Man, this week has seen a huge increase in forum spammers. This has to be one of the lowest form of “advertising” methods you can possibly engage in. But, year after year, it never quite goes away. That leads me to the question: does it actually work?

Real work going into hand-crafted spams

I have a hard time believing it can. Most forum regulars won’t quick on the links and any forum with moderators will quickly take the spam down. It’s constant work for the forum, and very little reward for most spammers.

And the craziest thing is the spammers I’m seeing these days aren’t automated at all. It’s an actual person targeting keywords and then taking the time to create an account and make hand written messages. Lately they’ve even attempted the “Hey, I just found this perfect site at…” routine.

All in all that is taking real time, on behalf of site owners and the spammers themselves. And this is occurring every day, all over the world, in millions of forums.

I’m pretty sure we’re just seeing the latest wave of out-sourced efforts. Sure, it’s a bit slicker than usual, but it still lacks the obvious skills needed to convert people into sales. If the people would actually take a little more time, they might be able to build up some trust, but that never seems to enter anyone’s head.

How bad are your forms getting abused this month?