Wiki Link Spam Tactic

[Garrett]

Wiki - I first saw the word in "wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)," though I didn't know it wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki) had anything to do with the creation of the information I read there.

A wiki page allows people to post any text they want to that page, including links to their site, and they're emerging as a major weapon in the nigritude ultramarine (http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/searchinsider/wpn-49-20040512NigritudeUltramarineSEOsClashForTopRanking .html) battle.

Of course wikis emerged not as an SEO tool but as a means of collaborating on content. The Wikipedia is one example of how this can work. For their entry on "wiki" you simply click edit and see a page similar to a forum posting page where you can alter the text.

The Wikipedia creators hope that you add to their definitions, correct spelling, create .

As wikis have been around since 2001 (1995 actually - thanks HardCoded) they've developed methods for dealing with vandalism, including banning IP addresses, IP blocks in the case of persistant vandals from major ISPs and, of course, databasing their entries. However, "more problematic are subtle errors inserted into pages which go undetected, for example changing of album release dates and discographies on Wikipedia."

Philipp Lenssen, in his quest for top position for the term Nigritude Ultramarine (he's at second place now), has spammed many a wiki, as he says in this blog post (http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2004_06_01_index.html#108608909046269742).

Rather than busting up the hard work at Wikipedia or any of the other more organized wikis, Philip focused on the sandbox wikis (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=wiki+sandbox) - wikis set up just for play/free posting. (Not that the sandbox policy is an invitation for your links.)

Besides being a very shady method of link building, "everybody is... ...free to delete your links and replace them with their own. This makes it a constant game of going through a lot of sandboxes and leaving your backlink. In fact when I visited the sandboxes I found a lot of links already pointing to other Nigritude Ultramarine sites; or links pointing to commercial sites using commercial search phrases."

While I do believe that, as Ammon Johns said, "there are no hats (http://www.webpronews.com/insiderreports/searchinsider/wpn-49-20040420NoMoreHatsHighRiskvsLowRiskSEO.html)," this particular method of building back links seems to take undue license with other people's projects. It's on par with guest book spamming and "me too" forum posts to build links.

Still, it's a tactic that your competitors may be using to rank higher. Search for their business name + wiki and see what comes up. If you find your competitor's gone on a wiki spamming spree and you're really feeling snarky write up a form letter decrying their tactics and follow their wiki trail. Be sure to send a copy to the wiki owner along with their IP address.

[bhartzer]

Are these wiki spammers using automated tools to post or are they doing this all by hand?

[HardCoded]

As wikis have been around since 2001...
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiHistory

[ferret77]

Pretty sweet

i wonder if there is free software to set one of those up

[HardCoded]

I just took a look at this:
http://www.hotscripts.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?bool=AND&query=wiki&catid=all
but was surprised to find that none of them look very complete. There's a couple of PHP classes/parsers that would let you buld a wiki, but nothing right out of the box.

There's a much more complete list here:
http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiEngines

[ferret77]

some of the wiki sandboxes have pr3-4

[philipp]

I did not use bots to fill the Wiki Sandboxes. I know others did.

By the way, I would not compare this to guestbook spamming. Wiki Sandboxes specifically ask you to play around with editing. Guestbooks ask you to leave a meaningful message. Sandboxes are not intended to be read by humans -- they consist of nothing but nonsense anyway.

[Garrett]

Hi Philipp,

I was quick to make that comparison between Wiki and guest book spamming... and I haven't been to many wiki sandboxes.

Do wiki sandbox creators want to help sites rank higher in search engines though?

They create wikis for people to play in - you're essentially working (though I know you're having lots of fun with the Nigritude Ultramarine contest - congrats on your 2nd place listing).

I think here you would reiterate your point that wiki sandboxes aren't intended for human consumption. That I can't answer to - I haven't talked with any wiki creators, but I imagine if they knew the value of links we'd see the rise (and rapid fall) of wiki link networks. Why should they give away links?

Spamming wiki sandboxes (ATTN readers: big difference here between wikis and wiki sandboxes. Be sure you understand the difference) appears to be a way to get boosted rapidly in the SERPS. Keep us posted on how well the strategy works over time and what the penalties - if any - seem to be.

[ferret77]

Why should they give away links?


becasue they don't care about them , to everyone outside the seo world links don't mean to much they don't care what goes in the sand box most of them are full of giberish

you can donate to them, if you feel you are taking something

actually if i think more about it , i don't think the people who run those things would appreciate 1000s of porn links in the every day

[philipp]

Do wiki sandbox creators want to help sites rank higher in search engines though?

They don't care what's on their Wiki Sandbox. It's just to play around with the system to test its functionalities. Some sandboxes also get emptied daily, automatically. Theya are always full of nonsense text.


They create wikis for people to play in - you're essentially working (though I know you're having lots of fun with the Nigritude Ultramarine contest - congrats on your 2nd place listing).

Thanks, and well, I'm also only playing around -- Nigritude Ultramarine is not a commercial term, though I'd be glad to pass on the iPod if I win (I will pass it on to whoever links to me).

If I would have a commercial business, I would not put backlinks in Wiki Sandboxes. Not because it's evil, but because it's not a very serious business strategy.


I think here you would reiterate your point that wiki sandboxes aren't intended for human consumption. That I can't answer to - I haven't talked with any wiki creators, but I imagine if they knew the value of links we'd see the rise (and rapid fall) of wiki link networks. Why should they give away links?

Again, they do not care what's in their sandbox.
It's the only page in a Wiki where no one cares to read but machines.

The fact a Wiki owner makes his sandbox indexed by search engines shows he does not care. After all we could reverse the argument and rightfully say Wiki Sandboxes are spamming the SERPs. It should be a webmaster's responsibility to exclude a Wiki sandbox from the result pages -- which in return would shield the sandbox from any backlink-posting people, if someone objects.

[Garrett]

Thanks for the clarification, Philipp. I was too quick to compare wiki sandbox spam and guest book spam.

I agree with you that putting backlinks in a wiki sandbox is not a very serious business strategy.

[rlmrdl]

If I would have a commercial business, I would not put backlinks in Wiki Sandboxes. Not because it's evil, but because it's not a very serious business strategy.

Is completely rational. Spending valuable time horsing about in wiki sandboxes installing links that any wiki owner will have automatically deleted every few hours anyway, is not a serious strategy.

If there was any chance they would be permanent, such as in automated guestbook links back, it might have some value, but even then, there is little guarantee of the kind of permanence that a serious business needs.

Building better content, setting up bona fide relationships, or contributing something of value to another site, attached to your link, are better uses of the available resources.

BTW, this board hates Opera.

[mbrubeck]

I posted this response in Philipp's forum:

I am a member of several open-source software projects that use wikis as tools for open collaboration. The spam in our wikis hurts our development efforts in several ways.

First, it spams the RecentChanges pages, making it less useful as a change notification system. In many cases, this also spams the mailboxes and newsreaders of users who subscribe to RecentChanges notifications. We are no longer able to use the wiki as a communications tool because most of the messages are generated by SEO spam.

Second, it puts off-topic words and phrases into our wikis. This causes them to show up in completely unrelated web searches. Strangers then find our wikis thinking that they are related to other topics, and edit pages without realizing what the site's actual purpose is.

Third, in order to fight these effects, we now need to spend ridiculous amounts of time blocking or cleaning up after SEO spam.

Please, don't spam wikis. The SandBox page is there for a purpose: to allow users of the wiki to learn to use the software. It is not meant to be "a place where anyone can create backlinks."

[Garrett]

mbrubeck - thank you for sharing how Wiki Spam affects wiki owners. I hope it convinces everyone not to try this "technique."

G

[Dave Hawley]

Garret, most of your posts are now likley to cause grief to anyone that follows them. These post, IMO, are lowering the standard of WPW.

Why not post some quality properly researched stuff as apposed to spamming techniques?

[G[dot]com]

Same old story, isn´t it?

ABUSE...it is always ABUSE

What is the difference between Wiki Spam and this?


June 14, 2004

SEO Chat Institutes Sandbox Affect for New Members
As SEO Chat's Forum continues to grow, we continue to have problems with people spamming the forum in order to increase their link popularity. SEO Chat, like many other forums, allow signature links. However, SEO Chat has a fairly attractive PageRank value, which tends to attract link seekers. A forum for SEOs by SEOs with high PR is not always a good match. Since SEO Chat's PageRank rose, link enthusiasts have come by and posted hundreds of "Thank you, great post" with links to their sites. Deleting, pruning and banning those members takes too much time. So we decided to institute some policy.

First policy was not to allow members with less then 100 posts to show their signature file. After that was set into play, we saw two things. (1) Manual signature links embedded within the body of a post. (2) People posting a hundred times in one day in order to reach the 100 post requirement. If those 100 posts were of value, no one would care but of course they were not.

So we added a second policy. Why not name it, the SEO Chat Sandbox. We require 100 posts PLUS a member has to be on board for 90 days. The 90 days are symbolic of the average time it takes for a site that has been sandboxed by Google to come out of the sandbox. I hope this works.

Posted by rustybrick at June 14, 2004 08

Taken from: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/000555.html

No difference.

Daddy always say: When people don´t have values and principles, try to make them understand about honesty and respect this way: Tell them that it takes the same amount of time and energy -maybe more- doing things wrong or deceptively than achieving them decently and doing no harm.

And Philipp says:

"If I would have a commercial business, I would not put backlinks in Wiki Sandboxes. Not because it's evil, but because it's not a very serious business strategy." -

Maybe we should have to adopt this way of looking at decency in terms of efficiency to convince people to do good...

[G[dot]com]

Garret, most of your posts are now likley to cause grief to anyone that follows them. These post, IMO, are lowering the standard of WPW.

Why not post some quality properly researched stuff as apposed to spamming techniques?

Let me see...this thread is called Search Engine insider REPORTS. Which means that some person or group will make reports here about a certain subject. Those people are called "Reporters".

So here we have one Reporter, Garrett, and one main subject, Search Engines.

My beloved Webster´s Dictionary (i still like the paper edition) says:

Reporter: a person who gathers information and writes reports for publication in a newspaper, magazine, etc.

If Wiki or Forum Spam is what is going on in the search engine world Garrett make the research and HAS to report it.

You can´t blame or criticize CNN because of the war in Middle East. They just report it. And if you want to learn, you watch Discovery or The History Channel. :o)

Likewise, other threads in this same forum function specifically to give advise on how to do good SEO and decent SEO. This is not the place....I think.

G

[Dave Hawley]

You can´t blame or criticize CNN because of the war in Middle East. They just report it. And if you want to learn, you watch Discovery or The History Channel. :o)

There is resposible reporting and non-resposible reporting. If Garret just reports how to hack into your web site, or how to crash your server etc I bet you would see this differently.

Garret is not doing himself or WPW any favors with this type of "reporting". See here also;
http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=114815#114815

[G[dot]com]

There is resposible reporting and non-resposible reporting. If Garret just reports how to hack into your web site, or how to crash your server etc I bet you would see this differently.


Again...he who reports doesn´t report *how* to do things. He does not teach.

And thinking that it could bother me Garrett´s performance just if it was *me* the one touched and not another person...well certainly you don´t know me at all.

Hello, my name is Gisela. And I am not that way :o)

Nevermind.

Good evening in Australia, Dave!

G

[kokopoko]

Is completely rational. Spending valuable time horsing about in wiki sandboxes installing links that any wiki owner will have automatically deleted every few hours anyway, is not a serious strategy.

After reading Philipp's blog I spammed a few and did notice the links got deleted within minutes. But, days later I noticed Google found my spam links not in the current Wiki sandbox state but in the list of revised sandbox revisions that each sandbox seems to keep. All were PR4 and above. So perhaps the Wiki sandbox links can be permanent.

[Dave Hawley]

Again...he who reports doesn´t report *how* to do things. He does not teach

Oh yes he is. While it may not be worded as a 'how-to-manual' is still tells "how".

Real reporters do have rules, laws, guidelines and moral abligation you know. This is when you watch CNN news on the terrible situtaion in Iraq you are NOT shown all the blood, gore and pictures that could compromise.

I'm sorry G[dot]com, but reporting is not a automatic right to report on anything in anyway.

Here is a hypothetical

Lot's of expert SEO have worked out how to suck PR from the certain pages of other sites into their own. It doesn't work on all sites and all pages, just some. As yet we have no idea why only some.

In one case a SEO (domain here) linked to <One of YOUR domain pages here> and managed to steal all the PR for that page. It would seem this site is one that can have it's PR stolen.

</hypothetical>

Now, not a "how to", but totally irresposible.

If Garret's report was resposible, mbrubeck would not be compelled to counter and try to undo the contributing damage Garrets "report" has done. Garret himself even states "this particular method of building back links seems to take undue license with other people's projects". Please don't try and tell me that by stating that he absolves himself in any way.

IMO, the "report" is no more than irresponsible gossip and has the potential to really hurt a business.

[G[dot]com]

Dave, many of the things you say are unquestionable to me too. It is not (and has not been) my intention to detour your thoughts nor to defend anybody.

I just felt you were being unnecessarily agressive to Garrett and in public. Because, eventhough your point of view about what the reports should be and whether Garrett is accomplishing the objective or not can be shared by many of us...it is no more than a point of view. It is not *the truth*.

I can be even 100% in accord with you about the things you say...but I will never admit violent manners in front of my eyes.

If you had good thoughts for Garrett (it can be anybody, this is not personal) you would have sent a PM or an email giving to him your opinion and maybe an advise.

Saying that in the public thread in that way leads me to think that you mean not to say something constructive, but to embarrass a person.

I can be wrong about this, and my apologises if I am, but I want to let you know my way of thinking. I will say no more in this thread, though I will come back to hear you if you want to reply.

Good afternoon there, Dave :o)

Kiss,

Gi

ps. what does IMO mean? Sorry for asking but I am a spanish speaker.

[mikmik]

And being a guest in a forum, does not allow you to report your opinions, in any way YOU choose, dave.

It is a freedom to choose that I fear losing, and I do not give up the right for anyone to decide what is proper for me to see and hear. This is not your forum, you do not make the rules, and Gisella has pointed this out, why do you argue?

I want to hear all I can about wiki's and blogs, I have been working for two days taliking about the linking and such for building search rankings amongst us.
This is important for me to hear.

Overall Community Attitude

* Keep in mind that WebProWorld is a professional e-business community
* Our purpose is to share, help and support others
* Always display a positive, friendly attitude
* Be respectful of others' opinions
* Allow your fellow members to voice their opinions WITHOUT CENSORSHIP
* DO NOT deliberately start arguments. Debates are great, as long as they remain respectful!
* Always try to "give" back to our community. For each time you find help or answers here at WebProWorld, try to help someone else out in return. You may find that what goes around comes around...
* Give people a little time to respond to your requests. There's a lot going on in these forums and it may take a little time for people to notice and respond to your request. Please be patient.
* DO NOT just make a negative statement and leave the person hanging out to dry. Although you may consider yourself to be an "expert" now, try to remember that we were all new and learning once upon a time. Take it easy on your fellow members!
* Do NOT make threats or implied threats towards other members -- even if you think it's fun

<edit>by fathom, reason: off-topic</edit>

[Dave Hawley]

<edit>by fathom, Reason: under review</edit>

[mikmik]

<edit>by fathom, reason: under review</edit>

[Garrett]

Garret, most of your posts are now likley to cause grief to anyone that follows them. These post, IMO, are lowering the standard of WPW.

I don't advocate all the techniques I write about - I don't even test them myself. I just point to the people that are using/testing and trust that webmasters are responsible enough to decide for themselves if they want to use the techniques or not.

I'm also posting to spark discussion - presenting ideas I've heard that others may have had experience with, such as the Google Sandbox Theory post (not to be confused with this one).

In this particular case I felt the SEO industry in general should be aware of a particular spam trend, if they weren't already. Why? Because what's happening in the shadows of the industry is important to the industry as a whole. How? Specifically because SEOs (and wiki sandbox owners) can take action against wiki sandbox spammers.

1)SEOs can report competitor spam to sandbox owners. (and recommend #2)
2)Sandbox owners can spider.txt Google out of their sandboxes.

As far as this being a "how to" I'm pretty sure that if I said "Wiki link spamming" that's about all the "how to" anyone would need for instruction. It's not a very complicated concept.

It is my sincere hope that readers, both of the newsletter and the forum, don't use this tactic.

It is my sincere intent to continue reporting on the SEO industry trends I see. That's the best way I know how of being responsible.

And let me know if that causes any deaths (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=114849#114849), Dave.

(I responded to this post because it seems to have gotten both out of hand and off topic - Dave, if you want to continue discussing, post in the breakroom and send me a link in email - Garrett@webpronews.com. All else who are here to discuss the topic please continue.)

[Dave Hawley]

<edit>by fathom, reason: under review</edit>

[Dave Hawley]

Garret, IMO only reporting something does not mean you are not party to helping the problem spread.

The fact that mbrubeck made his/her first post in response to your report sais a lot IMO.


It is my sincere hope that readers, both of the newsletter and the forum, don't use this tactic.

Garret, if that was a "sincere" statement you would have either not reported it, or not mentioned the name. You yourself said that tactic was so simple it require no "how to".

As I have said, there are 2 basic types of reporting, responsible an irresponsible, IMO this one fits under the latter.

<edit>by fathom, reason: off topic</edit>

[fathom]

Garret, IMO only reporting something does not mean you are not party to helping the problem spread.

The fact that mbrubeck made his/her first post in response to your report sais a lot IMO.


It is my sincere hope that readers, both of the newsletter and the forum, don't use this tactic.

Garret, if that was a "sincere" statement you would have either not reported it, or not mentioned the name. You yourself said that tactic was so simple it require no "how to".

As I have said, there are 2 basic types of reporting, responsible an irresponsible, IMO this one fits under the latter.

Unfortuately "news" is news and good or bad it is part of our world. While the former may indeed be true another truth...

Being uninformed is worse. This is why web site owners "allow" SEOs to use spam tactics on their websites and sometimes with their blessing... they are uninformed.

This is why website owner mimic competitors that use such tactics and unintentionally get penalized or banned in the near or distance future... they are uninformed.

NOT reporting "bad" doesn't make "bad" disappears... educating all (including search engines) does.

[fathom]

OK "Time Out:!

This particular thread topic is "Wiki Link Spam Tactic" and "NOT" the merits of reporting.

Profesionally if you have a problem with any Admin, mod, or member's posting style, post content or reported topic you need to take it with "admin" and privately.

Public venues discussion in these matters helps no one. A WebProWorld policy change must be initiated through iEntry and not WebProWorld membership.

All subsequent posts in this matter (and not on topic) will be deleted.

fathom
WebProWorld Moderator

[Brittany]

This is a public warning that some of you are getting a little out of hand.

Several posts have been edited (and some deleted) thanks to some off-topic arguments and personal insults. Any further off-topic, personal or insulting comments WILL be edited or deleted.

The way you present your opinion goes a long way. Simply stating your opinion has a completely different effect from trying to force others to accept it as fact.

I think Garrett is very capable of defending himself here. As he said, he posts only to report you the information or ideas. He is no expert in this constantly evolving field and if nothing else, his posts sometimes start controversy - which usually leads to some fascinating discussions.

If we have a problem with your posting style or edit/delete your posts, we contact you privately before resorting to a public response.

If you have a problem with WebProWorld, its administration, moderation, or reporting style, please have the decency to contact myself or one of the moderators in private rather than dragging the entire forum into it.

I respect your differing opinions, positive or negative. The fact remains, however, that each person is entitled to his/her own opinion and there's no point in arguing the validity of those opinions.

Now that your feelings have been expressed can we please get back to the discussion at hand?

I believe we were talking about Wiki link spam tactics... ;)

[jbgilbert]

Let's assume for a moment that Google wanted to eliminate the wikis the same way he eliminate credit for guestbooks.

Can he do it fairly easily?

How would he identify one with the spider?

[mikmik]

Brittany:
I think Garrett is very capable of defending himself here.

He knows Karate!

And I am very aware of my hypocrisy, however well intended, in stooping to argue about personal evaluations of each other. I am proud to be a member here, it is a great forum. Okay, my knees are hurting now LOL...



I have been getting a mittful of blogging experience the last few days, having signed up for a couple, and looked at many types of posting apps (?) (damn greenhorns lol)

I just got this
The w.bloggar is an application that targets to be an interface between the user and his blog(s), in other words, is a Post and Template editor, with serveral features and resources that the browser based blog editors can not offer.

Because it's a software that runs over Windows GUI it allows the user to edit his posts without being connected to the Internet, saving locally one or more texts to be posted in the future. It can be minimized to the Tray bar as an icon and everytime the user wants to publish a new text, he just need a click and has the editor ready to work, finished the text, another click (if connected) and the post will be published.

I know that a blog is not the same as a wiki board, but the similarities are obvious.

If you can use such a tool for wiki's, it is scary to think about, because you can basically make a 'template posting' and post to hundreds of wiki's every hour or two, certainly blogs.
I have come across many defenses already being offered to combat this (war..sigh), that are PHP scripts and all.
They are capable of some level of monitoring IP's, and limiting the number of posts per time period.

But it is starting to remind me of spam in emails way to fast here, and more and more people have to expend time and energy trying to just maintain a losing battle long enough for the cavalry to arrive. It is not going to happen to email, it will die shortly, by most accounts these days.

Will this be a forebearer of blogging and wiki fates?

Is this just becoming a domain of idiots trying to spoil it for the majority, because it is so easy for the cheaters and hackers to win, thereby ultimately sealing their own demise?

I almost feel dejected even as I just begin to explore this fantastic 'new' use of the internet.

I bet it was less than five months ago that ldyguique and I were just getting into this area, and I was telling people to wake up to the changes (as someone had told me)

Doesn't take long anymore.

[fathom]

Let's assume for a moment that Google wanted to eliminate the wikis the same way he eliminate credit for guestbooks.

Can he do it fairly easily?

How would he identify one with the spider?

You do need to consider that it is not the name of the interface that it discredited e.g. guessbook but the pattern and intensity of that pattern.

What is a guessbook? Well a version of a links page.

Considering that "not all guessbooks get penalized" means that some guessbooks do resemble the pattern of a links page and less like a guessbook.

Wiki will be no different.

Googlebot's ability to detect patterns would be no different than your ability to stand beside a busy highway with your eyes closed and identify the vehicles going by based solely on sound pattern.

Truck and car distinction would be easy (liken to classic linkpage/guessbook) going by model type Ford, Dodge, class Tempo, Saturn or vehicle year is a whole lot different.

Changing the a recognizible pattern means some survive.

[Dave Hawley]

I would say google are onto spammy type links more that most give credit for. I would say they have a team working full time (with plenty of $$) on it and would be far more advanced than we (not in the know) realise.

[G[dot]com]

Excuse me, I would apreciate your reading about Google here: http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=116458#116458 ...and your respective opinions.

Thank you.

[Dave Hawley]

I'm either missing your point and/or this is off-topic.

[G[dot]com]

Good morning everyone,

I am sorry I have not been clear enough. I didn´t mean that I would like to hear your commets here in this thread about that, but there where I put a link to.

My intention was to put things in relation because what led me to that paper was a question I did to myself one more time while reading this thread: "we all talk about google, and what google says about itself?"

I meant to add value to the thread, not to post something off topic. Thanks for pointing it out if it really is.

G

[G[dot]com]

Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is not so great

" 33. There's a culture of hostility and conflict, rather than of good will and cooperation. Even experienced Wikipedians fail to AssumeGoodFaith in their collaborators. Fighting off the barbarians at our gate is a higher priority than incorporating them into our community. "

Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_is_not_so_great

*************************************************

Wikipedia > Replies to common objections:

In: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections#Advertisers

** Advertisers

Objection: But what about advertisers? Won't those with a product or service to hawk see the opportunity to hit a targeted market and
write new articles for their product or worse, edit the article that corresponds to their generic product class (e.g. <a href=
"/wiki/Computer" title="Computer">computer</a>) to an ad for their product?

Reply: This kind of thing has already happened. There are basically three forms: adding excessive external links to one's company,
outright replacing of legitimate articles with advertising, and writing glowing articles on one's own company. The first and
second forms are treated as pure vandalism and the articles are reverted. Most Wikipedians loathe spam, and spammers are dealt with
especially severely. The third form is normally dealt with by editing the article for a neutral point of view.

Corporate advertisers would likely not find Wikipedia to be an attractive advertising medium. In traditional web-based
advertising, such as banner ads, popup
ads, and email advertising, the response rate can be directly
measured, either through web bugs or server logs. If a company used Wikipedia to
peddle its goods, the response rate could not be measured.

Not being able to measure results may not stop individuals who want to advertise their new multi-level marketing scheme, but
unless they're using a bot (see next section), it takes a lot of time and energy to keep reverting the page back to the
advertisement, so that the would-be spammer would get their message viewed (in an uneditable form!) more often and more reliably
by using a traditional advertising medium.

Ironically, advertising spam can actually be beneficial to Wikipedia. Suppose an advertiser for ***** enlargement products edited that page to an ad for its product. A
reader that happens by and sees the spam could copy the advertisement, revert the page to its previous state, and then add
information discussing the advertiser's specific methods or claims to the wealth of knowledge on the subject. In effect, advertisers' claims, when tempered and weighed against other knowledge associated with the subject, can yield a more robust article than before.

** Bots
Objection:
You still haven't addressed the real bane of Usenet: massive automated spamming. It would be trivial to write a script to
post Viagra ads to all Wikipedia pages, and once spammers or vandals start to use wikibots, you're sitting ducks.

Reply: There are scripts to deface wikis with how to make money fast
(primarily aiming for increased PageRank), but there are several things that keep
this from being too much of a problem. It's easy to revert spam, and anyone can do so. We already block IP addresses, which
serves as a basic form of spam filtering.

The Wikipedia is also an unattractive spam target for well-established legal reasons. Most countries do not have laws against
USENET or email spam, but most have laws against unauthorised website defacement - what we call vandalism.

See also wikipedia:bots and wikipedia:spam

Objection: What do you do if people start running scripts to repost their own bit of vandalism or spam, and from different locations so you can't just block their IP address?

Reply: This would be similar to a distributed
denial of service attack, which major websites occasionally fall victim to. It hasn't happened yet, and to the best of our
knowledge hasn't yet happened on any wiki. If someone did an extensive attack, all offending IP addresses could be
blocked from further editing by the admins. In an
emergency, we can restore yesterday's version from a backup we make of the server itself. We can write our own bots that revert
only the changes made from the banned IP addresses. Finally, it may be possible to prevent bots from making changes by adding
features such as captchas (frequently used by credit card companies and other payment
systems on Internet.)"

************************************************** *

Without reading Garrett´s report and the comments regarding it, I could read this at wikipedia and would have said:

"aha, eventhough is difficult to put limits in a system based on free speech, it seems that the wiki guys worked it out"

But unfortunately they didn´t. Which makes me conclude that:

Wiki spam most probbably is not so "useless" at all.

BTW the main problem with email spamming is that it can be easily stopped because...IT WORKS! Many, many people open emails and purchase things they saw through spam.

So unless it becomes really uneffective (ie if search engines stop following wiki links...which is an utopia) I think the wiki links spammers will not be easy to convince about stopping their actions.

Neither by the hand of ethics and right action, nor by the reason that it has no effect at all on websites rankings.

I think...

[Brittany]

Happy Friday, everyone :)

I split out the topics related to Google and moved them to this thread (http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=116458#116458).

Carry on with your wiki discussion!

Brittany