Guest Post Spams?

1. 62

   CYong74posted 3 years ago

   This is for Hubbers who also run their own blogs. In advance, I appreciate any relevant information that you are willing to share.
   
   Of late, I've received numerous proposals for paid guest posts on my blog. Most come from email addresses that look respectable; the likes of @digitalmarketing.com, etc. Some also contain links to writing samples, clients, etc.
   
   All are also sent by people with generic American or European names. Such as Alice Brown, Ruby Clarke, etc.
   
   Things get shady, though, the moment I agree to anything. One "lady" claimed to represent a leading music company n the UK, but after I agreed to read her draft, she vanished for three weeks, then emailed me using another name.
   
   Another guy sent me a copied article. WIthin that copied article is a link to the original article.
   
   What's going on with these? They feel like scams to me but what are they out for? I'm obviously not going to give out any passwords, financial info, etc, so what would they even gain?
   
   Or are these just pranks?
   
   Appreciate if someone could advise.

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      OldRosesposted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Ugh, I get these all the time for my website which if they actually read they would know that I don't accept "guest articles" or reciprocal links. 
      
      I never answer them, just mark them as spam and go on with my day.

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2. 83

   theraggededgeposted 3 years ago

   I get quite a few throughout the year. The last one wanted to add some completely irrelevant topic. I'm afraid they get short shrift because they obviously haven't even taken two minutes to read the About page. I prefer to use my own content.

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3. 62

   CYong74posted 3 years ago

   Caren, Bev, thanks for sharing.
   
   Yeah, I guess the best is to just ignore them. And not to be too bothered.
   
   To highlight, some of these are even machine-generated, as far as I can see. I declined two within the same day and both replied with the exact same, grammatically nonsensical reply. Makes me think there is some shady platform helping to generate templates.

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4. 67

   Shesabutterflyposted 3 years ago

   I am fairly new to the whole independent blog scene and I'm still trying to grasp the whole system. My website was only created in the last four months. I'm surprised with the amount of spam I seem to be getting. Some of the comments are definitely spun and/or spammy, others seem genuine but they do have quite a few grammatical errors, so maybe not. I am perplexed how they even found my site in the first place. I have been getting several comments a week for the last month. Most claim to have found me on Google, which I find hard to believe as I cannot get my site to pop up on Google even when I search for the exact article title in quotes.
   
   Anyway, none have asked to write content or be a guest on my blog in those exact words, but I did have a few asking if they could apprentice under me and one comment asked if I had a contact page, because they had ideas for my blog I might be interested in. I didn't think my contact page was hard to find, but I approved and replied left it up for a week and took it down when I never received an e-mail and was looking through newer comments and noticed similarities. Looking back it was probably spam too, so hopefully I didn't do any damage to my page.
   
   One even had the crazy notion to ask if I knew any plugins to protect against hackers. If I did I wouldn't be wading through these kinds of comments. Most of them come from the same IP address or very similar, which is the only reason I even considered it spam. Some of the comments felt genuine, but the following day another comment would pop up clearly spammy with an almost identical IP address same website, but a different email/name.
   
   I googled two of the websites attached to most of the comments and Google has them indexed for several years and they seem like legit websites, but all the comments definitely are not. At first I thought it was a bit extreme all the information I get from the comments, but I've found it a lot easier to wade through the spun content that looks genuine. I have not approved anything since because I'm too afraid to hurt my site.

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   1. 62

      CYong74posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      The comments could be coming in because of, what's the correct term, aggregate posts? These are list written by so-called SEO experts that recommend great blogs to leave comments on, or request for guest post submissions, etc.
      
      There's rarely anything diabolical about these lists. But then again, they are often written by SEO "experts" whose own sites are down in the dumps as far as authority is concerned. Or, extremely high in spam score.
      
      And do be constantly careful about the hidden links created by comments. Not the naked URLs but the links within the profiles writing the comments.
      
      I had the experience of such profiles leading to decent-looking sites. But weeks later, these blogs were redirected to gambling and adult sites.

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         Shesabutterflyposted 3 years agoin reply to this

         I had no idea those types of sites existed. Sounds like I still have a lot to learn.
         
         Probably best to trash or spam all comments unless it actually asks a question that enhances my content.

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5. 85

   SerenityHaloposted 3 years ago

   I received an email like that this week. The person’s name was Anastasiia Wlin. It was a very vague email about wanting to post as a guest on my HubPages. I ignored it because it seemed spammy.

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   1. 62

      CYong74posted 3 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah, that's probably the best thing to do.

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