Proving Bad Intent
-
Okay, so based on common sense re: author name and generic comment...
...I'm pretty sure this blog comment awaiting approval is aimed at getting users to a phony site in hopes they will make a donation to a fraudster impersonating Johns Hopkins.
But if you check out the URL, you'll see they are not idiots. It's an .edu address with a high DA.
Two questions:
- Are my suspicions well founded?
- How would I go about proving this, in a less clear cut case?
Author : how to grow weed (IP: 173.208.91.231 , 173-208-91-231.ipvnow.com)
E-mail : Diekema@gmail.com
URL : http://apps.pathology.jhu.edu/blogs/pancreas/?p=121
Whois : http://whois.arin.net/rest/ip/173.208.91.231
Comment:
After study a few of the blog posts on your website now, and I truly like your way of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark website list and will be checking back soon. Pls check out my web site as well and let me know what you think -
One thought is that it would add legitimacy to the comment, and get it approved. On some systems, the first comment needs to be manually approved, and after that the person can freely comment.
-
We all agree that the comment to my client's site is spam.
The issue is whether http://apps.pathology.jhu.edu/blogs/pancreas/?p=121 is also a spam site. I initially thought it might be sophisticated fraud: someone replicated actual content form an authentic Johns Hopkins site with the aim of raking in donations. But that doesn't explain the URL and seemingly legit links.
So I'm left wondering why the bad guy sent spam to my client's site, with an authentic site's URL. What was he hoping to achieve?
-
I don't believe that is the site being spammed. I believe the OP received a spam post on a different site, and the person posting the spam claimed that their URL was the JHU site.
-
That's wild. If it's spam, I'm not sure what's going on.
If you go the website that's being linked to, the site actually looks semi-legit.
I chased down a few of the links and the only external one I can find is to a guy who rides his bike to raise awareness of John Hopkins...and the "official" site has links from legit, personal blogs that are surely real.
And...the only outbound links appear on the ste appear to be completely legit to real places.
Maybe I'm missing something, but why would someone be spamming this site? (Assuming they weren't trying to build the authority before they built their links...which really wouldn't be smart anyways.)
Just so I know I'm not losing my mind...we're talking about: http://apps.pathology.jhu.edu/blogs/pancreas/?p=121 right?
-
If you do a search on part of the comment, you'll see it duplicated all across the web https://blekko.com/ws/+%22study+a+few+of+the+blog+posts+on+your+website+now,+and+I+truly+like+your+way+of+blogging%22
so it is certainly a spam comment. The URL looks decently legit, but the email is a gmail address, certainly a spam author name, and comment is spam. Not sure that they're trying to defraud anyone regarding JHU, but it is certainly spam and I'd just delete it and go on.
-
Yes it is a spam site.
Google the email address and it pops up on several spam trackers.
https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Diekema%40gmail.com
|
Date | 
IP Address | 
Username | 
Email | 
| 
|
| 9-Mar-12 07:33 | 173.234.161.143 | Hai Tanzi | Diekema@gmail.com |
| |
| 14-Jan-12 03:32 | 200.222.13.135 | top 10 dubstep songs | Diekema@gmail.com | | |
| 10-Jan-12 06:06 | 108.62.46.70 | decorator | Diekema@Gmail.com | | |
| 30-Nov-11 04:28 | 173.234.248.159 | how to attract men | Diekema@gmail.com | | |<fieldset><legend>Legend</legend></fieldset>
|
| Toxic IP address or "bad" email domain |
| Highlighted | Hot IP or disposable email address |I just delete all comments that even smells of spam.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Hidden category content really bad?
Hi Guys, I'm working with a site which has hidden based category content see: http://i.imgur.com/Sgko2we.jpg It seems google are still indexing these pages but i heard Google might ignore or reduce the benefit of hidden content like this.I just want to confirm if this is the case? And if this is a really bad thing for SEO?Cheers.Sgko2we.jpg
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seowork2140 -
Multiple 301 redirects for a HTTPS URL. Good or bad?
I'm working on an ecommerce website that has a few snags and issues with it's coding. They're using https, and when you access the website through domain.com, theres a 301 redirect to http://www.domain.com and then this, in turn, redirected to https://www.domain.com. Would this have a deterimental effect or is that considered the best way to do it. Have the website redirect to http and then all http access is redirected to the https URL? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jasondexter0 -
How to detect a bad link and remove ?
As per google penguin, all the low quality back links are going to affect the website SERPS hugely. So, we need to find all the bad back links and then remove them one by one. What I would like to know is, what tool do you use to find all the bad back links ? And how do we know which is a bad back link or bad website, where our link should not be there ? Then what service what do you suggest for back links removal. I contacted LinkDelete.com and they quoted me 97$ for a month to remove all links in less than 3 weeks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | monali123
Let me know, what you suggest.0 -
Is all duplication of HTML title content bad?
In light of Hummingbird and that HTML titles are the main selling point in SERPs, is my approach to keyword rich HTML titles bad? Where possible I try to include the top key phrase to descripe a page and then a second top keyphrase describing what the company/ site as a whole is or does. For instance an estate agents site could consist of HTML title such as this Buy Commercial Property in Birmingham| Commercial Estate Agents Birmingham Commercial Property Tips | Commercial Estate Agents In order to preserve valuable characters I have also been omitting brand names other than on the home page... is this also poor form?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SoundinTheory0 -
Is having all your media hosted on a sub-domain bad?
I just realized yesterday while doing some audit work on our site (which is still relatively new) that all of our audio assets are stored on a separate sub-domain. We are an eCommerce site that sells audio books, and every product page has a sample audio file to listen to. But all those files are stored on a sub-domain of the main site. "cdn-media.oursite.com". First, I understand that media(our audio files) has some inherent SEO value if hosted correctly. Is that true? And if so, how important would you think it is? Secondly, assuming that it does have value, are we losing that value by having them hosted on a sub-domain? I have read things that say sub-domains are bad, and I have read things that say that Google at least has been treating sub-domains as sub-folders, but I can't find anything definitive one way or the other. On another note, another thing I saw is that people are linking to the sound files directly in various places, and those links are going to the sub-domain, not the main domain. There aren't even pages on the sub-domain, just the files, so those links deliver a "visitor" to a page that is completely blank except for a tiny little audio player. Not sure what to do about that, but that can't be good one way or the other right? How big of a problem is this really? Is it worth me going to our IT dept. and trying to change it? It sounds like it would be a pretty big deal to change, so I'll need a few voices to back me up if that's the case.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DownPour0 -
High Bounce with Long Time on Page - Good or Bad?
Hi, I have few articles on my site that are quite good both SEO wise (getting organic search traffic) and as a reading material. They get lots of traffic and people are staying and reading them (2-4 minutes on page). The problem with these articles is that people are reading them and then leave. These are landing pages for certain queries so I assume that the readers are getting what they wanted but when they finish they exit. The bounce rate is 70%-85%. Are these type of pages good or bad for my site? Last note, my site is an e-commerce store. I do try to "motivate" more people to navigate to other pages but the majority do and will probably leave (because they were looking for answers and not products). Needless to say that the articles are related to my site's subjects and products.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet0 -
Ever Wise to Intentionally Use Javascript for Global Navigation?
I may be going against the grain here, but I'm going to throw this out there and I'm interested in hearing your feedback... We are a fairly large online retailer (50k+ SKUs) where all of our category and subcategory pages show well over 100 links (just the refinement links on the left can quickly add up to 50+). What's worse is when you hover on our global navigation, you see the hover menu (bot sees them as ) of over 80 links. Now I realize the good rule of thumb is not to exceed 100 links on a page (and if you did your math, you can see we already exceeded that well before we let the bots get to the good stuff we really wanted them to crawl in the first place). So... Is it wise to intentionally shield these global nav links from the bots by using javascript?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrwestern0 -
Website Restructure - Good or Bad for SEO?
Due to the fact that we aren't in the #1 position, (dropped from #5 to page 2 - You have to love Devs and IT), our heads have hired a SEO Audit/Consultant company to review everything we are doing. I would like to post some of the things they are telling us to do, in which I don't 100% agree with and would like some other professional feedback. Especially since their site isn't marketed very well. http://www.trupanionpetinsurance.com Disclaimer: (this site was a complete nightmare when I started a year and a half ago. Yes, there are many issues that still need to be addressed.) Website Restructure I agree we totally need to restructure our website. I have no idea what the previous SEO guy was thinking. The new SEO company is telling us that the structure is a big part of SEO. I don't believe so, but besides a little loss in 301 juice, is there any other downfalls? Are there any real benefits? Similar question asked the other day (and answered by me): http://www.seomoz.org/q/don-t-want-to-lose-page-rank-what-s-the-best-way-to-restructure-a-url-other-than-a-301-redirect
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Trupanion1