't care to hear from them anyway.
Mike and Jim: Thanks for all the hard work!
Thank Jim, he was the one mopping up the mess. Don't thank me, I'm the one who should be thanking you, for helping to make the T-Bucket Forums the finest T-Bucket resource on the Web. Without people like you participating here, this place would never have grown into what it is.
Please explain this to me because I am computer stupid. Exactly what are they trying to accomplish by doing this ? Same with people who plant viruses, how does that do anything for them ?
Don, it's a really long story that is really hard to explain. But what these arseholes are doing is building backlinks for their customers.
When you discover a new Web site, you do it by one of three means -
- You got the address from a friend
- You found by doing a search on a service like Google, Bing, Ask, etc.
- You clicked on a link on another site you were visiting
Here are some interesting facts done by a search engine optimization company I once did contract work for. If you're looking to buy a new whig-jig to grind smoke, what's a logical first step? You search for it on teh InterWebz, right? And over 90% of the time, you will perform that search on Google. (Most people would ditch Google in a nanosecond, if they knew the data Google is collecting about them, but that's meat for another meal.)
FACT - Since you use Google more than any other search engine, I need my Web sites to rank well on Google.
When people use Google, 80% of them will never click on page 2 of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
FACT - Since most people never see page 2 of the SERPs, I need my Web sites to rank on page 1.
Of the above number, 80% of them will never scroll down to the bottom of page 1, so they might only see 5 or 6 results.
FACT - I need my Web sites to rank in the top 6 spots.
The secret to optimizing Web sites, is knowing what it takes to rank well. I just checked Google on the term 'T-Bucket forums' and we rank number 1 out of 14,800,000 results. A check on 'T-Bucket forum' (singular) ranks us as number 1 out of 17,100,000 results. I'm pretty proud of that, because I've studied search engines and how to optimize sites for search engine crawls for over 6 years. I actually earned my crust working as an independent SEO contractor for a couple years. I've learned what search engines like to see and what they don't like to see. I've learned where to place keyword-rich content on Web pages, in order to get it noticed faster and easier by the search engines. And I've optimized all of my sites naturally, without resorting to what are known as 'black-hat tricks'. It has allowed my sites to grow naturally, which puts a smile on the search engines' faces.
I've carefully arranged my sites to get the search engines focused on content, rather than on fluff. And I've tried to carefully build quality backlinks into this site. But instead of just buttering up the entire Internet with backlinks, I've placed them where they would be the most effective. What some people do with backlinks is spam, plain, flat and simple. I've tried to place natural backlinks, to allow traffic to find them and act on them, naturally. Because I've seen what happens to sites that try to manipulate the search engines.
One way to help a site rank better is to build backlinks into the site. In other words, adding links to this site on other sites. But building backlinks can be very risky business. Do it right and it pays off, well. Do it wrong and you can see a site get 'sandboxed' by Google. Again, backlinks need to occur naturally, because trying to stuff backlinks is a practice that is easily identified and soundly penalized.
I own and operate several Web sites and in most instances, I have a backlink to this site on those other sites. But note, I said in most instances and not in all of them. Some backlinks are really good and some are really bad. If I had a Web site selling sports uniforms, placing a link to that site on a cooking forum would be pretty worthless. And much more worthless today than just 5 or 6 months ago, to be honest. But if I could get a link to my sporting goods site on the ESPN site, it would be priceless.
A cooking forum has naught to do with sporting goods, so my link would not be contextual on that site. But the link on ESPN would be contextual, so it would get a lot of link 'weight'. ESPN is all about sports, so a sporting goods link there would be a real flower in my cap.
Another aspect is the ranking each one of those sites would have on the search engines. My link on a cooking forum isn't worth much, but if that link is on a cooking forum that ranks well on Google, it will be worth more than having the link on a cooking site that ranks back on page 6 of Google. Same with getting that link on ESPN. The absolute biggest sports network in the country and their site has a massive amount of ranking 'authority'.
So, if I want to build backlinks to this site, placing a backlink on Spirit's Buckethead Bash forums would be worth more than placing a backlink on a Ford Mustang forum. But the Ford Mustang forum link would be worth more than placing a backlink on a knitting forum. A backlink on a contextual Web site is worth a lot more than a backlink on a completely unrelated site. And if a backlink is placed on a site that is awash in spam, the backlink might even bring you a penalty from Google.
And let me be very clear about this. Again. I do not visit other T-Bucket sites. I don't want people like B.C. or the officers at the NTBA to think I am coming around to spam up their sites with backlinks to this site. Nor do I want them to think I am trying to lure their members away to this site. Heck yes, having some links to this site on those two sites would help, but I'll be damned if I am going to build this site on the hard work of others. I've managed to make this the fastest growing T-Bucket resource on the Web and I've done it without crawling over the backs of others. Heck, I just learned yesterday that the NTBA had switched forum platforms. And I only learned that during a phone call with a pal who is an NTBA officer. I'm that far out of touch with those other sites.
Links are very important to Google, in particular. If a site has loads of incoming links and no outgoing links, Google sees that site as a dead-end. Link juice needs to be able to freely flow both into and out of all sites, to keep Google happy. But there are some limits. And most people do not understand those limits.
If I set up a Web page with just 1 outgoing link, that single link gets all the site's link juice. If I add a second link to the page, then each link gets 50% of the site's link juice. Add 2 more links and suddenly, each link is only getting 25% of the site's link juice. Something like a forum home page can spread the juice pretty thinly, because there are so many links. Look at all these links -
I identified 47 links, just in that small area. And I missed one. The word Shop in the Shop category bar is another link. If those were all the links on the home page, the link juice gets pretty thin, because it would be divided 48 ways. See how easy it is to water down the link juice?
Here's an example of a really good link exchange. On this site, we obviously have sponsor links leading back to RPM's Web site. That's a really good link for him, because he has a site that ranks very well for a lot of T-Bucket-related keywords linking to him. RPM has a link to this site on his own site. Which is a very good link for this site, because Google sees a commercial site, related to T-Buckets, is linking back to us. Quality links for both of us. Both sites are about T-Buckets, so the links are contextual and well-targeted.
But when we come to people spamming forums, they have no qualms or concerns over what they are accomplishing by their actions. They just know there are getting paid for every spam post they submit, so they submit as many of them as possible. Companies that do not understand true link value will pay spammers between 80¢ (on a poorly-ranked site) and $1,000 (on a highly-ranked Web site) for every post containing one of their links.
Anyone remember Overstock dot com? Always had ads on television and you could hardly visit a Web page that didn't have their ads on it. Have you noticed you never see their ads on Web sites, these days? They ran a huge link campaign and spent countless dollars to have spammers drop their links everywhere. That worked really well, until Google updated their algorithms. Suddenly Google saw Overstock had trajillions of links built on kajillions of Web sites, most of which had naught to do with any of the products Overstock was advertising on those sites. Google sandboxed Overstock. Within hours, a site that made its fortunes on Web sales was ranking pretty much nowhere on any of their best keywords. Overstock suddenly rushed out, purchased another domain name (O dot co) and tried shifting all of their pages over to the new domain. But all those trajillions of links they had spent some very serious dollars for were suddenly worthless as a used condom.
I have some recorded data on the J.C. Penney Web site, which was sandboxed on the very same day. At 7:00 PM on that day, Penney's ranked number 1 for the term "Samsonite carry on luggage'. By 9:00 PM that night, they ranked number 71. From top of the pile to page 8, in just two hours. At 7:00, they ranked number 1 for the term 'living room furniture'. At 9:00, they had fallen back to number 68. Love 'em, or hate 'em (and I prefer the latter), Google giveth and Google taketh away. If 80% of you never bother to look at page 2 of Google's SERPs, how many customers do you suppose Penney was getting from residing on page 8?
The spammers only care about turning in a high post count to whoever they might be working for. They report their spam post links, the company paying the bills runs a scraper bot over the URL to verify the link exists and they pay the spammer accordingly. Because they really aren't aware of the mistake they are making. It's not as if huge companies like Penney and Overstock were proudly telling the world about how they got their tender vegetation caught in a wringer. So, in time, those companies will all go down the same plughole as Penney and Overstock.
But it takes time and it takes a bit of salesmanship. Let's say you've just opened Don's Rods and you have a new Web site to sell all your wares. So I come to you and I say I will provide you with more business than you can handle. I tell you it is going to cost you $15,000, but within days, you will be rolling in your profits. You give me the $15K and I go spam the Web with links to your site. Suddenly, your Web site has all these new backlinks and it's appearing in the top five results for searches on streetrod parts. Next month, you come to me and offer me $30K, to do twice as much work. The month after that, you can't find me, because I've closed down my Web site. That's because I've changed my name, opened up shop under a new name and have gone across the street, to sell my services to the flower shop. And then, in the 3rd month, or maybe even the 15th month, when Google sandboxes you for all your spammy links, you're looking at your shoes and I'm spending your $45K on some blond bombshell on a beach, somewhere.
Get this - most of the registrations you saw in those log pages were registrations from an automated script. We call them bot registrations. The script I told you had just been updated and released on Friday? A copy of that script costs $590.00. And it costs another $10.00 per month, to keep it working. See how it works?? Some prick sells a kid an overpriced piece of software to come in here and shred our forum, to diminish my link juice and to make money.
But once you have a copy of that script, you just plug in a few forum posts, tell the script the kind of sites you want it to find and cut it loose. It takes off, tries to register for all those sites, and if successful, start hammering the site with your posts and then it moves onto another forum to do the same thing.
It is painful, but karma most definitely works on the Web. Spam a site's links all over Creation and you will pay the price for it. It takes some extra effort in times like these, but our users all see we are ready to go the extra mile to keep things safe, secure and spam-free. Our users recognize we are doing it for them, so it all comes home in the end.
