When will you be reviewing the nikon d3 and d300?

[jack55]

Originally Posted by JimC

alasa98st was a spammer, and had hidden links in the [numerous] posts made since joining the forums this morning.

For example, posts with content like this in the signature including links with affiliate IDs:

Colors matching the background were used so that the spam was not visible to viewers, yet it would still show up in search engines. That's a technique we're seeing relatively often anymore, so that spam is not noticed by members and moderators. I became suspicious when a large number of old posts were being responded to, and when I used post edit features and went to non WYSIWYG mode that shows the BBCode, I noticed the hidden spam. Spammers do that kind of thing more and more anymore to evade detection (include hidden spam in their signatures).

DANG! They are getting sneakier as time goes by. I consider them crooks and there are way too many crooks anymore.

I think the spammer wanted those links to show up in the members inbox.
Was this the link that was spam? It showed up in my subscription email :
http://amzn.to/Ltsg
http://amzn.to/MKmv
I left out the last two digits
I NEVER click on any links in my email anymore without first double checking... learned that long ago.

Great Job catching them.

[JimC]

Yes, the banned member had different links in different posts, all hidden from view unless you looked for them by viewing the post's text without using the WYSIWYG editor, so that you could see the BBcode.

I'm seeing more and more of that as time passes. Sometimes, I'll see simpler techniques, too (like links to transparent .gif files, or links to "smilies") for the purpose of getting more page hits for the site being promoted and improving it's search engine rankings.

Making posts without the links being visible to members is becoming a common technique being used by the spammers working on behalf of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) firms anymore. That way, they don't attract the attention of moderators.