Click image to read Difference Between Pingbacks & Trackbacks
Bloggers need to understand the difference between REAL pingbacks and trackbacks and trackback spam because approving links to poor quality or MFA blogs (Made for AdSense – i.e. only created to generate ad revenue) can negatively affect YOUR blog.
You never want to be trading quality dofollow links for nofollowed links or links hidden in mouseover text or phantom links that don’t even exist!
First head over to Ana Hoffman’s Traffic Generation Cafe and read about the difference between pingbacks, trackbacks, and trackback spam and then continue reading below on what WordPress plugins to avoid if YOU do not want to be a spammy blogger who gets blacklisted and ruins your reputation.
WORDPRESS PLUGINS / BACKLINK TOOLS TO AVOID:
- Digi Auto Links ~ http://www.digiautolinks.com/
- AutoBackLinkCreator ~ http://automaticbacklinkcreator.com/
- Backlynx ~ http://backlynx.net/ ~ syndicates your posts to blogs – mostly poor quality blogs 0n auto-pilot
- Autobacklinkbomb.com
- Freebacklinktool.com
- Backlinker-professional.com
- Autobacklinkbomb.com
- Socialmonkee.com
- SEO Link Monster
Anyone who can make a case for any of the above NOT being spam tools or
who have others to be added to the list are invited to comment in this post.
Click the image to read about Simple Trackback Validation plugin that DOES NOT defeat this new kind of trackback spam
Bloggers are now spamming other bloggers with phony trackbacks.
I suspect some don’t realize that is what something they installed does.
Others are just selfish and do not care that doing this will ruin our ability to meet bloggers with related blogs and quickly spread awareness of urgent issues.
Phony trackbacks appear in your dashboard
claiming to link to you - often from a related blog or using
relevant anchor text – but when you visit the site there may or
may not be a visible link to you.If you view source on their page you will find your URL
along with many others in some code for some kind of script.
The reason generating phony trackbacks will kill trackbacks is that bloggers have already started either blocking ALL trackbacks or are so tired of checking them and finding they aren’t real that they just start deleting trackbacks from any blog they don’t already know.
There is another reason even worse than just not being able to meet other bloggers in our niches:
Trackbacks are the fastest way to notify
other bloggers of a serious issue – Kill trackbacks and you
take away that ability to reach out to many bloggers at once.
Here are a couple of examples of how I use trackbacks to do that:
- Funding for libraries is being cut across the country. Libraries are important resources – especially for those who can not afford to buy reference materials and books. When I wrote about that issue and linked to all the library blogs I could locate, those that allow trackbacks were made aware of that new list of library blogs and some tips on how to promote their own library.
- The oldest seed company in the United States -which is also one of the few companies selling heirloom, non-GMO seeds we have left – is being threatened with closure. When I wrote about saving Landreth Seed Co. I linked to all the gardening blogs I could locate to make them aware of the challenges facing Landreth and hopefully get them to encourage their readers to take action by buying catalogs or seeds. If you care about preserving seeds that can reproduce and be saved to plant the next year, please read that post: Gardening Bloggers Wanted to Help Save Historic Landreth Heirloom Non-GMO Seed Company for what you can do.
Trackbacks let us know when another blogger
links to any of our content.
WHY that is important and what I do:
I visit blogs when I receive trackbacks and if they have written useful content I comment in it and review it on StumbleUpon and share it on Facebook, FriendFeed and Twitter.
I can often send a small or new blog more traffic than they normally get in a day with one tweet. Because I consider it highly important to encourage other bloggers I still check every trackback even though I am being flooded with so many phony trackbacks that less than 10% are real.
Sometimes the blogger has written such a compelling post or has such a useful blog that I will write a post and link to them or review multiple posts or schedule many tweets for them over one day or many.
A few selfish people who want to build backlinks
by stealing them instead of earning them have
put the entire usefulness of trackbacks at risk.
This is highly unethical and will result in every blog generating phony trackbacks being blacklisted.
I have identified these sources of phony trackbacks:
- Digi Auto Links at http://www.digiautolinks.com/
- AutoBackLinkCreator at http://automaticbacklinkcreator.com
WHO is Andy Fletcher and HOW can we contact him?
(Creator of Digi Auto Links – most of his contact links are phony, too.)
If you know, please share that information in the comments
or contact me privately.
If you are on the list below, you are advocating blog trackback spam. IF you are ethical, you need to stop doing this, edit your recommendation post and publish a new post retracting your recommendation.
BLOGS RECOMMENDING TRACKBACK SPAM:
There are page after page of these so this list will grow as time allows.
- WARRIOR FORUM – shame on you! You should know better. http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-forum-classified-ads/453755-sale-digi-auto-links-discount-bonuses-special-discount-bonuses-warriors.html
- Adam Tezer http://digiarticleblasterreview.net/
- Anwesh Rath http://anweshrath.com/
- Baaltazar Shanton http://www.digiautolinksreview.com/
- http://www.clickbankwarehouse.com/recommends/digiautolinks
- http://www.kevintir.com/digi-auto-link/comment-page-1#comment-4350
- http://in-review.net/internet-marketing/backlinks/digi-auto-links-plugin/comment-page-1/#comment-1289
- http://jvbonusandreview.com/digi-auto-links-wp-plugin-is-here/comment-page-1/#comment-307
- http://www.mola-hotel.com/2011/10/digi-auto-links-automation-all-it-is-advisable-to-know/#comment-794
- http://www.coastalvalleyaviation.com/archives/3339
- http://www.krights.net/2011/10/digi-auto-links-automation-all-you-must-know/
- http://wp-seo.net/plugins/digi-auto-links.html
- http://webtrafficproductsreview.com/backlinks/digi-auto-links-wso-special.html
- http://nichesuccesspro.com promoting automaticbacklinkcreator.com
If the link has #comment at the end I left them a comment notifying them that Digi Auto Links generates phony trackback spam.
TRACKBACK SPAMMERS:
There are dozens to hundreds of these already. After I publish this post I will continually add to this list so that bloggers can add these sites to their blacklists.
TRACKBACK SPAMMERS NO URL
These blogs send trackbacks but the url of your blog is not visible on their site and can not be found by viewing the source code for their page. One easy way to recognize there is that all of the links in their content are usually on their own domain like this:
Example of trackback coming from http://johnfwagner.com/blog/2591/is-it-spam-or-marketing-on-twitter/ - Click image to see full size
I just identified another plugin that generates Trackback spam: Automatic Backlink Creator – and this one with no links at all on the originating site. All blogs using that plugin or generating phony trackbacks that have no links will be blacklisted and published here:
- johnfwagner.com
- ebook-review.org/2011/10/09/automatic-backlink-creator-review/ Review of that other plugin
- secureyoursfree.com
- thebestworkfromhomejobs.org
- ebook-review.org
- powercashonline.com – puts the title of posts on the page but no URL in source code or on the page
TRACKBACK SPAMMERS HIDDEN URL
These blogs hide your no-followed URL in the source code. (View source and search for your domain and you will see it there, but it will not be visible on the actual page on their site.)
- localsearchresults.com.au/
- lowcostdomainnameregistration.org
- hostingwebhostingservices.com
- thealexangroup-viralspiral.com
- allanwilsonuk.com
- jamesmillermarketing.info
- walkingdeadseason2.a1-blogs.com
- nichesuccesspro.com
- kids-gardening.net
- wedipit.com
- 1stfinanceguide.com
- profit-now-at-this.com
- eftvideos.org
- ws-blogs.com
- secureyoursfree.com
- michaelharringtonblog.com
Because this is unethical, your site will be blacklisted and any comments you leave here will be blocked or deleted.
If you stop generating phony trackbacks and
remove the unethical plugin you can request
to be removed from the blacklists.
My blacklist will be shared with any other blogger on request so that they, too, can block your phony trackback spam and comments.
ETHICAL BLOGGERS WHO REMOVE THESE PLUGINS:
New and even experienced bloggers may not realize what these plugins are doing. When they find out and contact any of us I add them to this list of ethical bloggers and ask that others welcome them warmly and assist them in any way we can.
There is no shame in following bad advice before you know it is bad advice – only in staying on an unethical path once you know what that is IS unethical. There are tons of very slick sales pitches that sound so good that anyone can fall for them – ANYONE!
Bloggers must decide whether they want to create a site
that tries to make money by auto-generating content
that provides almost no value in an attempt to
generate money from AdSense or get rich quick
plugins, ebooks, and memberships sitesOR
They want to have a high quality, ethical blog
with unique content that creates relationships with other
bloggers, readers and potential clients, customers or buyers.
UNSUSPECTING BLOGGERS REMOVED from BLACKLIST:
Bloggers who have been added here get links and suggestions. They often have fallen for the snake oil sales pitches that claim anyone can get rich quick online by auto-generating spammy posts or by scraping content from other blogs.
- freedrinx.com – Phoenix online marketing ~ Frank Schwarz @freedrinx
I hope they will read this section because none of those things work any more.
There IS NO ETHICAL WAY to
GET RICH QUICK online or offline –And even the UNETHICAL ways rarely work!
They USED TO work but the search engine algorithms have been tightened up so that those types of sites sometimes generate AdSense or affiliate income but they quickly get eliminated from organic listings and get blacklisted for comment spam.
Because those methods no longer generate the income they used to generate, unethical affiliate marketers and spammers are focusing even more attention on selling worthless ebooks, unethical plugins, and memberships in sites that teach black hat methods that can get you banned for life.
You CAN make money IF you do it wisely. Start by adding local content to your blog and creating quality content that will provide a reason for local small businesses to hire you to do their Local Directory Listings, Blog Outreach and advertise with you.
Create a hire me page with information similar to what I have on my hire GrowMap tab for Small Business Marketing – read Why Your Blog Should Have a Hire Me Page and Setting Up Your For Hire Page Dos and Don’ts.
Or create an offering like my Small Business Internet Marketing Starter Package. I provide free mentoring, assistance and training in anything on those pages.
Twitter: DivineTeam
says:
It is not so big amount of such a spam I get, but it is still annoying. Thank you for sharing this info, and most of all: for spammers list!
Victor would love you to read ..Web design software | Divine Elemente – Photoshop plugin
I am fairly new to this blogging thing and came to this page because I was having some doubts about whether or not some of the links that are posted to my blog are actually damaging links. I have gotten several links from the same type of site some relevant to my niche others not. Should I only be approving links that are relevant to my industry, or is any link ok. Thanks for any comments in advance.
Twitter: GrowMap
says:
Hi Elizabeth,
The post I’ll put in CommentLuv in this reply explains what is really spam and what isn’t. If someone comes to your blog and reads your post and makes an intelligent comment, as long as they aren’t linking to a bad neighborhood I believe in allowing that comment.
Because commenting in CommentLuv blogs is popular and there aren’t usually 100s in any specific niche – or because link builders just don’t understand the concept of ‘relevant’ – they tend to comment wherever they can.
Eventually I believe we’ll see less of that, but we really can’t tell that someone whose link is not related to ours is not sincerely interested in what we wrote.
We should not be slamming the virtual door in the face of someone who may well be interested in buying – or may recommend us to someone else. That is what deleting comments willy-nilly is doing – locking your business door to potential buyers.
Deciding which comments to approve and which to delete can be complicated, but that post should help. And do consider running the GrowMap anti-spambot plugin because it blocks all the bots and that leaves a lot fewer comments to have to moderate.
growmap would love you to read ..For Bloggers Who Hate Comment Spam
Twitter: backgroundchek
says:
Forgot to mention: What about if you make a comment at a competitor’s site or any blog that is industry related and the blog owner simply chooses to mark you as spam?
I’ve noticed quite a few blogs that don’t have any comments which could be due to probably blog owner does not want to dilute their pagerank or for all you know they also don’t want their visitors clicking on link to your site.
In conclusion, you may labeled a spammer by posting comments that are unrelated to your site topic (community issues, experience with electronic apps, etc.) and yet have your comments refused by industry specific sites.
Please help me clear up this confusion before I post another comment anywhere else.
Joe would love you to read ..Background Checks Blog
Twitter: GrowMap
says:
Hi Joe,
If bloggers mark your comments as spam you will end up being blacklisted by Akismet which is why we refuse to use it and thousands of bloggers use the GrowMap anti-spambot plugin instead.
Many blogs don’t have comments because they have few readers and most readers don’t comment. Some don’t have comments because they don’t approve any they do get. If a blog doesn’t want comments they should disable them instead of wasting the time of others who try to comment.
Moderating comments takes a lot of time so they don’t always get approved in a timely manner – especially if a blogger has multiple sites or life has other priorities. They might go live any time weeks, months or even years later – or never. There are no guarantees.
There are also blogs that have auto-generated comments to APPEAR to have real readers and commenters but that don’t actually ever publish comments from real people.
I have just the post for you to read: For Bloggers Who Hate Comment Spam that explains the challenges of commenting and my philosophy on it.
You might also want to read CommentLuv Your Way to Business Prosperity which explains how blog commenting can create economic benefits we so desperately need.
The optimum way to comment is to stop seeing them as simply exercises in link building and use them to create niche communities (both by topic and location) and build relationships. Focus on commenting in blogs whose readers would be interested in what your business offers and using your comments to attract real people – not just for better search engine ranking.
growmap would love you to read ..Top Small Business Books – My Picks for SmallBizTrends 2012 #BizBookAwards
Twitter: backgroundchek
says:
Hello again,
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my comments thoroughly and responding with a comprehensive explanation of how best methods to improve spam detection.
You make a very valid point in regards to my blog making visitors login before posting comments. I realize that by doing so, I may have curtailed spam 100%, but in doing so — I also discourage legitimate visitors from posting by making it so tedious.
I went ahead and installed GrowMap and CommentLuv as per your suggestion and so far, so good.
Many thanks,
Joe
Joe would love you to read ..Background Checks Blog
Twitter: backgroundchek
says:
What about simply forcing commentators to sign up at your blog via Facebook, Open ID, WP accounts. etc.
That has worked very well for my blog although I must admit I get less comments. You can even set to auto approve as long as you set tight filters on use of profanity.
Question: Can a malicious competitor try spamming your site by posting spammy comments as if they were you? I have a strong suspicion is being done as I have found blog comments using my domain that were not posted by me and they all look like they were intentionally written to harm my site. Any input is truly appreciated.
Joe would love you to read ..Background Checks Blog
Twitter: GrowMap
says:
Hi Joe,
Spammers are more likely to take the time to log in than serious bloggers like me who are very busy. If a site requires logging in most of the time I don’t read it, share it or comment in it unless they have a piece of content I consider highly important.
In that case I will share it somewhere else (like G+ or Facebook) and comment there instead. I often do that anyway. I can NEVER get logged back in to WP and end up having to create another account every single time so that isn’t happening. I have major issues getting logged into Open ID as well so if that is the only option I just leave.
YES, anyone can spam your site by commenting as you. Sadly, there is no easy remedy for evil. I would notify the blog owners that you did not leave the comment and ask them to remove it. The problem with that is the worst blogs don’t provide any obvious way to contact them. You could try using whois data.
I wouldn’t spend too much time on it though because if someone publishes poor quality or MFA (Made for AdSense) sites the odds are they won’t respond because they won’t spend their time assisting anyone else.
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Internet Marketing: Where to Start
Twitter: AnaTrafficCafe
says:
I am so glad you had the guts to call out these spammers, Gail!
I’ve been getting tons of those trackbacks (of course), but only recently found out (thanks to Andy Bailey for adding Digi Auto LInks blocking in CL Premium) which plugins cause that.
Digi Auto Links sales page sounds so innocent; I can definitely see how so many unsuspecting bloggers buy into that!
Ana would love you to read ..Internet Marketing Tools
Twitter: GrowMap
says:
Hi Ana,
Blocking them is the most awesome way to deal with them and I am truly grateful that Andy takes the time to add advanced capabilities like that. For a serious blogger that alone is a great reason to invest in CommentLuv Premium.
That is why I keep the link to that post under recommended at the top of my center sidebar – to make it really easy to find.
The trackback situation would be hopeless with the proliferation of spamming plugins being continually promoted on places like Warrior Forum.
If Andy can block them that is the best solution; if not, even I will throw in the towel and refuse all trackbacks, relying instead on alerts of some kind to know when real bloggers link to me.
growmap would love you to read ..Top Small Business Books – My Picks for SmallBizTrends 2012 #BizBookAwards
I think that the intension of trackback facility was good but it was used by many people (bad bloggers) on a wrong way and in this race and because of them many good people (genuine bloggers) also affected. Trackback was developed to automatically notify another blog about your new entry. But sadly saying today it is become a tool of spreading spamming.
Its very frustrating for us blog owners who continue to be hassled by these spammers requesting track backs. Its enough to make a lot owners disable trackebacks all together, which is a real shame.
Michael would love you to read ..Hello world!
Twitter: hypnodudeitaly
says:
Posts like this are the reason why I like reading Growmap, so many informatons hard to find somewhere else. Once I’ve fallen too to the get links quick and raise ranking fast theory, who didn’t work. Competition is so hard on the net that everyone is looking to speed things a bit. It doesn’t work and many of the links you receive are from crappy or dead blogs. As of now I just quitted using everything except Twitter, where I just publish tweets of my posts because I don’t have enough time to deal with it and also there are too many tweets to read them all; Stumble Upon and Digg. I’m not that into social marketing and I prefer to be found by search engines.
I also stopped publishing links in sites like SheToldMe, Best-Reviewer, RedGage, Xomba and similar places as the traffic received is low and their value for links is zero as search engines know they are used solely for self promotion by authors, and there is also the link farm and article farm thing: everyone writes there about everything in their search for money and backlinks.
And if I have to create a valued website to promote another website it’s pretty much worthless.
Content, keywords, search engines and a lot of time are the only way to go to receive traffic, together with a group of friendly bloggers supporting each others.
Now, I’m still thinking if it’s worth going on using Livefyre or if it’s better to shift to CommentLuv, I know your position on this Gail
, but from what I’ve seen on the net also blogs using CommentLuv are prey for spammers who leave crappy comments just for a link, which can also be pointing to a bad neighborood. This means that to avoid dangers you should always check those links and this needs too much time.
As for trackbacks I always check where they come from and if there is an automated link I simply delete them. Oh well, the world is full of people going the easy way and always will be, that’s human nature. Also let’s not forget that a good amount of bloggers are people only interested in get rich quick shemes coming from places where the internet legislation is just an empty word and they are not prosecuted for spamming or tricking others.
Sorry if I went a bit out of topic, great post as usual.
hypnodude would love you to read ..10 Affirmations for Weight Loss Motivation
Twitter: GrowMap
says:
The one good thing about plugins like these is it makes it much easier to determine whether a blogger is ethical or not. Then each kind of person can seek out others like themselves and tune out all the rest. I explain how I do that in my Blogging Ethics post.
Wanting to be rich is a ridiculous goal that keeps people running like hamsters on a wheel reaching for a brass ring they will never catch. There is a controversy in politics right now about whether or not there is or is not a middle class with some saying there are no classes in America (wrong).
One wise person said that we’re all supposed to believe that we are all wealthy – some of us just haven’t “made it” yet. That IS the illusion of The American Dream – but as George Carlin says, they call it that because you have to be ASLEEP to believe it.
growmap would love you to read ..What If There Was an Easy Way to Get Your Tweets Retweeted? There Is – And It is Fast and Free
Twitter: matthewacoleman
says:
this amazes me and i dunno how i feel about it..thanks for sharing a list of TRACKBACK SPAM