Bitcointalk is being used as a backlink source

[mediaBuzz]

I'm not sure if this is an issue that needs to be immediately handled and solved but I thought it is worth creating a thread.

So, there is a service that sells backlinks called Crowdo. Generally saying, they provide backlinks from forums. They have a thread on BHW which is a known forum for webmasters and SEOs. The thread has 185 pages which is above the average on that forum. As their prices were pretty high (forum links are not considered as white hat and are not that effective nowadays as it used to be) I decided to dig a bit.

On their website, I found their so-called deck including all information about them. On the bottom of the 8th page of it, you can see a doc file with the link samples they provide. And btctalk is on the list.  


Turns out the comment from @landy5277 was not "organic".



They create fresh profiles for each comment and sell each comment for ranging from $6.95 to $9.95 depending on the package purchased. This, unfortunately, cannot be controlled and does very little or no harm to btctalk, I guess...

What do you think about this?

[mediaBuzz]

Yeah, bitcointalk has always been open for obtaining a do-follow link from. Not sure if this was left uncontrolled by purpose or not but this was exactly the reason for such spammy comments.

[hosseinimr93]

As a huge number of posts including numerous links are being posted every day in the forum, you are right. There's a high probability that the forum is being used for backlinks and SEO.
But since the post you referred to has been made about 9 months ago, we cannot say that service is definitely behind the current spam going on.

[hilariousetc]

Just keep reporting them. 99% of them get spotted and nuked very quickly. These sorts of bots are one of the reasons why it might be worth shadow-banning all new users though until their first post or so has been approved by a moderator.

They create fresh profiles for each comment and sell each comment for ranging from $6.95 to $9.95 depending on the package purchased. This, unfortunately, cannot be controlled and does very little or no harm to btctalk, I guess...

What do you think about this?

Good lord. Who pays that much for this? And I thought signature campaigns pay quite a bit per post. It's largely a waste because the vast majority of these links don't stay put. Not sure why someone would pay for that.

Doesn't google catch on to this sort of thing and take action? It's obviously pretty out in the open and easy to see when a company is utilising these spam services.

[mediaBuzz]

Good lord. Who pays that much for this? ~

Because that used to work for SEO some time ago. It does on some level now too, if the context of the backlink is super relative and the profile of the publisher is established, a bunch of such do-follow backlinks might lift your google positions. Especially, if the forum is active and well moderated.

[malevolent]

Just keep reporting them. 99% of them get spotted and nuked very quickly. These sorts of bots are one of the reasons why it might be worth shadow-banning all new users though until their first post or so has been approved by a moderator.

I've stumbled upon some of them months after they made their posts, who knows how many get through.

Good lord. Who pays that much for this? And I thought signature campaigns pay quite a bit per post. It's largely a waste because the vast majority of these links don't stay put. Not sure why someone would pay for that.

Sounds a lot but maybe not that much when searching for sites, registering on them and dealing with CAPTCHAs and dealing with proxies is taken into account.

Doesn't google catch on to this sort of thing and take action? It's obviously pretty out in the open and easy to see when a company is utilising these spam services.

Probably why they advertise 'drip-feed' at higher pricing tiers.

Or the buyers think it works because it used to work, like with PBNs.

[Lorence.xD]

Good lord. Who pays that much for this? And I thought signature campaigns pay quite a bit per post. It's largely a waste because the vast majority of these links don't stay put. Not sure why someone would pay for that.

I had the same reaction and question too, I do think that this is something done by someone that has been on the forum for a long time. I am not accusing anyone, I am merely speculating because this could help boost the interaction in the forum and in a way creates an artificial increase in the traffic in the forum. I might be wrong though as it could be a poisoning that is happening.

Doesn't google catch on to this sort of thing and take action? It's obviously pretty out in the open and easy to see when a company is utilizing these spam services.

Google does not care as far as I know, as OP said, this might just be a SEO's. If Google cared about this, then a lot of scam websites would not use SEO to poison the search engines.

[NotATether]

I have 2 thoughts,
1. Add nofollow for URL on user post (already suggested previously at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=714344.msg8068820#msg8068820). I doubt it hurts regular user.

It's exactly what I suggested a week ago in the other thread where the issue of spam was brought up.

Can someone point me what's going on?

I couldn't tell you exactly what's going on in these idiots' heads, but there was a spammer a few years ago that would post absolute nonsense around midnight in my time zone, and it went on for a few months.  And like you I was puzzled as to why someone would do that, as there's seemingly nothing to gain from it--so who the hell knows?

There isn't. These spamposts only get about 5 or maximum 10 views according to bitcointalk's own thread metrics, before a moderator nukes them. At least half of these views are probably from users who report them to moderators. Amateur SEO spammers indeed.

I suggest theymos include the rel="nofollow" tag in all the rendered link HTML to completely void all the benefits of putting SEO spam on bitcointalk. They will no longer be able to bump up the search ranking of a bitcointalk post using their links.

To be clear, bitcointalk users are not hurt by this change. It is the websites they are linking to that will be hurt. And all legitimate websites naturally get high rankings or use legitimate SEO to increase it so the only real losers in this change are the spamdexing services.

Google does not care as far as I know, as OP said, this might just be a SEO's. If Google cared about this, then a lot of scam websites would not use SEO to poison the search engines.

Google actually blacklists link farms and SEO abusers from its search results as it discovers them.

[actmyname]

I've stumbled upon some of them months after they made their posts, who knows how many get through.

I'm sure that it would be a lot harder to do their hundred-site spam that way.

[Lorence.xD]

~

Google actually blacklists link farms and SEO abusers from its search results as it discovers them.

As long as you pay to be on the top of Search Engine, Google does not mind. I have been following a scam baiter Youtuber and most scam call centers that he is attacking are using SEO's to get on top of the Search Engine, these scam websites are paying a lot of money and Google does not take action.

[TryNinja]

I have been following a scam baiter Youtuber and most scam call centers that he is attacking are using SEO's to get on top of the Search Engine, these scam websites are paying a lot of money and Google does not take action.

You can actually report them through https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreportform and https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/paidlinks

They usually act fast when we report phishing websites (through Google Safe Browsing), so it should work.

[NotATether]

~

Google actually blacklists link farms and SEO abusers from its search results as it discovers them.

As long as you pay to be on the top of Search Engine, Google does not mind. I have been following a scam baiter Youtuber and most scam call centers that he is attacking are using SEO's to get on top of the Search Engine, these scam websites are paying a lot of money and Google does not take action.

Yeah I should've mentioned that everything I just said falls apart if the spammer makes the highest bid for ad slots on top of Google search results. The ads are not moderated.

[cheezcarls]

I have 2 thoughts,
1. Add nofollow for URL on user post (already suggested previously at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=714344.msg8068820#msg8068820). I doubt it hurts regular user.
2. Disable url tag for newbie which force them to use plain text. It's a bit annoying for those who want open the link though.

I used to work in various SEO projects before. I just didn’t know that BTT links are do-follow. I agree with your suggestion about making the links no-follow.

Now there are few types of people here on Bitcointalk:

1. To learn Bitcoin, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, etc., and engage very well with the community
2. For SEO backlink purposes
3. For bounty/airdrop campaigns
4. For selling online services who accepts crypto payments
5. For hunting scams, plagiarizers, merit abusers, spammers/shillers, threats, any kind of violation, etc.

[malevolent]

Yeah I should've mentioned that everything I just said falls apart if the spammer makes the highest bid for ad slots on top of Google search results. The ads are not moderated.

I don't know about scammy call centers, but at least something as blatant as phishing does get removed in my experience. Unfortunately it needs some reports, not just one, before they bother to investigate.

[PrimeNumber7]

Doesn't google catch on to this sort of thing and take action? It's obviously pretty out in the open and easy to see when a company is utilising these spam services.

Google does ~everything via automation, and while this may be obvious to a human, it may be less obvious to google's automation.

Google will only access a webpage every so often, and as long as google's crawlers see the page as of when the links are present on a thread, google will recognize the link as being on the thread.

[Mistafreeze]

I have 2 thoughts,
1. Add nofollow for URL on user post (already suggested previously at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=714344.msg8068820#msg8068820). I doubt it hurts regular user.
2. Disable url tag for newbie which force them to use plain text. It's a bit annoying for those who want open the link though.

This is the best option to contain this.
If url tag is disabled, it will also be easy to know what url they have posted without clicking on it.
Some vigilant members can always report it if the posted link is dubious.

[LoyceV]

Doesn't google catch on to this sort of thing and take action? It's obviously pretty out in the open and easy to see when a company is utilising these spam services.

If they did punish a site's ranking, it could be used against a competitor: just spam a forum and your competition disappears from Google. That can't be good.

Google will only access a webpage every so often, and as long as google's crawlers see the page as of when the links are present on a thread, google will recognize the link as being on the thread.

I just checked: patrol was last visited by Google 31 minutes ago. It covers posts for the last 2 hours, so I think all new (Newbie) posts get indexed.

[LeGaulois]

The most fucking backlinks I reported was like that instead of The most fucking backlink I reported was like that
You can't notice it while you read. Either you notice it by clicking on "quote" to look at the code directly, or by hovering the mouse over each word.

Code:

[url=URL][color=black]texte[/color][/url]

I reported so many SEO backlinks in the Off-topic sub-board. Most of the time I just need to read the title to be sure there is spam inside (VPN, streaming, Vacum, mother day,..)

By the way,

Discussion boards like forums are more often visited by google's crawlers compared to a blog or a static website. A static website rarely has its content updated, a blog ~every day, while forums have new content (posts) every x minutes. Bitcointalk is probably visited every xx minutes.

Spamming your competitor doesn't really work as it used to be 10 years ago, especially if your domain name is not young and/or established. Otherwise, we could send Forbes to the google sandbox. The algorithm is well trained to detect this behavior