User photo album SEO spam cleanup

[vreihen16]

I stumbled upon a cluster of user accounts being used for SEO spam links in their photo albums. Since there's literally hundreds of spam photos/posts, it is not reasonable to report every one of them through the existing spam system. Can an admin or moderator please whack all of these photo albums and users? Thanks.....

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=823092

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123170

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123172

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123185

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123197

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123186

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123187

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123188

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123189

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123190

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123191

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=836153

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=836169

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123206

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=864313

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=836151

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=834851

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123208

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123207

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123203

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=873082

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123205

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123204

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/m...vmessage123202

Second batch to follow.....

[vreihen16]

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=876746

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=873082

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=865757

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=873944

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=839590

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=851706

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=880071

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=860873

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=836151

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=846954

Third batch coming.....

[apptest]

This is good stuff. If you can poat even just a list of their usernames I can do a quick what 😂

[apptest]

Actually links to their profile is good. Helps me work on a quicker system of whack a mole 😂

[vreihen16]

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=843873

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=841596

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=860873

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=836826

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=894817

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=861701

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=865295

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=899389

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=899363

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=823473

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=906016

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=879288

Fourth batch coming.....

[vreihen16]

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=879288

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=879290

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=834851

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=871564

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=876489

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=847339

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=867824

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=908841

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=908841

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=843600

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=836153

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=843698

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=871564

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=836852

https://bmwi.bimmerpost.com/forums/member.php?u=836151

That's it for now. I probably missed hundreds more.....

[apptest]

If any moderator comes across this thread please leave these accounts alone for the time being. I’m using this to work on something and I willl take care of these accounts soon

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by apptest

If any moderator comes across this thread please leave these accounts alone for the time being. I’m using this to work on something and I willl take care of these accounts soon

If what you're working on is a recursion scheme to identify others, start with who viewed their user profiles besides me. Since many of those accounts never posted in the forum, the only way they can be linked for SEO is by the links for who viewed them. A few didn't have album spam yet, but had viewed the other profiles and appear to be ready for future use.

I stopped recursing through the albums for SEO comments after a while, because it was too labor-intensive. Like I said, I'm willing to bet that I missed 100+ other accounts buried in the albums.

The way that I stumbled into this nest was that a new user posted a spambot comment in the NFL 2024 thread that I created. That post was the nest poking its head out for search engines, and I followed the who viewed that profile recursively to find the others.....

[vreihen16]

Dumb question - Can the forum software restrict album posting access until a user has several posts, similar to the PM limitation on new users?

Dumber question - Does the forum even need the album feature in the 2020's?????

[nerdogray]

I'd just prefer linking my MySpace or GeoCities page. I don't need a photo album.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by nerdogray

I'd just prefer linking my MySpace or GeoCities page. I don't need a photo album.

Those user profile options went away a few years ago, along with links to Yahoo and AOL Instant Messenger.....

[nerdogray]

What was your ICQ number? I had a six digit one. I could still log in to it after all these years up until recently until it finally passed away. Those were the days of dating chat rooms, where I'd get catfished with words instead of pictures.

[apptest]

LOL agree on the photo album / MySpace / icq comments. It’s something that’s being planned to be heavily worked over, but I am doing a lot of under the hood changes that need to be done first before we can go there. But the comments are not lost on us and are 100% correct 😂

[apptest]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

If what you're working on is a recursion scheme to identify others, start with who viewed their user profiles besides me. Since many of those accounts never posted in the forum, the only way they can be linked for SEO is by the links for who viewed them. A few didn't have album spam yet, but had viewed the other profiles and appear to be ready for future use.

I stopped recursing through the albums for SEO comments after a while, because it was too labor-intensive. Like I said, I'm willing to bet that I missed 100+ other accounts buried in the albums.

The way that I stumbled into this nest was that a new user posted a spambot comment in the NFL 2024 thread that I created. That post was the nest poking its head out for search engines, and I followed the who viewed that profile recursively to find the others.....

Ya that's the perfect way to find them. I actually stumbled on another similar giant nest about a week ago and took it out. They were in the social group area but same MO with these crazy galleries all visiting each other. But quite easy to mass zap. I was going to just close the photo galleries down but as you said, there are probably so many more qe haven't seen yet so for now they will stay open to try to find more while simultaneously working on some back end improvements. Thanks for the hard work there. It took me about 3 minutes to kill all those acts you posted as I was able to make soke improvements to the spam kill system

[Artemis]

Thanks vreihen16 and apptest.

Keep up the good work !