Asshat SEO – AdCard Ltd
I appreciate comments on my blog and it annoys me that I can't make it as easy as possible for everyone to have their say in an easy fashion, without CAPTCHA and registration/confirmation.
The reason for that is of course the comment spammers that infest the blogosphere. Usually, the spammers hawk porn, prescription drugs or some other rubbish by pointing to a URL for a throwaway site, but some hop onto your blog with URL drops to boost search engine rankings.
This is what happened here recently when two comments appeared on a blog entry, one from "Bianca" and another one from "Pat". I thought they looked strange, because "Bianca" said "And what other research projects do you intend to put the money?" while pointing to a URL - http://signschristchurch.co.nz
"Pat" left a similarly nonsensical comment and another URL, http://restaurantamedbali.com. The sites are hosted on Singlehop.com and use the same Thesis Wordpress theme.
Both comments came via 114.108.218.148 which is assigned to a residential Skycable.com block in the Philippines. Strange choice of host for someone in Christchurch, isn't it? Maybe that person was hired to post comments on NZ blogs, or the computer in question compromised to act as a conduit but either way, it's a subterfuge.
It didn't take too much effort to find out that this is the work of Adcards or Nic Dale in Christchurch. He does it to bump up websites in Google's index. I emailed Nic to ask him what he's hoping to achieve with this kind of spam, but he didn't respond.
He did however reply to Idealog earlier this year, when they complained about similar style comments being posted on their site:
From: "Nic Dale" nic@getsalesleads.co.nz
Date: 3 February 2010 1:01:04 PM
To: <redacted>
Subject: RE: Request for removal of domain from your database
Hi <redacted>
Thank you for your email. Idealog is the NZ magazine I buy most often.
I have reviewed the list of domains in your email and have removed idealog.co.nz from the list of NZ blogs. We were not aware of any of the other sites you mentioned.
Like you I abhor spam. Since speaking to Brett this morning I have read the comment that he tagged as spam in his blog (I saw it on the thread on the NZ Web Dev Google Group which I'm guessing is where you found it too.) If that comment had been placed on my site I would have deleted it as spam too.
My staff are instructed to place relevant comments on blogs that add value to the conversation. The comment Brett read did not comply with that policy and frankly deleting it as spam was the right thing to do because it did not provide value to the conversation and improve the thread nor did it reflect well on us. The staff member concerned will receive coaching.
Our purpose in placing comments on blogs is to add value to the conversation because only in doing that will the comments be approved and value to our clients by directing traffic to our site.
Best
Nic Dale | AdCard Director | AdCard Limited | PO Box 29-029, Fendalton, Christchurch
Phone 03 351 2959 | Mobile 027 5577 000 | Email nic@adcard.co.nz adcard.co.nz | www.linkedin.com/in/nicdale | www.facebook.com/nicdale
Uh, no, Nic. That kind of "comment placing" doesn't add value to the conversation. In fact, such comments are not part of the conversation and most certainly won't be approved.
This thread on NZ Web Dev has more examples of Nic's work. As it is, I'm not sure the DIA takes a dim view of this type of comment spamming, but I'm certainly going to find out.
As for SEO, when people ask me about it I usually tell them to make sure their site is interesting, unique and as easily accessible as possible. I like what Stuart on NZ Web Dev wrote:
SEO is the result of a pessimistic view of the world. It says that good service, good design, great content and a compelling product aren't enough. It says that even with all of those things, you need to have an arsenal of underhand tactics with which to prosper.
Indeed. I'd suggest NZ bloggers keep an eye out for comments from "Pat", "Bianca" and friends. Throng for instance has a member called racheldunst whose webpage is given as restaurantamedbali.com and Spareroom has been hit by a "relevant comment" too.
Update Nic Dale responded to me on Monday morning, and here's his reply, posted with his permission:
Hi Juha
Thanks for your email. I was disappointed to see your post on Sunday. Forgive me for not replying over the weekend. I hope replying to your email within 1 business hour is a satisfactory response.
You're right those comments were placed by my team. Members of my team are based in the Philippines as well as Christchurch and Melbourne.
Having read the comments placed on your blog I apologise for any offence caused. I'm disappointed that the comments were placed too because neither comment was on a thread relevant to our client. In fact I can't imagine your blog is relevant to any of our client's businesses, other than the fact you're both NZ based.
My expectation is that every comment placed on a blog is read and approved by a real person. On that basis my team are required to place comments on blogs that are relevant. More importantly the comment placed must add value to the thread to warrant being published. The 2 comments you highlighted did not.
Again sorry for the inconvenience caused.
Best
Nic Dale | AdCard Director | AdCard Limited | PO Box 29-029, Fendalton, Christchurch
Phone 03 351 2959 | Mobile 027 5577 000 | Email nic@adcard.co.nz | Skype adcard_canterbury
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Comment by brenda, on 21-Mar-2010 14:51
SEO comes up in the list of requirements on many projects, including government RFPs.
Comment by webnation, on 21-Mar-2010 22:57
while myself working on some projects on their SEO part, but my method are not spamming people blogs, but put work on page tile, web design, etc.
google's seo blog have post about this, they say they have penalties which bring the other side of the argument what about your competitors using this trick to downrank you google rank?
so their alot of discussion, my self don't believe in this method will improve someones ranking
Comment by freitasm, on 22-Mar-2010 18:26
Brenda, there's SEO and there's charlatans. Developers creating websites can embed SEO direct into their code, bringing good ratings from many search engines.
Link Drop is spam, not SEO.
Comment by Felix Deguzman, on 22-Mar-2010 18:44
Juha,
I am a proud Filipino American and it is clear to me that you are biased to the Philippines as a nation and as a peoploe and want them to be labeled as ill intentioned, to which I take offense to. I will forward this to the New Zealand Embassy of the Philippines and the U.S. for their review as well. I will also work doubly hard to have New Zealand banned from Asia and America for attempts to label and red line a part of this world that is striving to be less borderless and racially more accepting.
If you are Jewish as your name suggests, you should be more circumsribed with your statements.
Comment by Felix Deguzman, on 22-Mar-2010 20:56
freitass,
There is real beef and there is charlatan beef from New Zealand. Maybe you should stop sending them to Asia and America? Or maybe, NZ's should not come and Asians and Americans should not go? Maybe NZ censures the internet and it's users and not China?
Comment by Dylan Reeve, on 22-Mar-2010 21:38
Your comments are very enlightening and inform my information on the subject at hand very expertly. I can see why so many people visit this blog and contribute to the meaningful comments and exchange of thoughts and ideas that it facilitates.
I'd like to think that people would do the same at my website, http://dylanreeve.com/
Kindest Regards,
Dylan Reeve, Esq.
Professional Person
Comment by Felix Deguzman, on 22-Mar-2010 23:26
You at least owe it to dylan for trying...what are you waiting for? You must hasten and make a blog post. Now you both can thank me for the increased traffic to your sites.
Felix Deguzman
Trying to be
Professional Person
Comment by Steve C (Kinthiri), on 23-Mar-2010 11:33
I don't know if its possible on GeekZone, but before I started using Disqus on my blogs, I wrote a plugin in Wordpress that removed the rel=nofollow attributes from comments if I thought they warranted it, but otherwise left all comments without the follow-juice.
What supposed SEO gurus never seem to tell their customers is that Google/Bing/Ask/AOL are often very well aware of their tactics. They may get on the front page very briefly, but once the search engines catch on, you completely lose any chance of getting back inside the top million if you're lucky, let alone the front page of search results.
The best thing to do, at least for me, was to go to Google's site and report every site that tries to leave a spammy comment. The more this gets done, the faster those sites will get spotted.
Another thing I have taken to doing is blocking whole subnets for a period of time after just one spam. I usually go for 60 days. That combined with disqus, akismet and Bad Behaviour seems to have blocked or quarantined every spammy comment on my newest blog so far. But given its only 2 months old, time will tell I guess.
Comment by ronindanbo, on 25-Mar-2010 15:08
@Felix Deguzman
I hope you do get us banned from Asia and the Phillipines that would probably remove 98 percent of malicious spam and virus attacks from our internet. Also it would serve to make companies in NZ stop outsourcing to cheap labour call centres that are hopeless...
Remember you need us more than we need you.
Comment by freitasm, on 25-Mar-2010 21:09
Felix, you say "is clear to me that you are biased to the Philippines"...
Juha is just pointing out where the spam is coming. He didn't say anything specific. You, on the other hand, made a point of calling Juha a Jewish because of his name.
You, sir, go troll somewhere else.
Comment by also spammed, on 29-Mar-2010 14:49
My blogs also receive a bunch of irrelevant spam comments from the people at adcards / getsalesleads. I wish they'd give up as the comments are never approved.
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Comment by freitasm, on 21-Mar-2010 14:17
What is most interesting is that New Zealand companies are constantly being approached by SEO "experts" who promote seminars telling them how they could all be on the first page of Google search results.
Of course the idea is that those companies would buy SEO services that in turn are just an expensive way to hire cheap Indian and Singaporean labour to go around spamning blogs and forums.
Most of the times when someone ask me about it I just say "don't go there."