elind Posted February 7, 2008 Share Posted February 7, 2008 I would appreciate an explanation regarding link obfuscation. What does spamcop do with that? I often see spam which links through one website to another. Googlepages and geocities are common. That site then immediately redirects to another, typically chinese or korean sites in my case. In the spamcop analysis there is a link obfuscation section, but it often misses the real spammer site. However if I paste that site address into the source and process again, then it comes up in the reporting list, but the spamcop analysis doesn't seem to find it otherwise. Why? My questions are, why do the spammers bother to go to all the trouble since they are typically the usual foreign spammers anyway? Also, why does Google not accept spamcop reports? Are they mad at spamcop or don't they bother to pursue spammers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farelf Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 Whew - there's been quite a lot of discussion on these matters ... ... In the spamcop analysis there is a link obfuscation section, but it often misses the real spammer site. However if I paste that site address into the source and process again, then it comes up in the reporting list, but the spamcop analysis doesn't seem to find it otherwise. Why? ...Maybe a few references to consult, come back with any queries on the gaps there may be but basically/logically it seems to be a matter of the resource available to the parser in the course of a parsing run. See http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9027 http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?...;f=3&t=2918 http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5886 http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9053 ... My questions are, why do the spammers bother to go to all the trouble since they are typically the usual foreign spammers anyway? ...Presumably, to make it hard to filter. Any persistent URL could be included in filter rules, obfuscation of any sort makes that more difficult to do.... Also, why does Google not accept spamcop reports? Are they mad at spamcop or don't they bother to pursue spammers?Some (continuing) history at: http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4242 and some more: http://forum.spamcop.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1710 Problems with results returned from Google searches - specifically (mis)use in spamming - should, I guess, be reported through Google's "Report a spam Result" page http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html which SC can't do. In my observation, most "report pages" are little or no more than a filter to reduce the number of complaints received but in Google's case I can see there is a need for a structured complaint for it to be addressable. I guess there just haven't been enough instances of Google redirection for spamming purposes for it to be worth SC and Google working something out. Google has always been more concerned about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques which distort the search rankings. That is not inconsistent with concern over use to redirect for/to spam sites - if enough people were clicking the links. But, there are difficulties, I think we can appreciate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
btech Posted February 8, 2008 Share Posted February 8, 2008 Google can't do anything about the redirects... that's just someone abusing a search engine and there's no way to stop that from happening. However, I've always been pissed that Google doesn't remove abusive Blogspot pages, unless you reoprt it on the 'spamreport' page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elind Posted February 8, 2008 Author Share Posted February 8, 2008 Google can't do anything about the redirects... that's just someone abusing a search engine and there's no way to stop that from happening. However, I've always been pissed that Google doesn't remove abusive Blogspot pages, unless you reoprt it on the 'spamreport' page. I haven't used their service but I don't see the difference between hosting a spammer site and a page that does nothing but automatically redirect to a spammer site. That's what some spammers do with Googlepages or Geocities. How is there no way to stop that from happening unless you are describing something different from what I am? They can easily automate checking, or simply not allow redirects, can't they? They can also accept spam reports like most others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farelf Posted February 9, 2008 Share Posted February 9, 2008 I haven't used their service but I don't see the difference between hosting a spammer site and a page that does nothing but automatically redirect to a spammer site. That's what some spammers do with Googlepages or Geocities. How is there no way to stop that from happening unless you are describing something different from what I am?... There are recent discussions here about Googlepages - if you want to see those, use the search box at the top of any forum page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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