MarkB_MI
Well-known Member
- Location
- Motown USA
Y'all have noticed that from time to time there will be an odd post on these boards which will pretty much always include a web link. One example is the 'Class Lexion' post below, which inexplicably hasn't been deleted even though I reported it yesterday. So what are the spammers who make these posts actually trying to do?
I'm pretty sure most if not all of the spammers are trying to do 'search engine optimization' (SEO). They're operating '<a href=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_farm>link farms</a>', which are simply websites with links to other websites. The idea is to generate a bunch of links to the site they're actually trying to optimize in order to improve its ranking on Google and other search engines. But this only works if those link farm sites get indexed, and they're unlikely to get indexed unless there's a link to one of them from a legitimate site. Which is where YT comes in. YT has a pretty high ranking with search engines, and it's easy to spam. The spammer just has to post a message on YT that contains a link to one of their link farm sites, and search engine robots from Google, et al., do the rest. When Google indexes YT (which happens frequently), it will follow the spam link to the link farm, bumping up the ranking of the link farm.
In the case of the 'Class Lexion' post, it contains a link to 'explorepdf.com'. If you go to explorepdf.com (it's probably harmless), you can see it's obviously a link farm.
Are the spammers doing any harm to YT? Not really; they're just freeloading off YT's good reputation and high page rank.
BTW, although you'll see these spam posts a lot on Tractor Talk and Tool Talk, you rarely see them on Tractor Tales. That's because the spammers have done their homework and know that posts on T-Talk are never indexed by search engines.
I'm pretty sure most if not all of the spammers are trying to do 'search engine optimization' (SEO). They're operating '<a href=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_farm>link farms</a>', which are simply websites with links to other websites. The idea is to generate a bunch of links to the site they're actually trying to optimize in order to improve its ranking on Google and other search engines. But this only works if those link farm sites get indexed, and they're unlikely to get indexed unless there's a link to one of them from a legitimate site. Which is where YT comes in. YT has a pretty high ranking with search engines, and it's easy to spam. The spammer just has to post a message on YT that contains a link to one of their link farm sites, and search engine robots from Google, et al., do the rest. When Google indexes YT (which happens frequently), it will follow the spam link to the link farm, bumping up the ranking of the link farm.
In the case of the 'Class Lexion' post, it contains a link to 'explorepdf.com'. If you go to explorepdf.com (it's probably harmless), you can see it's obviously a link farm.
Are the spammers doing any harm to YT? Not really; they're just freeloading off YT's good reputation and high page rank.
BTW, although you'll see these spam posts a lot on Tractor Talk and Tool Talk, you rarely see them on Tractor Tales. That's because the spammers have done their homework and know that posts on T-Talk are never indexed by search engines.
