What is up with these spammy links?

Discussion in 'Forum Feedback' started by Gollum, Aug 4, 2014.

  1. Gollum

    Gollum Regular Member

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    I've been away for ages, and I hate to jump straight into complaining, but...

    Forum posts are now "decorated" with random links to Amazon products. It appears to be a forum bot that goes through posts and inserts irrelevant product ads.

    For example, in this post of mine, the phrase "arm action" was turned into a product link to a bike crank arm. :rolleyes:

    **EDIT** The links only appear in the thread view, not a single post.

    This feels really cheap and nasty. It undermines the forum discussion, because people are going to start ignoring genuine, useful links when they realise that most links are just spam.

    I can't imagine these links converting well either, because they are completely irrelevant to the topic of discussion. So unless they're making a lot of money for BC, could we please kill them?

    I've nothing against ads on the site, such as the ones in the sidebar (which happen to be relevant and should convert much better). But this link-bot has created a self-spamming forum, which I never thought to see. :(
     
    #1 Gollum, Aug 4, 2014
    Last edited: Aug 4, 2014
  2. DuckFeet

    DuckFeet Regular Member

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    What browser are you using? I haven't noticed these with Chrome although I have seen them on other forums and when you accidentally hover on them and they pop up adverts that's frustrating.

    Chrome vs Firefox is a whole other debate...
     
  3. Gollum

    Gollum Regular Member

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    I'm on Chrome (although I have a whole host of browsers I could try).

    It's not the "hover pop up" style (that's horrible too). It looks like a normal link, but when you hover the title text says "Link added by VigLink". Take another look and you'll see it.

    It's subtle, but in a bad way. It's insidious. It needs to stop.
     
  4. Sundis

    Sundis Regular Member

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    What is this VigLink-crap:mad: why can´t the mods or anyone do something to remove this kind of stuff:confused:
     
  5. visor

    visor Regular Member

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    Yeah, I think it's annoying too. Apparently it helps generate some revenue to help run the forum... so I can accept that... somewhat...
     
  6. Gollum

    Gollum Regular Member

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    I think it's one of the worst implementations of advertising that I've ever seen.
     
  7. holhm22

    holhm22 Regular Member

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    I think my computer is infected because those things show up on many other websites too
     
  8. Gollum

    Gollum Regular Member

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    I received a tip via PM:

    Installing Adblock Plus gets rid of these links.
     
  9. visor

    visor Regular Member

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    Good to know!

    Or if you visit the forum using Tapatalk on a smartphone, then you won't face this problem at all... :D
     
    #9 visor, Apr 24, 2015
    Last edited: Apr 24, 2015

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