Spamvertised URL

While spending sometime surfing the web today, I came across a rather interesting terminology used in describing blog comments spam. The MT-Blacklist plug-in for Movable Type Publishing Platform addresses their method of handling comment spam or spamvertised URL.

The rapid increase in comment spam is by large motivated by Google PageRank. One the criteria for obtaining a better/higher pagerank in Google is the no. of URLs linking to a site. To find out how many URLs are linking to a site, type in link:http:www.yourdomainname.com in the Google search box. The higher the no. of URL links to a site, the higher is the site’s PageRank.

Although there are numerous blacklisting software available, many focus on moving/mutable targets as described by MT-Blacklist. Moving/mutable targets are IP addresses, keywords, SMTP relays, etc. Because of its moving/mutable nature, it is not the most effective way of compiling or tracking a blacklist for a blog. MT-Blacklist on the other hand focuses on the spammer’s weak point. Because the spammer’s focus is on placing links all over the web in order for the GoogleBot to see and index the links, spammers tend to put as many URLs as possible in blog comments.

MT-Blacklist implements a two-line of defense method. The first line of defense it to scan through comments posted by comparing the comments against a blacklist. If spam is detected, the comment is rejected and not posted. The second line of defense is called search and de-spam. If the comment is not found in the blacklist and the comment notification is turned on, you can look at the posted comment and reject and delete it.

Note: MT-Blacklist is a general content filter and a plug-in search and De-spam.