how to stop spammers from hijacking your backlinks
September 15, 2013 6:45 PM Subscribe
I was reviewing my link profile and found out that I had links from shady websites I have never requested links from. they apparently link from a page but when you click on it, you get redirected to a porn site. my question is how can they achieve that? second how do you stop it or prevent it from happening. here are some of the examples:
any assistance will be appreciated. souleye
any assistance will be appreciated. souleye
The most common way is for the link text to be innocent, but the actual link itself to go to a porn site or something else shady.
How do you prevent it? You don't.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:26 PM on September 15, 2013
How do you prevent it? You don't.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 7:26 PM on September 15, 2013
I can't tell since the links have now been removed... maybe you can work something out with the mods to post the HTML and Javascript of one of the pages that contains the links (via pastebin or something).
However, my guess is that they are creating something that appears to be a link to your site via HTML, but then using Javascript to hijack the click and redirect to a porn site instead.
A couple of thoughts:
First, you don't have any control over "backlinks" (a term that I don't really like; they're just inbound links, links to your site). It doesn't make sense to obsess over them, and inbound links from some spammy linkfarm won't contribute to your PageRank anyway — Google is fairly good about ignoring them.
Second, spammers gonna spam. Unless the hijacked links are located on non-spammy sites — which would be indicative of the site having gotten compromised, in which case you should notify the operator as a courtesy so they can fix it (very common with blogs) — you are basically looking at the low-level noise floor of the Internet. It's like staring at scrambled porn on cable or pressing on your eyeballs or something, and trying to make sense of it. It doesn't, it never will. Spamsites are mostly created by machines, probably in the vain hope that they'll make money somehow. I'm not even convinced that they're particularly profitable... they're probably run by the third or fourth tier of wannabe online scumbags, people who haven't figured out how to actually conduct actual cybercrime. There are too many of them to effectively fight yourself, and even trying would be an unsatisfying experience at best.
Report the sites to Google if they're appearing in search results relevant to your site, but aside from that, ignore them and move on.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:33 PM on September 15, 2013 [1 favorite]
However, my guess is that they are creating something that appears to be a link to your site via HTML, but then using Javascript to hijack the click and redirect to a porn site instead.
A couple of thoughts:
First, you don't have any control over "backlinks" (a term that I don't really like; they're just inbound links, links to your site). It doesn't make sense to obsess over them, and inbound links from some spammy linkfarm won't contribute to your PageRank anyway — Google is fairly good about ignoring them.
Second, spammers gonna spam. Unless the hijacked links are located on non-spammy sites — which would be indicative of the site having gotten compromised, in which case you should notify the operator as a courtesy so they can fix it (very common with blogs) — you are basically looking at the low-level noise floor of the Internet. It's like staring at scrambled porn on cable or pressing on your eyeballs or something, and trying to make sense of it. It doesn't, it never will. Spamsites are mostly created by machines, probably in the vain hope that they'll make money somehow. I'm not even convinced that they're particularly profitable... they're probably run by the third or fourth tier of wannabe online scumbags, people who haven't figured out how to actually conduct actual cybercrime. There are too many of them to effectively fight yourself, and even trying would be an unsatisfying experience at best.
Report the sites to Google if they're appearing in search results relevant to your site, but aside from that, ignore them and move on.
posted by Kadin2048 at 7:33 PM on September 15, 2013 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: thank you for your contribution. actually, I posted this initially on google webmaster forum but haven't got a response. so I like how effective the system is here. it's the first time I'm posting but from now on, I'm gonna try to be a more frequent contributor.
posted by souleye at 7:54 PM on September 15, 2013
posted by souleye at 7:54 PM on September 15, 2013
Response by poster: one question though. why do they remove my links since they're very relevant to the topic? I see at the bottom of the text area a button that says 'link'. if links are not allowed what would be the point of having that link???
posted by souleye at 7:55 PM on September 15, 2013
posted by souleye at 7:55 PM on September 15, 2013
Generally, links are allowed - but not always to one's own stuff. If you want clarification from the mods, use the contact form.
posted by pompomtom at 8:02 PM on September 15, 2013
posted by pompomtom at 8:02 PM on September 15, 2013
You can also put the links in your profile and tell people they are there. Those pages are "no follow" so aren't sending juice to spammers.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:27 PM on September 16, 2013
posted by cjorgensen at 6:27 PM on September 16, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 6:47 PM on September 15, 2013