When Is A Spam Not A Spam?
October 10th, 2007I got a pingback today (which I’ve deleted) from a ‘blog’ called “Massage Therapy Talk”, which posted this item a few days ago:
The Great Enemies Of Science: Nurofen
This is a quick excerpt of an interesting post I found the other day:
They are as follows: Aromatherapy Acupuncture Alexander Technique Chiropractic Herbal medicines Homeopathy Osteopathy Physiotherapy Reflexology Yoga Hypnosis Now personally, if […]
Read it all here
A quick glance at the front page makes it clear what they’re up to: they’ve got a Technorati search set up for the word “massage”, and they’re sucking in every blog post they can find. (Well, it won’t be Technorati, because they refuse to acknowledge any posts on this blog, for reasons unknown.) Then they put them up on the blog (automatically) with a little comment about how interesting it is that’s pulled from a pool of five or six at random. This generates pingback links all over the web to their imaginary blog, which is plastered with adverts. They get visitors mostly who are interested in massage information, and their Google ads tend to be on that subject. It’s a very cunning system, and honestly I can’t decide if it’s spam or a public service.
What do you think?
[More Help]
October 11th, 2007 at 16:28
I’d say public service, since only admins can see pingbacks, and it helps spread every little blog.
October 11th, 2007 at 16:34
I’m sure non-admins can see them. I just logged out and looked at http://www.apathysketchpad.com/…-nurofen/ again, and I could see two pingbacks (one from Badchemist and one from this page). Can’t you see them?
October 11th, 2007 at 20:19
I can see them! On other blogs, too. They faintly annoy me, because they don’t really explain what they are.