I can totally understand the reasoning behind spamming blog comments, trackbacks and referer logs. Really. Everyone is just trying to make a buck. The dollar can be very very powerful.

Now, here is the part that I don’t understand.

Let’s say Mr. Spammer sets up a domain name called get-drugz-now.com. Ok.

Now, Mr. Spammer has a domain name, he sets up a bunch of subdomains like cialis. or viagra. or bigger-penis-online.

Once complete, Mr. Spammer goes to work. His program spewing ads like crazy, being sneaking about it too, switching open, unsecured proxies to get a different IP address everytime, rotating user agent strings that appear to be valid.

1M sites get spewed. Bandwidth spikes, sites become unavailable. Comment and trackback files get hammered.

rookie webmaster sees the link in their logs and clicks the link out of curiosity (or maybe actually wanting a bigger-penis-online).

Guess what? Yea, the site is not available. Even if you take away the subdomain, the main domain is not available either.

So Mr. Spammer is loosing out on any traffic he/she will get that way. Now, what about search engine juice? Sure, they will get it, but if the links don’t go anywhere, what is the point?

Anyone?

My point being, why bother to spam if what you are selling can not be presented to your customer? I would guess these domains are shut down within minutes of being setup.

If I were Mr. Spammer, I would look for a better way to get business or make money. Like a real job or something. But, that’s just me…

2 Responses to “An open question to anyone that knows…”

1. Karin Says:
   March 24th, 2005 at 4:19 pm

   Don your primary problem here is you are using logic. Obviosly if my life has brought me to a point where I have no other option but to try to be a spammer, I lack the logic it would take to perform a real job. There will always be people who get suckered into hair brained schemes to try to make a buck, does the term pyramid scheme mean anything to you. I look at emails from scammers and wonder who is so stupid to fall for sending money to Nigeria to get money back the guy says he owes you but you know very well he doesn’t. But apparently some people fall for it. So when looking at situations like this just remeber you have a brain and are not their target audience.

2. db Says:
   March 25th, 2005 at 11:21 am

   ahhh yes, the logic. Why didn’t I think of that! It gets me everytime.

   Josh brought up a great point yesterday too. He thinks they are spamming because they are still getting paid for the number of links they spew. They really don’t care if the site exists or not.

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