Interview with a Link Spammer

It’s from 2005 but it’s still really relevant. A few points of note:

• ‘Sam’ is a link spammer. He spams websites and blogs with text to pump up the search engine rankings of sites pushing PPC.
• He’s not some 16 year old kid. He’s 32. That makes him 36 now.
• He writes automated scripts to comment spam en-mass.
• He uses open proxies to avoid detection
• Apparently results 8,9,10 have better conversion rates than 1,2,3
• He earns a 7 figure salary doing this. That’s a MILLION up!
• It’s completely legal. Link spam is different from email spam. It’s hard to argue the difference between a person using a computer to post a comment, and a person using a computer to use a computer to post a comment

Me and ‘Sam’ share some similarities. We’re both in the SEO business. We’re both hunting for links back to our sites to increase their SERP. We both comment on blog posts. Here’s where this guy and myself differ tho. Sure it is legal, but ethically what ‘Sam’ does sux. The fact that it is all automated means that he leaves the same or similar comments on all blog posts.

• I take the time to read the posts
• I manually make my comments and try to add value. The way the blogger actually wants by allowing comments in the post.

Sure you can make a million bucks doing what he does, but I think he crosses the line between good and evil. Don’t be a bloody spammer that everyone hates. Be a commentor that everyone loves to have on their blog.