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Spotting fake followers on twitter isnt as easy as you think

SEOidiot — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 12:13:20 +0000

Just read this post about how to spot people with fake follower counts on twitter.

Interesting article but as usual the boy scout brigade arent thinking it through.

Its not as easy as they make out, to illustrate that let me show you three graphs from twittercounter then ask you to guess which is faked…

I know these stats because I am in control of all three accounts here (and many more hehe)

OK now 1 of those is real… but its not necessarily the one you think…

Post from: SEOidiot

Spotting fake followers on twitter isnt as easy as you think

Syndk8 – Bidding on people now?

SEOidiot — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:39:09 +0000

Just been pointed out to me that Syndk8 – everyones favourite blackhat SEO forum – and a place I used to spend an awful lot of time and where I still moderate – appear to be bidding on SEO names.

And its not just me, Dave Naylor and Esrun get ads too

But they dont seem to be bidding on people like Earl himself, Perk, Irishwonder, Bompa, Dianne88, TheKaptain, Vsloathe and many of the other high profile members.

I assume that this is another attempt to sell the Autopligg tool (Im not a big fan of that)

If it is its odd they arent after phrases like: -

Link spamming

Odd but made me chuckle – see if you can find anyone else I have missed.

Post from: SEOidiot

Syndk8 – Bidding on people now?

Odd Twitter Searches

SEOidiot — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:51:53 +0000

Just noticed this tweet on twitter that seemed a little odd to me.

This tweet appeared saying “We wrote something new today…”
I think this is from the excellent wordpress to twitter plugin but I cant see any mention of them mentioning me on that site?

So I had a poke around and I am confused…

They dont seem to mention me anywhere, I thought perhaps it was a scraper being bold but I cant see that anywhere and if they had I would expect to see something here

So perhaps its just a way of attracting attention on twitter by mentioning sites that may appear in peoples searches in the hope of putting your site in front of peoples eyes.

If it is it seems odd that they would use my site

Post from: SEOidiot

Odd Twitter Searches

Google allows MFA’s again – Come get the Free cash!

SEOidiot — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:57:00 +0000

I miss the old days of creating made for Adsense sites then sitting back and watching the free money roll in. The reason most of us had to slow down from doing that was that Google started banning accounts for very soft reasons and taking all the money back.

But today they opened up a new way for us to get free cash…

Google have announced that they have opened up their Adsense for Domains to normal publishers

And now ill show you what I will be testing so you too can have some free Google cash…

One of the reasons why Google may have banned accounts in the past was that the traffic didnt have any referrer (so Google didnt know where it came from) or it took a spammy path to get to the ad page.

Now Google lets us chumps in their Adsense for domains programme we have some advantages again: -

They expect ‘undeveloped’ sites so we dont have to have anything other than a crappy holding page with reference to the domains subject
We dont have to create crappy MFA style content anymore
Many people reach parked domains through a simple type in method – thats where people type in something like “cheapcarinsurance.com” in the address bar rather than searching for it.
So we can ‘gather’ our traffic from any crappy source (spam spam spam) and then as long as we clean off the referrer we make it look like type in traffic

So heres the plan
Have a look through your domains or buy a new domain like iwantacheapmortgage.com
Put a parking message on the page that includes the line “i want a cheap mortgage”
Add Googles Adsense for Domains code.
Hope their targetting doesnt blow as much as it did
Send traffic from any spam you can through a page that ‘cleans’ it

I would also keep your CTR down to something low for a while as Parked domains will have a really low CTR – we will have to find the level that gets us in trouble..

Let me know how you get on but thanks to Google we are back in the Adsense easy money game..

Post from: SEOidiot

Google allows MFA’s again – Come get the Free cash!

Xrumer spammers are idiot spammers

SEOidiot — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:10:45 +0000

Honestly if you are a user of Xrumer for forum spamming then please try to use your brain a little.

I am completely ok with the numbers game that is forum spam and that you have to try to throw as much out as cheaply as possible on the knowledge that some will stick however please try at least and do some quality control.

When doing a mass run of link spamming I would suggest that investing the time in checking what has stuck is probably a good idea before you repeat the same run again. If nothing else it tells you whats working and whats not.

Heres a snapshot of my inbox from 10 minutes ago…

Honestly these are all fake Xrumer members looking to spam Affearners. You cant do it.. I dont approve you and even if I do the site is spam tollerant. You cant drop forum profile links, they dont count. You cant drop links in posts as it gets removed automatically by my scripting.

All you are doing is showing me you dont know what your doing

Post from: SEOidiot

Xrumer spammers are idiot spammers

Spam your way out of the credit crunch

SEOidiot — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 12:43:21 +0000

Times are hard and they look like they will be getting harder for most people. Spammers however have some advantages over the rest when times get hard: -

The click based spammers (Adsense, AFF ppc offers etc) don’t suffer the same problems as those selling a physical product as they don’t actually have to sell anything. They get paid for the simple action of a ‘click’

Even if you are skint you can still window shop and click.. They also have the advantage that they aren’t tied to a product or service so swapping out to an alternative offer is pretty painless, as long as there are advertisers they will prosper.

I think that there will be advertisers throughout any downturn as it remains one of the most measurable ways to spend on advertising there is.

Those spammers who have created networks to promote a set niche will have to do some adjustments it seems but they are often in a position of power where they can sell their cheaply gained traffic to the highest and most desperate merchant.

Spammers often also have the luxury of being able to earn a living whilst the spam adds to what they earn, giving them security and making the downturn less painful.

So if your feeling the credit crunch fire up the spam and ride it out.

Post from: SEOidiot

Spam your way out of the credit crunch

Google earns money helping spammers hack your blog

SEOidiot — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 11:21:09 +0000

If you use a free theme from a Google advert you are an idiot..

Yeah you are, admit it. You would have to be unless you knew what you were doing. Having spent some time recently helping out when people have had their blogs hacked I decided to take another look at the free theme scams and was shocked by what I found.

I say I was shocked, thats a lie really. I knew what to expect and I knew where to look. I have to also admit I know all this and how effective it can be as I have done some of this in the past too.

OK so what I did was nip over to Google and search for ‘Free wordpress themes’ and heres what we get: -

Now as you can see we have a few paid adwords ads for free themes, suspicious? Yeah me too…

We also have a couple of decent organic results from upstanding places like Smashing Magazine etc.

So what we will do is grab a random theme from the top adwords adverts and the top organic result and have a poke around to see whats there.

Themescore.com
I grabbed the iTheme theme as I know its a popular one.
The theme files that I would normally be most worried about are header.php, footer.php and functions.php

Aha! Subtle… They have an obvious problem with header.php as they have this code

Looks fun doesn’t it? Its encoded in Base64 so lets go decode it with a tool like this – Base64 Decoder

And this leaves us with: -

So in basic terms the spammer here has chosen to use an eval() in php and encode it in Base64. The php handler on the server using the theme will nip off and evaluate or execute the php it gets from the decoded base64 stuff. The upshot of all this is that the code above will insert links in the header of the blog using the theme. The spammer has also made efforts to use a number of domains that he controls so he can keep going if one or more gets killed and he has made the code as complicated as possible to make most users powerless to pick through what its doing.

As a side note, this guy has been doing this for over 2 years that I know of and Google have been getting paid by him all that time to help spam your blog!

Shocked yet? OK I can see you are a hardened SEO so lets get on with the next one

Freewordpressthemesite
Next adwords ad, random theme (Leaves this time) footer.php has a big base64 encoded eval that decodes to links for a bunch of spammy sites.

So it looks like the reason these people are paying for Adwords is that they get a spammy inserted link in every download. Now perhaps they are buying the ads and are unaware of the fact that the themes they offer have these easter eggs, I will let you make up your own mind.

The scandal here is that Google are happy to take the cash from these guys and have been doing for the past several years yet its obvious to anyone that this is whats happening. Greedy Google turn a blind eye it seems

Now perhaps the organic results will be better? Lets have a look at number one: -

Freewpthemes.net is top of the unpaid results for me here so I went and grabbed a random theme from them called Reference. After a quick look it appears clean, they have a footer link to themselves but hey so would I.

So whats the conclusion from this?

Google are happy to take money to help spammers
No free wordpress theme from an Adwords ad can be trusted
Spamming links in free themes obviously still works

Anyone who wants to be sure that they are clean should consider using a service like PSD to Wordpress or at least only download from sites that you find in the organic results. If you have any doubts why not ping me a comment and ill check out the theme you are after for you.

Post from: SEOidiot

Google earns money helping spammers hack your blog

How Gumtree spam nearly made me a TV star

SEOidiot — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:40:02 +0000

Like most people who make money from the internet I am always on the lookout for what might be an opportunity and testing things to see what works. I might do a test run of a new type of spam or I could hear about the launch of a new community or service and decide to do a few tests to see what potential it has for delivering adverts or leeching off visitors. This is the brief story of one of my experiments, a tame one but it nearly had a rather scary outcome.

Anyone making a living from the internet or even those using the net to supplement their day job should be testing all the time, it doesn’t have to be writing scripts and doing large runs just testing the water with various ideas can unearth a gem that will make you thousands. This time I decided to continue to mess around with Gumtree, a Craigslist like classified site with a large user base in the UK.

In the past I have done (Like so many others) simple dating spam to Gumtree where the purpose is to entice as many people as possible into signing up at a dating site where I will get an affiliate payout. An example of a longer term test I had been running is www.picdating.co.uk which goes several times a day an aggregates (Posh word for scrapes lol) the dating adverts that feature a photo into one easy to laugh look at page, when it works well it’s surprising how many people seem to find value in not having to read all the adverts when they could easily decide which of the people are sex offenders (I’m definitely not suggesting that any of them are though) from their picture. Anyone in any doubt should view this picture taken at random from a typical day

Why would any lady be worried at going on a date with this chap?

This experiment then was setup as more of a test in social manipulation. What I planned to try was a simple advert with a picture on Gumtree where the headline would be all I could use to entice the visitors into making contact. I had decided that there would be no advert or affiliate angle yet, just a test to see how many people would be curious enough to make contact based on the headline alone.

So first off I had to go get a picture, something that would be appealing yet I didn’t want anything trashy or suggestive. So a quick visit to one of the many places where people leave their photos lying around (Flickr, Facebook – any social site really) and I had a pic of someone that fitted the bill. I chose a pic of someone from Australia to ensure that they would be unlikely to see the advert.

Next we needed a headline that would draw in the curious Gumtree users so I decided I would run with
“Know my secret?” and a body text of simply “I have a secret”.
There, that should get someone curious enough to pop me an email.

Here is the actual ad

The advert on Gumtree

Next to make life easier I created a new Gmail account to collect the responses.

So once the ad was set up I forgot about it for a day or two and set a Google Calendar reminder to ping my forgetful ass when it was time to check the mailbox.

Ping… OK time to stop work as an SEO company and have a look. Woohoo there were some responses waiting for me, this should be amusing.
Here’s a few of the early responses, some people are curious and most just seem to be having a boring day at work: -

” wats ur secret
tell me please i will do wat ever u want me to do
thanks”

” yeh i know your secret, …..
your a tranny”

” tell me yr secret an i’ll tell u mine x”

“Hi,
OK,you have a very good secret.Would you like to see any my pics?What pics would you like to see?- body pics, cxxk pics or whatevever else pics.
Cheers
Dxxxxxx”

“s your secret that you are some kind of robot?

That would be sweeeet.

if this is _not_ your secret, then i have no interest in what your secret could be.

With love,(1001010010100101001010100101)

R2D2

*bleep!*”

“You’re part of a viral marketing campaign?”

Some people closer than others I think youll agree

So buoyed by the early replies I set another reminder for the end of my ten day experiment and went about my normal work.

Ping… Ten days was up, lets have a look at the total haul and draw some conclusions!

10 days experiment
Responses received: 249 !!

A full mailbox of wierdness: -

And a few people even felt desperate strongly enough to send a photo! Quite what type of life you lead where you feel the need to send a photo of yourself to someones classified advert on the off chance is beyond me. I mean have you ever met anyone at a dinner party and said “So how did you meet your wife?” “Well she posted a picture of herself in the classified ads and so I emailed a picture of my manhood to her, the rest is history” – Not that often I bet!

It was then that I noticed something odd, something that would make me suddenly as curious as the Gumtree people. The second to last response that I got wasn’t from a lonely guy in his underwear but from a woman. A woman using her works email address (Dangerous thing to do – as my next post will show you)

With sudden suspicion I clicked on the email, here’s what I saw.

Quickly I googled the company and it appears they produce many reality TV shows in the UK and that their flagship show is one of the UK’s most popular daytime shows.

I cant ring that number, can I ?
Can I get someone else to do it for me ?
Hmmmmmm

OK as it seemed unlikely that I could do a good enough impression of a lady to pass even on the phone and saying “Yes the secret is in fact that I am a fat balding northerner called Paul” didn’t seem like a better plan so I pinged an email off asking what they wanted.

It seems that they were curious enough from seeing the advert that they wanted to discuss including me and my story in an upcoming show they had in development. I haven’t admitted to them that the person in the ad isn’t me and to be honest felt it was better to leave it there!

So what did I learn?

A good advert headline will get results (If the amount of people that went to the trouble of emailing me was anything to go by, many more than that would click)
Gumtree has a healthy if sceptical user base looking for dating (I think that there is plenty of opportunity to exploit there for someone)
Its amazing what a simple classified advert could have lead to – A real person would now be on TV as a result.

Oh well there goes my glittering TV career!

So what do YOU think would be a good variation on this experiment and do you have any stories of tests you have run?

Post from: SEOidiot

How Gumtree spam nearly made me a TV star

Keniki – Time to get some help or advice I think mate.

SEOidiot — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 20:12:52 +0000

This post is really aimed at one person – Greg (Keniki)

For months now you have been posting comments on this blog and a few others and to be frank I am starting to get a bit worried by them. Some of them elsewhere have, at best, bordered on illegal and at worst been illegal – here however they have been a little random.

You have asked me to remove comments on many occasions, which I have always done and I have always remained civil and friendly in my replies. I do now feel that you need to look carefully with what you post and how it looks to everyone else and I dont think ill be removing comments in future – if you think youll regret what you are about to post please refrain from posting it in the first place.

Just so we can see what I am talking about heres the log of comments from Keniki on SEOidiot.com: -

Keniki
Date: – 2007-05-26 01:01:46

“ I came here and what? saw an ip list you want me to start producing ip lists as well no problem? You have no debate and no answer to me. ”

Keniki
Date: – 2007-07-26 01:42:19

“ I must say Seo Idiot, I do like your cartoons. Hey I’ll bounce back but will probably be walking away from the web next month once I finished the fix. Take some time off and go surfing. ”

Keniki
Date: – 2007-07-26 01:51:54

“ …for a few years ”

Keniki
Date: – 2007-07-26 02:21:12

“ So you guys won, even if I bring back the site’s attacked you won because I don’t want to work on the internet anymore. Its a new generation and you do things that I just won’t compete with. I won’t set out to destroy other websites even though I know they are doing this to me. I can track you expose you slag you off and sound off at SE’s for not stopping it. But I draw the line at attacking back although I could do it better than anyone you have. I’ll walk away from the net once the protection system is complete. Once fully tested I’ll release it open source. ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-07-27 01:45:59

“ Well if I got shot next week I rekon there would be about 10,000 possible suspects… You know the line. Is there anyone Keniki could have upset? Happy to say Matt Cutts is in the clear. ”

Keniki
Date: – 2007-08-21 02:10:05

“ Ersun is just pissed because I outed his company “MEMSET”, keniki.com will take all liability for lawsuits. ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-02 22:33:42

“ Just go to doubleclick Paul they advertise on any old shit, hijacked pages no problem we’re advertise with you, scraped content hey no problem we’re advertise with its not as if we’re google is it……..er yes you are now doubleclick… ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-02 23:55:06

“ opps forgot to add keniki is part of the fuckblackhats3 group of communities admittedly its just three people that work together now but hey from small acorns…….. ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-03 00:03:01

“ You know we have a script that will defend all apache users worldwide from all forms of hijack scraping mail bots etc. We are trying to get google to agree to look at it and distribute it. ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-03 00:15:37

“ I know what your thinking, it don’t matter we have api’s from google yahoo and ask, api’s from google without ajax beeing tracked and dealt with yahoo and ask will just be banned untill they change there ways. As sites continue to ban yahoo and ask they will become useless search engines and go bust. ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-04 06:52:22

“ Paul I like you, 1) because you are creative and have a good sense of humour. 2) because deep down you know sabotagueing other peoples sites is wrong and unlike ersun who is happy to try to ruin other websites and posts himself as the gimp from pulp fiction you have something to offer. Paul you are witty , artistic and know how to build a website. I think you can build sites that show all the good aspects of you to the world. You don’t need syndk8 you don’t need any of this shit. Why because you can create content people would like to read. Black hats survive off stealing other peoples content. Mostly because they are people like ersun with a personality failure. And are unable to create unique ideas for themselves. You howether do not fall into this category and I urge you to walk away from black hat seo and use your skills to create commercial and fun websites that add value to the internet. Then I am sure google would welcome you with open arms as an advertiser. Keniki ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-04 07:11:20

“ Let me tell you something Paul, I recently took a site from position 300 to position 3 on its target keyword (very competitive even google themselves compete on it). Without a single link added to the site………… So google if you think I am adding links your mistaken, its called google bowling…… ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-04 07:37:42

“ Who am I to lecture you? I am giving advice but this year I have sold over of 7 million pounds worth of goods online. Small fry compared to the big boys but not bad off an idea and a couple of website’s I created off freeware… I also employ 48 people in uk. We let twenty go this year largely due to saboutage of our websites. Perhaps those jobs are now filled by interntet companies abroad. Those uk jobs have gone to other countries because uk black hat seo sabotaging established sites in uk. Ersun wouldn’t give a toss about that he still be changing into the gimp pvc suit to attack another uk internet company and cause more loss of jobs in uk to benefit some internet companies in the east that pay there staff $1 a week. Keniki ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-06 00:01:26

“ Withdrawing all comments on Ersun, be gratefull if you could remove comments Paul. Had a long chat with Ersun last night and he is making a fresh start creatively. I believe he is a very talented guy and look forward to seeing what he can “create” in future. I reckon this guy(he hates me calling him kid) if focussed correctly can create some fantastic original websites and beieve he is with the right people to help do this. My best wishes go with him. I am totally made up that he has choosen a creative path. Keniki ”

keniki
Date: – 2007-11-06 00:22:37

“ Now how about you Paul ready to turn your back on the black hat bullshit? ”

Then we see that he decides to change his name to Everything you do – for some reason.

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-20 02:46:54

“ Ersun the fix is in. You can do nothing and you know it. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-20 02:51:06

“ The fix was ip detection user agent detection from those two factors complete protection was created and we reverse and forward dns user agents against ip by the way. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-20 02:58:47

“ I will release a new site in febuary that uses complete protection. It will evan email google,yahoo,ask and msn when a attempt to scrape the site happens and there ip address. Checkmate. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-23 00:01:28

“ Ah keniki is dead for four years. Yeah been busy Paul and very very pleased with protection. No referrers used so its full proof all server side code. Yep I am proud of it. Image protection all server side as well. Api abuse protection. Evan though I say it myself its excellent code…..and preserves accessibility. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-23 00:38:27

“ The other great thing is there is a silent detect of abuse. A site will be launched with this protection in Febuary. By the way sold up other interests in several sites and banked some money. Now I am very hungry for new markets that require an honest spin and sites that febuary launch will prove are untouchable from black hat seo. Cheers ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-23 01:34:56

“ Seo idiot I have spoke with a lott of people holding domains for other people online one guy “Miles” had this kid registering over 300 domains for this experienced “ksearch” seo in his name. Why are these so called black hat seo’s so scared to register a domain? ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-23 01:54:51

“ Its easy to talk directly and without emotion as there is no longer any fear from black hat seo for me. Definition : Black Hat Seo is a deliderate attempt to sabotage another website. My sites will from now on be untouchable and I can go back to work. Evan though I know black hat techniques (to create protection you learn enemy) I will never deliberatelty damage a competitor website. That would be dishonest and I would gain no feeling of achievement from that. I can beat black hat honestly now so I’ll just do that. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 01:46:24

“ Like I said keniki is dead, it died the day blackhat got cured. I am always glad I amuse you ersun and hey for the record you taught me a hard lesson but I respect you for that and it was a lesson I needed to learn. Now where would be the fun in posting the url? ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 01:49:04

“ I’ll give you a clue “Need a loan?” ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 02:59:28

“ Call me “gameover” if you don’t like “Evertything you do” ersun. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 03:39:31

“ I checked out on the web this is your safe home. No longer so Ersun I think your a prick and I seen personaly how you threatened the host here and I hope he backs me saying fuck off you vile piece of scum. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 03:54:01

“ and thats keeping it friendly south london style. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 04:01:38

“ You know where I am from where noone ever wins there is no escape, but I did and people defend those who escape with passion when I say some middleclass kid is causing me a problem. They offer a xxxxxxxxx solution. ”

Evertything you do
Date: – 2008-01-25 04:05:10

“ of course I always refuse it. ”

Post from: SEOidiot

Keniki – Time to get some help or advice I think mate.

A Year in Adsense Stats – Some statistics from one batch

SEOidiot — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 22:29:28 +0000

I know its against Googles TOS but I couldn’t give a flying fish what they say. What I thought I would do is show you a snapshot from one batch of sites over a full year and discuss some of the ways in which I worked to get these results.

I often have debates with people over instant messenger where they tell me that you cant make money at Adsense any more and that Google ban too quick now. I hope this illustrates its still possible to operate if you are careful…

I have also become jaded by people telling me what’s possible to profit from and what isn’t now – this post has helped me focus on what I will be doing in the coming year

I track each batch that I do and track the following stats: -

Number of pages crawled

Number of pages indexed (3 Main Engines)

Number of days X % of the pages survive in Google from first full crawl to deindex (What I call ‘Burn Rate’)

Indexing methods used

Uniques

Page views

Clicks

Revenue

Where each click went (Remember that you should really only be selling your traffic to Googles Adsense program till you can determine what affiliate program to redirect out to – here’s my post in Affearners on the subject of how to move from Adsense to affiliate)

My normal way of working is to create a batch of sites in a niche and share indexing methods etc to get them indexed. I would normally wait until that batch gets de-indexed by a certain percentage then create a new batch with different templates etc in the same niche – Remember domains die keywords dont! For this example I decided to replace one site per month and run them independent of each other so my stats would span a year of normal data.

Just to note some things before the stats -

My burn rate was on average 41 days for this batch so I replaced one site per month until month 10 then stopped.

My CTR for this batch was 13.26% on average which is about 4-5% lower than my normal for MFA crap.

The sites where plain text with one adsense ad block and links disguised via css.

The content was crappy mfa spider food padded out with generics to get the keyword and topic balanced.

The niche was Tea’s used for Slimming (I went as vague as I could)

Also just to note – you wont be impressed with the earnings here, a little over $2150 in 12 months from 32 domains.

I decided that for the best illustration of long tail made for Adsense work I wouldn’t spam the sites beyond getting them indexed. So this example shows that I bought 32 domains at a cost of about $70 (24 at first and 1 per month) , shared hosting at around $100 for the year and my time (2 hours initial setup and 20 mins per month to add a new site in)

So with 4-5 hours total work and $170 I made a profit of around $1900 ish

Yup I know there should be a $ symbol not a £ on the earnings but MEH

OK heres the stats.

Post from: SEOidiot

A Year in Adsense Stats – Some statistics from one batch