Bloggers beware–something fishy is going on
Nov 14th, 2007 by Cathy Nelson
In recent weeks I’ve received an abundance of comments on blog posts– thank you network of readers for the support. I’ve been getting some pingbacks which essentially means someone is linking to something you have posted in your blog. Ryan Bretag of the Four-Eyed Technologist recently gave me a pingback b/c I blogged about something he was blogging about too (although it was a confessional about what I do when I’m not engaged in the professional learning<blush>). That’s okay Ryan I stand by what I said. Ryan’s pingback is legitimate. But I have been getting some ODDLY suspicious pingbacks too. The first one I just got so happy for the pingback, I automatically approved (since my blog is moderated.) But since then, everytime I write a new post, I get the same kind of pingback, all looking way to similar and weird. You can see them in Technorati for this blog’s profile. Scan down the links to my blog, they’ll kind of stick out b/c they all begin the same…Here is a picture of one:
I have since unapproved the one I let slip through, but each time I write new content, I get another pingback in the guise of a comment awaiting approval. CREEPY. Downright creepy. The blogs they came from are sometimes filled with ads, and all their posts seem very shallow and lame. I am wondering if this is the new “spam” for blogs. Anyway, I feel like my blog is under attack. But I’m not alone. Another blogger i read is getting the same kind of pingbacks. No names–sorry–but I did drop an email and ask him to investigate it. Now I will wait on the weird Pingback for this post to (hey spammer–I’m on to you!!)
Legitimate reders, your thoughts?
Any popular blogger can tel you this is nothing new. Spammers copy your content to make their site seem legit and request a pingback.
I’ve gotten it on many of my plugin pages, for most of it I simply don’t approve. However, very little gets past Akisemet (which I strongly advise using if you can). I’m not sure if you have many options since you’re hosted on Edublogs. I recommend sending edublogs support a message – they should be blocking this kind of thing.
Cathy – I’ve heard good things about akisemet, but I can’t get it to work on my blog. I’m running Bad Behavior under Spam Karma 2 and it’s really taken care of the problem. Good luck.
Hi Cathy – I know how you are feeling. I am getting these with most posts. Spoken to James (Edublogs) but he has said there is little that we can do. So annoying but no where near as bad as the spamming that is happening on my podcast site.
[...] special thanks to Cathy Nelson, Joyce Valenza and Doug Johnson who skyped in to share one Web/Library 2.0 application with the 50 [...]
Cathy,
You’ve discovered the exciting world commonly called the “splogosphere”. Splogs (or spam-blogs) are growing in number.
And, yes, Arthus has probably offered the best advice yet for fixing the problem.