ArtMetal

WHAT IS CONTENT SPAMMING? Best description of the various types of unwanted spamming can be found in Wikipedia's description of Spamdexing.

ArtMetal has been a great resource for the metal arts since the beginning of the World Wide Web. We have a desire to keep it that way. We use automated spam software from akismet to help us keep the heavy spam from unregistered visitors to the web site. Many of these visitors are actually spambots that attempt to publish unrelated information on the artmetal.com web site. Akismet does a very good job at stopping this sort of spam.

But its not what I want to talk about. Some of our subscribed members are taking advantage to promote their own sites when it is really not proper. I'm talking about folks that leave a one liner comment on another members legitimate post just to put a hyperlink back to their personal web site. This action, believe it or not, is really hurting the one liner comment link. Google is not stupid! They know all about comment spamming. And my understanding is that, when their search engines find comment spamming, they flag the offending link web site and stop using the links for search results.

So if you think you are getting better search ratings by adding a url to all your one liners, then you are in for a surprise! Please note that every registered user has a link automatically added to your posts and comments by the artmetal system back to your user profile. Within your user profile there is a place for you to add a link back to your web site. This is more than enough cross linking for not only the search engines to find your web site, but also for other members of the ArtMetal community to find more information about you and your metal art.

WHAT IS TAG SPAMMING?

One of the features that ArtMetal has when creating a new post is the ability to tag the post with keywords that emphasize the content of the post. This is very useful for search engines AND visitors coming to the ArtMetal site desiring to get related information based on the tags that we are providing in our posts.

Now, I want to say that for the most part, tags are being used properly on the ArtMetal web site. However, I just spent the whole morning going in and editing individual posts by a couple of our members that have decided to create a keyword for their personal work and web sites. I consider this tag spamming! Again, if someone is interested in your personal work, all they need to do is to follow the link that is boldly displayed on each of your posts/comments back to your user profile. They can then see every post and comment you have ever made.

LAST WORD...

Folks, I love you all dearly! I love working metal! I love sharing the knowledge of metalworking! This is the main reason the ArtMetal.com site was started. A place to share metalworking knowledge to anyone interested. The reason I overhauled the site to make it into a social networking web site was to give each of you a voice to learn and to pass the knowledge you have to others. This site IS NOT just a cross link site! Yes, it is a great site to show your art. It's a great site to get exposure for your personal metal art. It's a great site to meet other metalworkers. But if all you are doing on this site is spamming to get links back to your personal web site, then please stop posting! Go play somewhere else.

Sincerely & with affection,

Enrique