[vox] Search engine spammers have crossed the line...

[Shwaine]

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, Ryan Castellucci wrote:

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> Do not click any of the hits on the following in a browser with javascript
> enabled....
>
> http://www.google.com/search?q=lugod+site%3Ajoeydipaoloaids.org
>
> What is this crap? Aparnetly dozens of sites like this are listing "LUGOD:
> vox mailing list archives" as a keyword, in an attempt to spam google search
> results...
>
> This has to be stopped....
>

If you use a plain Google search (without the site), the first several
pages are almost all relevant to this group (the main site, meeting
announcements, etc). There are a few which mention Lugod being a family
name. It's also apparently the name of a place. And apparently also a word
in another language(s), I believe from the Phillipines, as judging from
these pages (the last of which also has an English translation of the
story):

http://mozcom.com/~cagape/beho.htm
http://www.apostolicnetwork.com/dspadua/espiritu.html
http://likhaan_online.tripod.com/08242001archivesite/lit13-9.html

A little deeper Googling turns up "joy" or "pleasure" as a meaning of
"lugod" in Tagalog, so that may explain the porn. Links:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/francis.vanstaa/E2B/e.htm
http://palugod.tripod.com/palor.html
http://www.foreignword.com/cgi-bin/engtag.cgi?language=tageng&termbox=lugod&B1=Search

So my theory is they are trying to get people who speak those language(s)
and since the plain "lugod" search turns up so many references to "vox
mailing list" and other things related to this club, they put that phrase
in the pages (along with a ton of other phrases intended for a similar
purpose) to get them higher priority in the ranking algorithms. It's a
classic way to trick older search engines into bumping the page result up.
It doesn't work very well on newer engines, but doesn't mean those sort of
pages stop using the old tricks. At least with Google, you don't start
getting this stuff on a "lugod vox" search until the 7th page, but that
search does show you how predominant this trick is with those sort of
pages.