(Extremely stupid question) Why do people spam?

They do it on the off chance someone bites. I think people do it on fluther because they are not aware of how vigilant the community is in flagging them and having the posts taken down.

There are other sites that are not as vigilant, so a spammer will post there knowing it will be up for at least a couple days, and will possibly entice someone.

I think people do it on fluther with more off beat stuff with the idea that it will appear as a result when someone does a search for the subject.

I was wonderingthe same…

Seems so silly. To me it even comes across as a reason to not buy/do whatever they want me to.

My mother would/will fall for their nonsense, though!

Getting enough people to click on whatever links the spam contains leads to money.

@Smitha I’d love to meet some of the people that actually click on the ridiculous “GROW YOUR PENIS 5 INCHES IN 4 MONTHS!!!!!!” bs :P

I’ll introduce you to my mother, @El_Cadejo…

@El_Cadejo How about this one “I’m currently being held prisoner by the Russian mafia penis enlargement group and being forced to post spam comments on blogs and forum! If you don’t approve this they will kill me. “link”.They’re coming back now. Please send help!”

There probably is a statistical justification. Spam 50 times, 4 people click, 1 person buys. I just made those numbers up to demonstrate the idea.

No offense, but old people seem to be pretty oblivious. Maybe it’s an easy click for the poster. It’s playing the numbers game, but on a larger scale.

Welcome to the internet. Wade through the spam noise and finding the good stuff is half the fun of being here.

There is also the issue of Google rankings. Links to a site increase its ranking, so companies will hire people to just go around posting links. The spammers we see are often people who get paid for every link they post (as long as it isn’t taken down before the employer can verify it).

Yep, it’s a numbers game, and a money game.

I’m like you in which I wonder how the Devil can anyone possibly fall for this stuff. However I’ve seen this kind of spamming on forums and other online communities for years, therefore, if it keeps up, one must reason that somewhere, somehow, it indeed works.

Stop bashing yourself for asking ‘stupid questions’. Everybody asks stupid questions then. Actually spam exists everywhere. I even have spam profiles following me on another site. Paradox has now been followed by bottled water and a weight loss supplement, (laughs). I think they do it for reasons others have stated here, to try to sell their products. These sales agents make money, including commissions, with more sales. Sales people and companies will obviously do what they can to sell their products in order to make profits. Fluther appears to be much tougher on spammers though than any other site I’ve been on, but this is irrelevant to them.

Spamming used to be done to increase search engine visibility on a web site so that it would rank higher in searches on Google etc.

Google has since changed it’s programming so that many of these sites are now being blacklisted for the practice. I have had a few spammers ask me to remove their spam from a website I built and abandoned a few years back (spam removal was too much to bother with)

I responded that they would need to pay me $50.00 for my time and labor to go in and find and remove the spam links that they paid some overseas company to place. They refused, then tried to threaten me saying Google would take down my site too… too funny. Nothing ever came from it on my end. They got what they deserved- a negative ranking that buried them in the abyss of the internet.

M-O-N-E-Y.

@Dog YES! It’s nice to know a story in which the spammers are big losers!

But there’s something I don’t understand. Why not removing the spam on your website affected the spammers so much? They could forget your website altogether and spam somewhere else…

I think I’d leave them up at least until I’d made $50.

Perhaps if I paste the email, minus the links and names, it will help:

Dear Website Owner:

We have discovered that a company we hired to help promote our website xxxxxxxxxxxxx have used a variety of questionable techniques to secure links to our website. These links were placed purely for SEO purposes, with the intention of securing more favorable search rankings.

It appears that there may be links like this that have been placed on your site.

The presence of these links is harmful to our site’s good standing with search engines, and unfortunately, retaining them may also be potentially harmful to your own website’s reputation.

We would ask that you please remove any links on your site that link to xxxxxxxxxxxxx.

We would greatly appreciate your help with resolving this problem.

You can also let us know once the links to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx have been removed either by return email, or using the link below.

If you need any more information from us, please email me and I will be happy to assist.

We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you and do appreciate your help.

Sincerely,

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The following url will allow you to let us know that the links were removed.
This url is provided only for ease of use If you are not comfortable with clicking a link please email us back and let us know it is done.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Not only did they want me to drop everything and immediately go through the entire site- which is very large- but then they told me to report back to them right away that it had been done,
Keep in mind that I invested a lot of money and time into that website, which was to help homeless pets. (far more than $50.00) and that this company did not care who they hurt until it hurt them. Their hired thugs actions destroyed our site. Spam removal can become a full- time job. (just ask any of the mods here)

This was my response:

Mr. Xxxxxxxxxxxxx,

In order to take the time to seek out and remove your illegally spammed links, we require a $50.00 labor fee. Please submit this fee to us via PayPal. Once we have receipt of payment we will promptly remove the links you paid to have placed without our permission

Sincerely,
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

@Dog Now I understand…

DIE! SPAMMERS! THAT’S IT! DIE! ~

I think they spam because they are paid to do it. They are mostly from people in countries like China and Russia. Poor folk get paid peanuts to sit at a computer in some dingy warehouse and send thousands of spam emails and posts every day, because the number of stupid people who actually fall for it is sufficient to make the exercise profitable.

If everyone was smart enough to ignore the spam, it would no longer be profitable and then it would stop.