Trackbacks spam

Started by Dmitry Stropalov · 7 · 8 years ago
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    Dmitry Stropalov said 8 years, 10 months ago:

    I'm receiving notification emails about comments which is not comments but notifications from trackback plugin. But it seems that it's used for dirty SEO and other fraud, just look at these "trackbacks" here http://imodeler.com/2015/12/yak-23uti-specialhobby-172/#comments – "google", "book store", "coffee beans". Also there are some items which I strongly won't be related to. Maybe this trackback plugin should be disabled?

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    Craig Abrahamson said 8 years, 10 months ago:

    I see nothing of which you speak when clicking on that link, Dmitry - just the posted comments. (?)

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    Craig Abrahamson said 8 years, 10 months ago:

    Could it be that somehow YOUR email was hacked and only YOU are experiencing this spam. I can offer no explanation other than that possibility. I don't think iModeler is at fault here...but I could be wrong (I thought I was wrong once before, but I was mistaken).

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    Dmitry Stropalov said 8 years, 10 months ago:

    No Craig, just scroll to the bottom and after comments you'll see "trackbacks". I'm receiving email from iModeler about it, and it's not a spam, because domain is correct and it's normal iModeler notification email. Trackbacks is default functionality of WordPress, which is usually used for dirty SEO if it's not turned off.

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    Craig Abrahamson said 8 years, 10 months ago:

    Oh yeah...now I see what you're talkin' about. It only seems to be on that one, though. I looked at a few other posters at random (including your blog), and didn't see it again anywhere. Dunno what to tell ya - go figure.

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    Site Administrator said 8 years, 10 months ago:

    @starfar:
    Yes this has been a problem. Apologies for this. The problem should be rectified now, and all the bogus trackbacks have been removed.

    A trackback can be thought of as an external WordPress comment, and as a concept is a good idea. If another site using different blogging software links to one of your posts, they can manually send a notification (a trackback) to let you know.

    Unfortunately, it’s also a feature that attracts a ton of spammers, and we have been just witnessing this type of (automated) spam attack.

    I have also changed the settings for new posts so to prevent the issue from occurring again. This does not in any way affect posting and commenting functionality at iModeler.

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    Dmitry Stropalov said 8 years, 10 months ago:

    Thanks a lot!