Trackback Spam

September 29, 2007 · Posted in Meta 

Some trackback spam’s been making it past my in-much-need-of-updating Akismet and SpamKarma plugins,1 so I was rooting around in my blocked comments and found this comment (automatically blocked by my outdated spam filters, I might add, so the product can’t be that good):

This comment was posted automatically using [company/product name deleted]2 Check out its site to learn more and start building backlinks to your websites today.

The spammer web site is an interesting read. It begins:

If you are one happy [competitor product name deleted] users, you already know how effective trackback advertising is when using right tools. Released 12 months ago and updated month by month, [same competitor product name deleted] is still leading links building tool and because of its ability to trick antispam plugins it became so effective, that some blog owners were forced to disable trackbacks on their websites at all. Yes, some webmasters thought it’s enough to stop my customers from building hundreds of links per day and increasing their earnings. But this game is not over. After months of research, development and testing, [product name deleted] is waiting for you. Brutal new weapon to keep your backlinks and income growing!

Which is followed by this description:

[product name deleted] is the most advanced and 100% automated backlinks building tool today which can drive targeted traffic to your website and increase earnings by automatically posting relevant comments to thousands of blogs with backlinks to your sites. If you have used other backlinks building tools previously, you know they can post simple comments and increase your traffic, but to win this game, you MUST be one step ahead of your competitors. Drive your competitors crazy by getting higher and higher earnings month by month!

At the bottom of the page is a long list of features, the last three of which caught my eye:

# Smart Licensing Options. Your license allows to install software on different servers and promote different domains without paying any extra fees.

# Premium Support Service. Software comes with premium customer support service and professional assistance options. If you experience any troubles, need help installing/configuring software, or just have some questions how to get the best results possible, submit new support ticket and get completely FREE help and assistance.

# Money Back Guarantee. Blog Comment Poster comes with 7 days money back guarantee. For instance, if you feel software is too powerfull for you, just ask for full refund.

I like how their license explicitly states that you don’t have to pay extra if you install their software on multiple servers, as anyone who’s going to hack into someone else’s server to install this botware is going to be worried about paying additional licensing fees.

The customer support issue might have surprised me if I hadn’t come across the BBC World News article earlier this month on high-end hacking software coming with customer support.

And, finally, there’s the money back guarantee taunt: Our software’s so good, it might be too much for you to handle. Yeah. Or maybe I’ll want my money back because it can’t get past my outdated spam filters.

In all, an interesting diversion into the dark side of the net.

  1. Actually, I really need to upgrade to WordPress 2.something too…. [↩]
  2. I’ll link to them in case any of my readers just happens to be itching to perform a DOS attack on someone for research purposes but has refrained for concern over the ethics involved in such research. [↩]

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