Odd Proposal

[mirkobolesan]

I've just received this rather odd e-mail... My blog really isn't the sort of one anyone would want to guest post on in all honesty.. I just wondered if anyone else had received this e-mail? (Just out of interest really, I'm nosey - I've removed the name of the guy sending it as well

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Hi there

My name is Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxx and I am contacting you about guest blogging on your site on behalf of a group of writers dedicated to writing football content.

We have some of the best guys in the business in for this type of writing and would really like to get their regular, free and unique content on your site.

The only thing we would ask for in return is a couple of links per article back to relevant football pages. This can actually add to the depth of the piece.

I can give you more information when you get back to me, but this is something that can hugely benefit your site. You will have regular quality content and the links will be to strong pages, so this will also assist your site.

Let me know if you are interested as we would love to get things started this week.

Thanks

Xxxxxx

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Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx
Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx
Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx
Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx

This e-mail may contain information that is privileged confidential or otherwise protected from disclosure. It must not be used by or its contents copied or disclosed to persons other than the addressee. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender and delete the e-mail.

It is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that the onward transmission opening or use of this message and any attachments will not adversely affect its systems or data. Please carry out such virus and other checks as you consider appropriate. No responsibility is accepted by Online Media Relations in this regard.

[simonhead]

Hmmm... Looks dodgy as hell if you ask me.

I'd steer well clear to be honest.

It could be one of a couple of things:

1.) A very well dressed-up email collector - don't reply to it!

2.) A scam to get access to, then use, your blog to help promote or boost their own product/site. In this case I suspect they'll want an author login, from which they can post pages with hidden tags in them to link to, or help rankings for, a separate product or site.

In either case I'd simply file that mail in the spam folder and carry on as normal. After all, it's your blog, so you should choose who else, other than you, should have their content on it.


That's just my take anyway.

[mirkobolesan]

Sorry, I should have made it clear that I'm not interested in anyone writing for my blog (especially unsolicited from someone I didn't know) or even making money from it.

I had the same reservations as you when I read the e-mail. I've only recently put a contact e-mail address on my site so I'm only starting to get these sorts of e-mails!

[simonhead]

I had a contact form get spammed to death on the Pubcast site, so that's gone now. Rather than an email link, I've just got an image (not linked) with the email address on it, so bots can't spam that to death, too.

[furtho]

This seems really dodgy to me, I have to say.

I'm probably under most people's radars on account of the, er, specialist nature of the subject matter of my blog, but in six years of running the thing I've only had a few spammers get in touch like this. Mainly it's been for link exchange rather than content.

[runofplay]

It's just an attempt to get advertising on your site without paying you. You're supposed to benefit by getting free content, i.e. pageviews, and in return you let them lard the articles with links that bump up their Google search rankings. Unless you want your blog to turn into faceless spam, I'd ignore it.

[VampyArcher]

I did receive that, too.

It starts when your site starts gaining lot of target-traffic i.e. from fellow football bloggers' niche. Some, who happen to be new gamers, will try to approach you to get you included in their already "splendid" team

It is, merely, result of when you let your e-mail address flying over at your site in your 'About' section.

I would deem it as immaturity from those seekers rather than spamming. I mean, if they happen to know us then they would not send these odd proposals in first place.

I had this problem but then I made it clear in my 'About' page at my site that I contribute to BackPageFootball.com and it stopped from there.

May be if we all make it clear in 'About' page that we blog for the love of it and are content with our presence on the blog sphere, or in case you are already writing for some site then name 'em, then I think it would stop eventually.

[jakartacasual]

Yeah I got that a while back as well.

Delete is your friend!

[rokerreport]

Never had that. Nor does anyone bother with my contact form!

I do get a shitload of spam comments on articles though. It started off as your usual cheap cameras/electronics/drugs etc, but now the spambots have begun having conversations!

I know their not real people, because I get the same two things al the time...

"What do you think of Justin Bieber? He's so amazing and talented etc..."

"Yeah I think he's amazing, what's he doing with Kim Kardashian?"

About 5-6 times a day.

Also on Twitter, back in the day you'd have PornBots following you, I've got fishing and angling bots!

[unprofessionalfoul]

I dunno, I'm rather curious to hear what Mr. Xxxxxx Xxxxxx knows about the diamond midfield and its strengths/weaknesses against a 4-5-1!

[simonhead]

rokerreport

IF you're struggling with spam comments, go to Wordpress.com and sign up for an account. As part of that you'll get an "API Key" which is a long string of alphanumeric characters.

Go to your site (which seems to be a self-hosted Wordpress site) and install a plugin called Akismet.

wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/

In the settings section for Akismet you'll be able to input your API Key, then your blog will be protected against spam comments.

Akismet is pretty much the best thing out there for protecting your blog against spam comments, and it's free. It learns from what you mark as spam, too, so if something does slip through the net, it'll improve its protection based on those additional spam posts you identify.

It's a great plugin to have if you've got Wordpress and are using their standard comments system.

Hope this helps.


Si

[Ian]

Absolutely this. I get about 200 spam comments per day and about 1 per week makes it even as far as the "awaiting moderation" queue, where they are quietly moved into the spam queue.

[rokerreport]

I've got Aksimet yeah, and although they never get published, I just found it odd that they're now conversing with eachother!

[theyallcount]

The message sent to the original poster, appears to be from an advertising agency - most likely promoting one of the larger football sites, perhaps even a betting site. They will provide you with (probably nuts/generic) content and then add in a couple of links to the site they are trying to promote, bumping up its google position, without having to reciprocally link to your site.

I could be well off the mark here, but that is what it looks like. Perhaps email them back saying you would be quite happy to include some of their "regular, free and unique content" for a small fee, see what response that gets?

[9men]

Jan 12, 2011 15:46:15 GMT theyallcount said:

The message sent to the original poster, appears to be from an advertising agency - most likely promoting one of the larger football sites, perhaps even a betting site. They will provide you with (probably nuts/generic) content and then add in a couple of links to the site they are trying to promote, bumping up its google position, without having to reciprocally link to your site.

What he said.