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Web Spam

Web spam is mostly aimed at increasing the ranking of spammed links in search engines. To achieve this end links were first spammed in guestbooks, then blogs, referrer logs and now Wikis - anywhere that a user of a site may submit links is vulnerable to spamdexing. Web spam also wants to be viewed by people, just like email spam.

Web Spam Overviews
Web Spam Prevention
Web Identity Management
Web Spam Research
Social Networking Spam
Blog Spam
Wiki Spam/LinkSpam
Blog and Wiki Spam Blacklists
Forum Spam
Guestbook Spam
Referrer Spam
Web Adverts

Web Spam Overviews

Fighting Spam for the Search Engines - www.engine-spam.com/
Spamdexing, from Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamdexing
Poly's Anti-Spam-Seite gegen Suchmaschinen-Spamming - geocities.com/polyphydra/Anti_Spam.html - German
Link Spamming - www.rickconner.net/spamweb/spam_linkspam.html
Link spamming - www.spam.co.nz/linkspamming.html
A tube for spam - www.rogelsview.com/technology-and-software/a-tube-for-spam/
SEO Egghead on spam - www.seoegghead.com/blog/category/spam
Akismet web spam statistics - akismet.com/stats/
Plagiarism Today on spam - www.plagiarismtoday.com/tag/spam/
What Google Knows About Spam - www.mattcutts.com/blog/what-google-knows-about-spam/

Web Spam Prevention

Can you distinguish a robot and a person? That's what these methods try to do. Web spam prevention is a subset of the wider problem of web fraud detection, used (among other things) to help stop phishing.

Spam2.0: Fake user accounts and spam profiles - googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/06/spam20-fake-user-accounts-and-spam.html
Stopping spambots with hashes and honeypots - nedbatchelder.com/text/stopbots.html
KittenAuth - www.thepcspy.com/kittenauth
ModSecurity - www.modsecurity.org/
ModSecurity rules - gotroot.com/tiki-index.php?page=mod_security%20rules
Protect Web Form - www.protectwebform.com/
LinkSleeve (SLV) Spam Link Verification - www.linksleeve.org/
Strider Search Defender - research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/strider/searchdefender/default.htm
Search engine SPAM detector - tool.motoricerca.info/spam-detector/
PHPrbl - phprbl.init1.nl/
Mod_Access_RBL2 - code.google.com/p/modaccessrbl2/
Babycart - apthorpe.cynistar.net/code/babycart/
Keywords Abuse and Search Engine Submission Complaints - www.seopros.org/Processing/Complaints/offenderlist.asp
SEOmoz URL Spam Detection Algorithm - www.seomoz.org/user_files/spam-detection/
Spam vs. Accessibility - www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/06/spam-vs-accessibility/
The 3-D CAPTCHA - spamfizzle.com/Captcha.aspx
aiCaptcha — Using AI to beat CAPTCHA and post comment spam - www.brains-n-brawn.com/default.aspx?vDir=aicaptcha
CAPTCHA farming - jc.ngo.org.uk/blog/2006/11/21/captcha-farming/
Honeypot Captcha - haacked.com/archive/2007/09/11/honeypot-captcha.aspx

RSS Spam Filtering

Fed up with spam in your RSS feeds? Are blog owners unable to stem the tide on their own? You can filter the blogs you read using an RSS spam filter.

feedscrub - www.feedscrub.com/

Client-side spam filters

Web Identity Management

OpenID - openid.net/
Facebook Connect - developers.facebook.com/fbconnect.php
Identity 2.0 - identity20.com/

Web Spam Research

Asirra - research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/asirra/
Resources for Research on Web Spam - www.yr-bcn.es/webspam/
Adversarial Information Retrieval (AIR) on the Web - airweb.cse.lehigh.edu/
Web spam challenge - webspam.lip6.fr/wiki/pmwiki.php
Introducing the Webb Spam Corpus: Using Email Spam to Identify Web Spam Automatically - www.ceas.cc/2006/6.pdf
Combating Web Spam with TrustRank - ilpubs.stanford.edu:8090/770/
Carlos Castillo publications on web information retrieval - www.chato.cl/research/
Using Rank Propagation and Probabilistic Counting for Link-based Spam Detection - www.slideshare.net/ChaToX/linkbased-spam-detection-fws-2006-barcelona
Link analysis for Web spam detection - www.chato.cl/papers/becchetti_2007_link_analysis_web_spam_detection.pdf
Formalization of Link Farm Structure Using Graph Grammar - www.ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?isnumber=4482669&arnumber=4482802&count=160&index=132
Microsoft Research Text Mining Search and Navigation Research - research.microsoft.com/en-us/groups/tmsn
Transductive Web Spam Detection - www2007.org/workshops/paper_120.pdf - slides
Robust PageRank and Locally Computable Spam Detection Features - airweb.cse.lehigh.edu/2008/submissions/andersen_2008_robust_pagerank_local_spam.pdf
Social Honeypots: Making Friends With A Spammer Near You - www.ceas.cc/2008/papers/ceas2008-paper-50.pdf
How lexical analysis can combat Web spam - www.seo-theory.com/2009/02/13/how-lexical-analysis-can-combat-web-spam/
CAPTCHAs' Effect on Conversion Rates - www.seomoz.org/blog/captchas-affect-on-conversion-rates

Filtering Research

Twitter spam

Twitter's Unintended Hidden Spam Engine — New Follower Direct Me ssages - blog.thebusybrain.com/twitters-unintended-hidden-spam-engine-new-follower-direct-messages/612
Social network spam - blog.wordtothewise.com/2010/02/social-network-spam/
Report Twitter spam - twitter.com/spam
Stop Twitter Spam - www.stoptwitterspam.com/blog/
Turning Up The Heat On Spam - blog.twitter.com/2008/08/turning-up-heat-on-spam.html
Twitter Spam Invades Trending Topics - mashable.com/2009/05/11/twitter-spam-trending-topics/
Commercial Twitter spamming tool hits the market - blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=2477
Twitter DM Deleter - dcortesi.com/tools/dm-deleter/
Twitspam - twitspam.org/
TwitChuck - www.twitchuck.com/
TidyTweet - www.tidytweet.com/
Twittercism: Security & Privacy - twittercism.com/category/security/
Tweepi - tweepi.com/
TwerpScan - twerpscan.com/
Clean Tweets - blvdstatus.com/clean-tweets.html
Tidy Tweet - www.tidytweet.com/
Tweet Blocker - tweetblocker.com/
True Twit - www.truetwit.com/truetwit/signUp/index

Other "web 2.0" spam

Facebook: Pass it on - blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=7830237130
Web 2.0 Cracks Start to Show - www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/10/69366
Report Spam on Google Maps - groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-For-Business-Owners/browse_thread/thread/ea2898fa2c921792?hl=en
Are Tagged Photos on Facebook a New Source of Marketing Spam? - www.readwriteweb.com/archives/tagged_photos_on_facebook_new_source_of_marketing_spam.php
YouTube Spam Panic Emerging; Why Don't All Networks Have Spam Control? - www.readwriteweb.com/archives/youtube_spam_panic_emerging_wh.php
The Undignified Death of Social Networks - www.loosewireblog.com/2008/11/the-undignified.html
Spammers Hijack Facebook Group of 1.5 Million - www.internetnews.com/webcontent/article.php/3802326
419 Scammers Set Up Roost on Facebook - www.louisgray.com/live/2009/01/419-scammers-set-up-roost-on-facebook.html
Spam2.0: Fake user accounts and spam profiles - googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/06/spam20-fake-user-accounts-and-spam.html
Magic Diet Product Scams Invade Freecycle And Meetup Groups - consumerist.com/2009/07/magic-diet-product-scams-invade-freecycle-and-meetup-groups.html
Twitter suspends accounts of users with infected computers - www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/twitter-suspends-accounts-users-infected-computers-878
Apple Bans Bushel Of Spam Apps - consumerist.com/2009/08/apple-bans-bushel-of-spam-apps.html

Blog Spam/Comment Spam

Blogs were hailed as a new, open, trusting communications method, but it wasn't long before the spammers came long and wrecked open comments, pings and trackbacks.

About Blog Spam
Stop Wordpress Blog Spam
Stop Movable Type Blog Spam
Stop Other Blog Spam
Trackback Blog Spam
Spam Blogs (Splogs)
Spam Pings (Spings)

Wiki Spam/LinkSpam

About Wiki Spam
Anti-WikiSpam Solutions and Filters

About Wiki Spam

Fight Wiki Spam - chongqed.org/fightback.html
BannedContent Discussion - www.communitywiki.org/cw/BannedContentDiscussion
SpamBusters - www.communitywiki.org/cw?SpamBusters
Wikipedia Nofollows Links - blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-01-22-n21.html
Usemod on spam - www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?CategorySpam
WikiSpam - www.cocoadev.com/?WikiSpam
Hiding Spam with CSS - wiki.chongqed.org/CSSHiddenSpam
MediaWiki Default Pages Spam - wiki.chongqed.org/MediaWikiDefaultPagesSpam
Discussion of antispam ideas - wiki.chongqed.org/WikiSpam
Wiki Immune System ideas - www.nooranch.com/synaesmedia/wiki/wiki.cgi?WikiImmuneSystem
Wiki Spam Solutions - c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiSpamSolutions

Anti-WikiSpam Solutions and Filters

MediaWiki anti-spam features - www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Anti-spam_features
SpamBlacklist for MediaWiki - www.mediawiki.org/wiki/SpamBlacklist_extension
Blocking Spam in MediaWiki - www.umasswiki.com/wiki/UMassWiki:Blocking_Spam_in_MediaWiki
MediaWiki Spam Filter project - www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Spam_Filter
Proxy blocking discussion at Wikimedia - meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proxy_blocking
MoinMoin AntiSpamGlobalSolution - moinmo.in/AntiSpamGlobalSolution
Kwiki DNSBL - svn.kwiki.org/jooon/Kwiki-DNSBL/
TWiki Blacklist Plugin - twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Plugins/BlackListPlugin
Zimbra Anti-spam - wiki.zimbra.com/index.php?title=Category:Anti-spam
Spam cleanup script - www.wikia.com/wiki/Spam_cleanup_script
DokuWiki spam logging - www.dokuwiki.org/blacklist
Oddmuse Antispam module - www.oddmuse.org/cgi-bin/oddmuse/Antispam_Module
Oddmuse SpamCatching module - www.oddmuse.org/cgi-bin/oddmuse/SpamCatching_Module
PmWiki URL Approvals - www.pmwiki.org/wiki/PmWiki/UrlApprovals
Spam Proof Wiki - sourceforge.net/projects/spamproofwiki/
Fighting spam in Wikka - wikkawiki.org/WikkaSpamFighting

Blog and Wiki Spam Blacklists

Much blog and wiki spam blocking is based on identifying spammy keywords, URLs or IPs, much like the blacklists of words, URLs and IPs that have been built to counter email spam. Lists designed for one wiki or blog are probably useful (with a bit of tweaking) for any other Web 2.0 application.

MoinMoin BadContent - master.moinmo.in/BadContent
Wikia Spam Blacklist - www.wikia.com/wiki/Spam_Blacklist
Mozilla wiki spam blacklist - wiki.mozilla.org/Spam_blacklist
Wikihow spam blacklist - www.wikihow.com/Spam-Blacklist
S23 spam blacklist - s23.org/wiki/Spam_blacklist
Audacity spam blacklist - wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Audacity_spam_blacklist
Perplexcity wiki spam blacklist - perplexcitywiki.com/wiki/Meta:Spam_Blacklist
Spamikaze BadContent - spamikaze.org/BadContent
Wiki Spammers - www.openwiki.com/ow.asp?WikiSpammers - IPs
Meatball Ban List - www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?BanList - IPs and hostnames
Wiki Vandals - rollerweblogger.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=WikiVandals
WikiSpam - twiki.org/cgi-bin/view/Codev/WikiSpam
Trac bad content - trac.edgewall.org/wiki/BadContent
CommunityWiki Banned Content - www.communitywiki.org/en/BannedContent
Blog Spam Blacklist - blogspambl.com/

Blacklists

Forum Spam

bbAntiSpam: phpBB antispam solution - bbantispam.com/
phpBB ree Anti-Spam Check - www.phpbb-security.com/check.php
Disable phpBB Spambots - www.phpbb.com/files/mods/disable-spambots-1.0.1.mod
ForumBan - www.sugapablo.com/forumban/
Forum Equalizer? Spam Equalizer - www.talkbiz.net/ramblings/archives.php?id=A2006111
Stop Forum Spam - www.stopforumspam.com/

Guestbook Spam

Fight Guest Book and Public Forum Spam - www.unwantedlinks.com/GuestBookSpam.html

Referrer Spam

Analytics spam: coming to an internet near you - www.seomoz.org/blog/analytics-spam-coming-to-an-internet-near-you
REF(errer)SPAM FUCKER 3000 - docs.g-blog.net/code/RefSpamFucker/3000/refspamfucker3000.php.txt
Adminshop - visualintensity.com/adminshop-com/
Get Rid of Referer Spammers - www.topsiteswebdirectory.com/referer_spam/

Web Adverts

These sites list hostnames that are associated with web advertising, which some consider to be as offensive as spam. The ads may be viewed in bulk, but unless they were placed onto the site in question without the permission of the owner they are not unsolicited, so they're not strictly spam.

Hostess - accs-net.com/hostess/
KillHost - www.sillysot.com/other.htm
Using the Hosts File - www.accs-net.com/hosts/
How To Block Ads (& Web Bugs) Without Extra Software - ssmedia.com/Utilities/hosts/
List of ad servers - pgl.yoyo.org/adservers/
Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File - www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
someonewhocares hosts file - someonewhocares.org/hosts/
Hosts file updates - datadragon.com/banners/hosts.shtml

Blacklists

everything you didn't want to have to know about spam

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Page last updated: 21-Mar-2010