This is a test of the emergency spamblock system

Netscape Tester · Feb 20, 2005

This is only a test....

http://www.wizards.com
http://boards1.wizards.com
http://www.nuklearpower.com
Wizards

Michael Morris · Feb 20, 2005

Netscape Tester said:
This is only a test....

http://www.wizards.com
http://boards1.wizards.com
http://www.nuklearpower.com
Wizards

And this is a followup of that test.

Michael Morris · Feb 20, 2005

Ok, it works. Here's the deal. The primary goal of the comment spammers we've been plagued with of late has been to up their page visibility on webcrawlers such as Google, MSN, Alta Vista and others. They know full well they're going to get banned - often within minutes of posting - but if their post can last an hour or so they'll get a reference which ups their page relevance and gives them a free higher listing on search engines.

Or so they believe. Google and the other major search engines have implemented a new element within the <a href> tag called rel="nofollow". When a webcrawler sees that tag on a link it will disregard the link on the page and not follow it. To put it bluntly, it turns the spammer's effort into a complete waste of their time - which is only fair, they're wasting our time.

This marker will appear on all user submitted links where the user has fewer than 50 posts. Once you clear that threshhold the system will allow web-crawlers to follow your links back to your homepages.

Darkness · Feb 20, 2005

That's, very very cool.

Ashwyn · Feb 20, 2005

Darkness said:
That's, very very cool.

Yes it is. I like it. I like it a lot.

Eternalknight · Feb 20, 2005

Nice one. Does it work on sigs too? Otherwise, what is to stop a spammer just posting the link in his/her sig?

Michael Morris · Feb 20, 2005

It works on 'sigs too.

Anyway - this is annoying to them, but not a real deterrent. I've begun work on something to outright stop (or at least GREATLY hinder) these bastards. I am fed up.