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.
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:
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.
Gail Gardner
Latest posts by Gail Gardner (see all)
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Thank you for posting this it was very use full . also read my blog why digital marketing is important ?
With this article, I won’t trade quality dofollow links for nofollowed links to my blog. Also, no blogger would want to be linked to spammy sites. Thanks for sharing.
Marcelino would love you to read ..Top 5 Best Universities In USA – The Latest Rankings
You are absolutely right. I’ve been fighting spammers all week. Killing comments first, Now I’m just auto killing trackbacks from unknowns
I eventually had to turn off all trackbacks. Without GASP I’d go insane from all the automated spam.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..How to Start an SEO Campaign for Your WordPress Site [Screenshots]
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
we have this on our site too, and we used to get a lot of spam before.. dunno why but for a couple of weeks it stopped.. I hope this remains like this, otherwise i’ll need to get rid of the trackbacks box..
philip would love you to read ..Slaine – A World With No Skies
I’m getting alot of spams thru the trackbacks on my blog too, and i don’t really like that so i needed to turn it off..
I don;t agree at all to this type of promotion.. if u want a trackback link, write a good article, stop cheating! i’m sure google is going to do something about this at a point
~alex
Have thought about this a bit more, and realized there is a way to prevent pingbacks from Digi Auto Links if you so desire. I believe this is a far better solution that attempting to maintain any kind of blacklist or whitelist (there’s really no point singling out individual users of a particular program, it will never be an effective solution.) Instead this puts the choice back in the hands of receiving blog owners to screen out automatic pingbacks with a line of code.
By doing a simple hack on the file /wp-includes/class-xmlrpc-server.php
after the line: $linea = wp_remote_fopen( $pagelinkedfrom );
add a new line:
if (stristr(“<table class='linkboxcontainer'",$linea)) {return new IXR_Error('0','Your pingback has been rejected.');}
This is untested but should work a treat. If you can provide me with some examples pages where hidden links have been used it would be relatively easy to a similar code footprint for autobacklinkcreator and have another line for that. I've had a look at a few on the list you have there but they are TLDs, if you just email me an example URL where a link is being hidden that would be easier.
Maybe you would like to edit the original post to provide this solution? I simply believe the option should be open on both sides as to whether they want to participate in this kind of link exchange, there are many different opinions on SEO out there. But I would request you make an even clearer distinction in your post between a fair exchange and a misleading one, as your post is talking ethics, this is really a major point.
Hi there,
I am the creator and developer of Digi Auto Links, a plugin which uses link exchange to network blogs via related posts using pingbacks.
You are of course welcome to your opinion and to publish whatever you want, however I would like to provide an alternative viewpoint for your readers. I created this software to help people improve their search engine rankings by exchanging relevent links with others in their niche, and that is exactly what it does. The links are displayed under the post intentionally to keep the system whitehat and honest for all users, even though it would be a simple matter to ‘hide’ the links and play it unethical/blackhat. I understand there may be similar products which do play it that way, but that distinction should be clear enough.
Another side which you do not mention is this resource box provides readers with the most relevent related resources based on the post content, the kind of visitor optimization that readers appreciate and are grateful for when they are trying to find further information. If this were available in more places the entire internet would be easier to navigate.
As for the technical details which aren’t covered in your article, let me go through them for you. Outgoing links are sent by pingbacks to receiving blogs which benefit from incoming links to them, and it is up to receiving blogs whether they wish to approve and link back or not, ie. ‘reciprocate’. There is no obligation to do so and this is inbuilt in WordPress pingback system for exactly this reason. I’m really not sure why it is such a big deal to simply not approve and thus not link back to a pingback you don’t want. I wouldn’t and don’t, but if it’s relevent there’s no reason not to.
Link exchanges are not Spam, and I believe that claim is somewhat misleading for your readers. They have been around since the dawn of the internet and there has been a variety of software making the process of exchanging links easier. Spam is Unsolicited Commercial Email, and there is a huge difference between blog owners exchanging links via a permission based system and any form of commercial email.
I myself have many blogs that have in the past been flooded with irrelevent blog commenting software (aka “comment spam”) with embedded links for commercial products and have had to employ plugins to prevent this. But this is in major contrast with the benefit of receiving pingbacks from relevent blogs which are intended to benefit both parties for SEO purposes and have helped many people do just that. There is an inbuilt giving and contributing part to the entire process where in “comment spam” there is not. So the two are explicitly not the same.
I can’t speak for any of the other software you’ve mentioned, but I have spent an enormous amount of my energy creating a product that benefits people by creating genuine links for both parties, and I’m happy and satisfied I’ve done everything I can to make it workable, relevent, and whitehat (after months of programming and technical support.) If you have any suggestions to improving the product, I’m all ears.
You are free to criticize or call it what you like, but in the end people can decide for themselves, I doubt that the many users of this plugin – many with extensive SEO experience – would agree with your review here.
Actually, the fact that this plugin works to increase rankings through permission-based pingback approvals shows that there are many many blog owners out there who do not share your opinion but are welcome to receiving and approving relevent incoming links. It seems strange to me that anyone would be averse to that, but hey, I can admit that’s just my opinion…
So I would like to add respectfully that your decisions and business practices are your own, passing them off for others as what is and is not ethical does not really inform people as to the actuality of the matter and allow them to make their own decisions. And perhaps that kind of passing opinion for fact could be considered misleading and would fall under someone else’s definition of ‘unethical’? Food for thought.
Feel free to contact me regarding this plugin if there is something further you wish to contribute.
Hello Tony,
Thank you for taking the time to comment in detail so that we can discuss this further and hopefully come up with a compromise that will work for blogs like mine and for the users of your plugin.
When someone takes the time to write about another blog and link to it in the content of a post that is the highest quality trackback.
If another blogger publishes their own original content and selects RELATED posts and offers them at the end of their own post that is a good trackback.
The problem with these plugins is that they have flooded blogs like mine with so many nofollowed hidden backlinks (visible only in the source code if they’re visible anywhere) that most of the better blogs have already either blocked all trackbacks or only approve them from bloggers they already know.
That is KILLING the benefits of trackbacks / pingbacks so that long term quality sites will not ever see trackbacks or pingbacks to them ever again.
Another issue for a dofollow blog like mine is that your tool has people trying to trade a nofollowed invisible link from a MFA (made for AdSense) or scraped content or other type of blog running on autopilot for a dofollow link from quality blogs publishing only original content.
Something that causes long term damage is IMHO unethical. There are two possible solutions:
1) Only quality blogs use your plugin (almost impossible to control).
2) Provide a way for blogs who so choose to selectively block trackbacks from the users of your plugin. If I could check a box to prevent the same worthless blogs from flooding my blogs with trackbacks I could allow quality blogs using your plugin and block the bad ones.
As it is now I am getting dozens of worthless automated trackbacks every day already and that will soon be hundreds which means even I may end up blocking all trackbacks – and that would be a true loss for the reasons I stated in this post.
I am usually the last holdout trying to save what works from what is killing it by raising awareness. Almost every one of my favorite blogs is already blocking ALL trackbacks because of these types of plugins.
The end result will be only automated blogs sending trackbacks to only other automated blogs. What may seem like a good idea short term must be judged by the unintended longterm consequences.
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Internet Marketing: Where to Start
So- Instead of slamming me(Freedrinx.com) and obviously not giving me a heads-up that I offended you somehow, could you have possibly sent me an email saying that a plug in I wanted to help me build back links was actually not a good way to do it.
Sorry that I was unethical, but I also set that blog up a few weeks ago.
Again sorry. I’ll try to find a better way.
Hi Frank,
I do try to contact bloggers with whatever information they have on their site. My preference is Twitter, but I did reach out to you on Google+. I don’t email because I get so much email that I am likely to miss replies there. I am actively searching for a CRM that can handle huge volumes of email.
I am very aware that many new bloggers – and even experienced bloggers – may not realize what every plugin does or what people they may hire are doing so I do try to check with them BEFORE I list them.
You are the ONLY one who is listed on this page who has ever responded. I will edit the post, add a good link for you, and follow you on Twitter. We are always happy to welcome bloggers who are ethical and assist them any way we can.
growmap would love you to read ..Learn How to Get Noticed Online AND Get CommentLuv Premium, Too!
I have been getting lots of spammed trackbacks on my blog like crazy and it is getting pretty annoying. I have turned off trackbacks all together… I don’t like it at all.
Kharim would love you to read ..With SEO Pressor, Do You Really Need The Help From A SEO Expert?
well it is already hard for me because I deal with that manually even I installed askimet I need to go through all comments to verify. About 60 % of the trackbacks I am getting are spam
Salah Messaoud would love you to read ..How To Encourage Readers to Comment
Hi Salah,
I recommend our Akismet alternative plugin plus the simple trackback validation plugin and putting spammer’s domains into the blacklist function built into WordPress. There is information about all three at that link.
growmap would love you to read ..Why We Need Group Geo-Targeted Niche Blogs
Spammers are a real pain! As someone mentioned below. They ruin it for everyone else who do request a legitimate trackback!
I can’t say that I’m surprised to see the warrior forum on top of the list, they have everything going on there. This is really ruining the idea of ‘trackback’, I’m glad that you brought up this topic, a lot of people still don’t know about it. It’s going to affect all of us when it starts to become recognized by most as spam.
Hi Linda,
Unfortunately many of the most popular blogs are already blocking all trackbacks or deleting any from sites they don’t recognize because the majority of trackbacks today are spam. I refuse to let the unethical hurt the real bloggers who link to me so I moderate mine but consider the spammers thieves – they steal our time – and that is the most valuable asset we have.
growmap would love you to read ..Bloggers: Are You Doing Link RoundUps? Or Recommending Each Other for FollowFriday #FF ?
Thanks, I found those trackback tool links very helpful. Hopefully I won’t end up on one of those lists.
Louis Slade
Imo spammers are the biggest problem in a nowadays internet…
What is more – many apps which should be blocking ‘spam’ and ‘spammers’, are blocking regular users and regular content… :/ That sux…
It’s really annoying, don’t know how to get rid of spammers, they’re everywhere. I’m glad to have read your post, thanks a lot for sharing this useful information. Delete spammers!
Your article’s image caught my attention. About ethics, in internet world this word is not that important as long as some people benefits. thanks for sharing your thoughts! I’ll keep them in mind.
Hi Donah,
Ethics is ALWAYS important. If more people had a moral compass the world wouldn’t be such a mess. How did you decide that “as long as some people benefit” it is ok? What if they benefit because many are hurt? Then is it still ok to you? What if YOU are the one hurt?
That is the problem with people who are unethical. They only think about themselves and don’t seem to be able to understand why being selfish IS the problem and NOT being selfish is the solution.
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Don’t misunderstood my phrase. My point supposedly was… ethics is not important to those kind of people (like you’ve mentioned, “spammers”) as long as they benefit in their doings.
I always dream of a healthy competition but nowadays, it is hard to do so.
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Spammers are already a problem for most blogs, soon it will be all this is not good at and good post i learn somthing new every day
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Spammers are no surprise to me at all. I mean they do everything for their own good and not the good of everyone. From comments, to trackbacks, to emails, they choose every possible way to spam through. I don’t understand why they do that too. Really very irritating sometimes.
By reading your this post I have got the deep understanding of trackbacks and trackbacks spammers.
I actually never knew about this phony trackbacks from Spammers. They become selfish on getting links from other bloggers without giving in return. At least now, I’ll become more aware on this. Thanks for sharing this information.
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For now, I am still “looking” at them but are now all moderated. Like you said, there are very few that are real
Hey Gail,
I just disabled trackbacks on my blog. However, it’s like the old saying one bad apple makes all the apples look bad. I visit Warrior Forum regularly and I haven’t really noticed the trackbacks on their site.
However, I think I’ve just developed a blind eye for it and just ignore them. I’m glad you’re bringing awareness to this issue. I’m sure more people stop doing this if they were aware.
Hey thanks for great info. I always have to delete a lot of them. We always hear of new plugins to spam in the market. I wonder if there is a plugin some day to stop them.
I cant understand this blacklist blogs, do you mean those blogs are already out of the web?Only few can view those blogs?
Hi Peter,
What I mean is that sites that spam others will be blacklisted so their trackbacks and comments will not appear on this blog and I will keep adding to that list so that other bloggers can blacklist them, too.
Those who seek to take without contributing deserve to be shunned by ethical bloggers.
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Hey Gail,
I am one of those who truly got tired of it and simply disabled trackbacks on my blog.
Its just so sad to see that a few people who want everything the easy way even if it means getting there by stepping on other’s shoulder, ruin it for every other legitimate blogger out there who are working hard to build reputation and authority.
I am sad to see WF on the list. I have been a member for a while and honestly I love that place. It has taught me so many things. But unfortunately I am seeing spam recommending threads and WSOs more and more these days. Hope it will stop soon.
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Hi Gail,
This post came out just at the right time for me. Lately I’ve been getting a ton of spam trackbacks. Like you, I’m still weeding through them manually. I don’t want to delete someone who might be real and possibly a great new connection to make. It pisses me off that these people are constantly finding new methods to invade our sites.
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Spam is becoming more and more dangerous for everyone, because it really blocks some programs and bring many problems to my computer. Thank you for giving us such information and special thanks for sharing all these sites
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There are so many blog topics to write and read, and I find this much interesting. I was glad I didn’t found my URL in your list. This made me realize, too, that ethics should also be exercised online. Thanks a lot for this post! =)
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Gail,
Thanks for bringing this topic up. Like you I usually try to check out trackbacks, because I HAVE found links to my article/site I didn’t know about. I do like to go comment and + social media these also. But it gets frustrating (like you pointed out) when most of these are junk.
Hopefully people will take notice and stop using this. Unfortunately my feeling of the sometimes bad sides o human nature is that just as many people will say, “Ooo bright and shiny new method to get links easily. Let me try that too”
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Would you say there is a problem with using twitter retweets as a trackback? I’m using a plugin that does this and it really weeds out the garbage.
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Hi Tony,
Some blogs display Twitter retweets and some don’t, but I not familiar with any Twitter related plugin that “weeds out the garbage”. Could you elaborate?
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I am also getting spam even though I use the Simple Trackback Validation with Topsy blocker. Worse, they seem to have some kind of code in them that makes it very hard to delete them. It is almost like a virus that disables the delete function. I have to struggle to get them out of there. If this plug-in you are talking about generates code to produce the trackback, that makes sense.
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Thanks for the list! I was a victim of those trackbacks. At first I am okay with them but all of a sudden their numbers have grown into spam attack.
thanks for sharing spam spreading sites……people always follow these sites and affected from spam…
Thank you for sharing that, no wonder when I looked for the trackback I can’t see my link on their site.
Newbie question, what could happen if you let them link to your site?
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Hi Sanjay,
You can’t really keep anyone from linking TO your site and unfortunately that CAN cause you serious issues in where you appear in the search engines.
Trackbacks are a way to get YOU to link to THEM and linking out to bad neighborhoods or offensive sites may hurt your search engine positions or offend your readers.
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more to the point they’re pretending to link to you to make you link back to them. So they get the benefit of a good inbound link from your good blog without even giving you the dubious benefit of an inbound link from their spammy content light site.
my website is also caught by highest trackback spams last month. i am using some of plugins to stop them but they will come again with new strategy. thanks for this alerting post and i was really amazed to read that warrior forums will send you spams that is something that i can,t believe even after reading it in your post.
I’m glad I’m not on that list 🙂 I don’t like the phony trackback thing, but of course I suppose you can never really know if you might have installed a plugin that will do it behind your back, if you’re unlucky or not careful enough?
It’s too bad that spammers seems to take so much fun out of blogging!
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Now-a-days i am also struggling with this kind of Spam. Most spammers is stealing my contents how can i stop them?
Hi Gail, I understand this issue.
I have set up my site recently (about 2 weeks ago) and received tons of trackbacks both from unknown sources and from my own site. I don’t wanna talk about my own links but about the other sources, they seem to be spams all the way. Nothing attractive and I usually see a http:// link linking back to my site.
You’re right, it’s time to use some tools to prevent this. I should go and try it out!
Have a nice day.
Duy.
Gail, what you should point out is that trackback spam could be in violation of CAN-SPAM. It’s not an email message? So neither is FACEBOOK and the courts determined that spamming people on FACEBOOK violates can spam. If there is no way to stop it, no way to unsubscribe, there may be something illegal about it!
yeah I believe on what you are saying, there are so many bloggers today that are giving up to trackbacks because of spams, that’s why they’ve just delete all the trackbacks whatsoever.
And P.S. – I don’t understand why people go to all this trouble to do something that they know is just going to get deleted anyway. Really. Isn’t there something that can be done about stupid stuff like this? Can you report these people to Google or something?
Gail, could you explain trackbacks a little? I know it’s when another blog links to you. I rarely, if ever, actually publish them. I do follow them back and visit the other blog, but like you said, sometimes there’s no ‘other blog’. What happens if you just delete or disable ALL trackbacks? I see by your post that it hurts the GOOD bloggers because you never visit their blog. But do you lose the incoming link, too? And if that’s the case, then should you leave them enabled and just check everyone before you delete anything? Sorry if this doesn’t sound very technical. i’ve never understood what these things are.
I’m surprised that you’re surprised that the Warrior forum sent you spam.
People need to sit back and take stock as to why the Warrior forum exists. Then think again.
Hi “Bert” no link,
I am not a member and do not frequent Warrior Forum. It appears that their popularity may rest on them telling people what they want to believe instead of what is ethical and effective.
If this is typical of what they have to offer they have been misleading many for a very long time. I hope they show up and comment about why they are recommending ways to generate spam.
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Gail, I think Bert means to say that a lot of warrior forum members make their money using blackhat tricks. And they sell Warrior Special offers that teaches stuff like that, or has plugins or software to do things like this. Ethical? No. Anarchy? Yes.
I personally never really used the trackback link because I didn’t really understand it, but after your explanation I understand it would be a loss if people ruin the use of trackback.
Maybe mr. Bailey has a solution 🙂
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Glad you brought this up Gail. For the past few weeks in particular my site was hit by so much trackback spam it was getting out of control. As soon as I put them into spam they were back within minutes. Not sure if there was something that alerted them. At the moment I am using a plugin to stop it and will see how it goes.
Thanks for brining this issue up.
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Hi Susan,
I always used Simple Trackback Validation and it is now part of CommentLuv Premium but it doesn’t stop this new kind of trackback spam that is generated by that plugin.
If you (or anyone reading this) has a way to stop this new type of spam please do share links and information in the comments here.
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I gave up on trackbacks – if I don’t moderate my comments, I’ll end up with 100+ spam pings a day. So I turned them off for new posts and went in to change the settings on my old posts. It’s sad because I won’t see who is linking to me, but it was a necessary thing to keep my comments awaiting moderation from spiraling out of control.
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Hi Kristi,
Your comment just proved my point – that trackback spam is killing trackbacks altogether. Too bad selfish, greedy people can never see the unintended consequences of their actions. The few that DO KNOW what will happen simply have no moral compass at all.
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Thanks for the heads up Gail. This is really very important and I am afraid that you are right about the whole “trackback” being rendered useless and in very, very close to disappearing for completely. For now, I am still “looking” at them but are now all moderated. Like you said, there are very few that are real and to be honest I was not aware that there are many sites, specially Warrior Forum, that encourages the use of “phony” trackbacks. That is a real shame.
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Hi Francisco,
I am glad to hear that you are still looking for real trackbacks among all the spam. Many have already given up – and just as I refused to let Akismet censor real commenters I refuse to allow unethical spammers to keep me from knowing about other bloggers who link to me.
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Thanks a lot for sharing this great info..It can help a lot and to avoid the spammer..Keep it up!
Great post, trackback spammers are flooding blogs with spam so much these days, i never knew they have plugin to make it easier for them.
Thanks for the list, real bloggers should not use such spamming act.
Hi Biodun,
When I saw the script in the view source I knew they had to have automated trackback spam. It makes me want to have a separate Internet for ethical people where we block anyone who can’t understand – once something is explained to them – why they should not be doing something that hurts others.
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Simple Trackback Validation with Topsy blocker takes care of 99% of the spam trackbacks from reaching my site. I use this even with Livefyre and my other GASP blogs. Livefyre doesn’t display trackbacks on my site but it does still allow them to sync to my WordPress DB so I get notified to check them out. Also Livefyre doesn’t interfere with my blog pinging other WordPress blogs when I create a trackback to them.