Spammers have caught wind of MyBlogLog
MyBlogLog is on so many popular blogs that it was just a matter of time before it started to be abused by spammers. At first, people were able to sign up for fake accounts under other people's name and now users are able to leverage it for free advertising.
Michael Jensen reports that by using Opera you can visit blogs on a constant basis which will cause your profile to always show up and if you do this to high traffic sites like TechCrunch you can gain a lot of traffic as well as increase your brand recognition. And if you think about how TechCrunch charges 10,000 a month for a 125 by 125 ad, this is a great way to get free advertising.
With this weeks announcement of Yahoo acquiring MyBlogLog there is a good chance that these vulnerabilities will be open for a while because Yahoo has a track record of moving very slowly. And the bad part about this is that the spamming is just going to get worse. What is going to be next, people spamming 1000s of MyBlogLog users by messaging them to read their blog?
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Reader Comments (12)
- Shimon Sandler, January 11, 2007
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Hi Neil,
I've been reluctant to use MyBlogLog. But, I see more and more people are using it, and raving about all the traffic they are receiving from it. It definitely seems like a good source for increasing traffic & hopefully link popularity.
Are there any privacy issues to be worried about?
- Neil Patel, January 11, 2007
- kelvin newman, January 12, 2007
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It's a bit of a shame to see this story come out this week, they'd had a good run of it with all the blogs adopting it at such a pace and then the Yahoo sale.
Still fake profiles are always a problem and certainly hasn't harmed myspace's ascent to seriously.
Hopefully they'll just install a refresh limit or have some kind of approval process on the photos where users could flag the spam images....
- Wayne Smallman, January 12, 2007
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So far, I've managed to avoid the wrath of the spammers, but I suppose it was just a matter of time before the MyBlogLog model was prized open for exploitation.
Just because Yahoo! are slow to move doesn't meen the current management aren't likely to act...
- engtech, January 12, 2007
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What is going to be next, people spamming 1000s of MyBlogLog users by messaging them to read their blog?
That's already been happening for a while. What's worse is that when someone sends you a message, none of the links are rel=nofollowed.
The solution to the mentioned MyBlogLog method is relatively simple: put in a check that only displays people once a day.
- Jeff, January 12, 2007
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Have seen a few communities get banned. Looks like you could pretty easily wipe out a new(ish) community if you add about 50 members from accounts that are created on the same IP. Not all that dissimilar from getting sites banned from digg I suppose.
- Scott Rafer, January 12, 2007
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We do not sell the data and have no plans to. Making sure that we hadn't was a very picky part of Yahoo's due diligence during the acquisition process.
However, I do expect that advertising integration and related targeting will happen at some point. We'll do our best to give people notice before all that starts happening.
I can't speak for other groups at Yahoo, but we are working now to keep the spam in check. We're looking at places to add no follow tags, Cooqy's comment about our static directories is not news to us, etc. Please let us know where else you think we should tighten things up.
- Neil Patel, January 12, 2007
- nuevojefe, January 14, 2007
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Scott it's awesome how vocal and quick to respond you've been (here and on other blogs, mine included).
- Ron Wilson, January 15, 2007
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MyBlog log is great. I have seen some fake profiles out there but I am getting some good contacts through it that I would not otherwise have. I just wish I would have started sooner.
- ugyen, January 18, 2007
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MyBlogLog did give me few visit to my blog...it does help getting the stats of one's blogs or site!!! cheers ugyen
- John Kover, January 30, 2007
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MyBlog log is definetly going to be creating more spam traffic as time goes on. Spammers will always find a way. If you are interested in getting your blog sponsored. I suggest you check out my new website:
