Mike Masnick ✅Jan 4, 2023

I remain conflicted when companies that hired comment spammers who successfully slipped through Techdirt's comment spam defenses... then reach out to me begging me to delete the comments because Google is punishing them for spamming.

Normally we delete any spam comment as soon as we see it. But watching the companies who hired the spammers squirm... is also appealing.

Show threadDanJan 4, 2023

@mmasnick an old company I worked for hired an SEO firm that promised results. They ended up doing that type of spamming crap instead of fixing our website like they were contracted to do.

What was worse was that they signed up for a bunch of websites using our company name (with a gmail account they made using our name) and spammed the hell out of random blogs with links. Didn’t even have the guts to use their own emails or names.

Just the worst.

Show threadDanJan 4, 2023

@mmasnick what would I do here? I’d delete the comments (don’t punish the company being screwed by these unscrupulous SEO guys).

But then pull a @Popehat and write a nice blog calling them out for their shady crap so new clients who Google them get a very nice idea what they are buying.

Show threadMike Masnick ✅
@Danielsand @Popehat except that, as with your situation, they created an account in the name of the business they were spamming for who is now desperately begging us to delete the spam
Jan 4, 2023 at 2:34pmWeb
Show threadDanJan 4, 2023

@mmasnick ahhhh. So no way to tell who it is. Gotcha. I thought they emailed you from their company account.

Well in that case, squirm away. :-)