Joe Wein
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Link exchange spam: allcarpictures.com

When people trying to boost their website ratings by suggesting link exchanges to website owners selected on the basis of Google hits, the automated proposals written by software robots that results are often mismatched, sometimes hilariously so. One example is the link exchange spam I received from a site called allcarpictures.com on 2004-05-28:

From: webmaster@allcarpictures.com
Date: Friday, 28 May, 2004 19:56
To: joewein@pobox.com
Subject: Link exchange

Hello, administration of www.joewein.de!

There is an information about BMW on your site www.joewein.de
I'd like to exchange links with your site.

If you agree, then please place my link on your site and send me
your page's link text and URL.

My description:

Link Text: BMW pictures
URL : http://www.allcarpictures.com/bmw-pictures.htm

Thanks.
-------
Best Regards
Alex
http://www.allcarpictures.com/

I personally prefer Audis, but quite like BMWs too. The point is though, I don't mention BMW cars anywhere on my personal website. So why did they send my this link exchange spam? Probably because I am a long time fan of Bob Marley and the Wailers (initials: BMW) and my page https://jwde.jp/bmw.htm (and it's earlier incarnations on other domains) is one of the oldest Bob Marley fanpages on the web.

Though Bob Marley himself used to drive a BMW, my site has nothing to do with BMW cars. It is quite clear that no human from allcarpictures.com ever visited my bmw.htm page, or they would have realized their mistake...


Anti-Spam Resources:
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Anti-spam domain blacklist – list of domains that I refuse to receive mail from
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"419" scam sender/contact addresses ("Nigeria connection" address book)
DNS-based IP and domain name blacklists
Dynamic IP addresses (700 KB!)
Free email providers

How to trace senders of spam
Link exchange offer spam
Getting creative with spam
Smyrnagroup spammers (in German)

Lookup an IP address on blacklists (http://dnsbl.net.au/lookup/)
AOL dial-up address ranges and mail servers