# PriceAngels spam problem



## Costello (Aug 14, 2010)

Hello,

lately we've had shitloads of bots (well not actually bots, they're just chinese people hired to spam boards. I know: i've seen it with my own eyes)
they all sneakily advertised Price Angels dot com by posting links and asking questions that seemed legitimate.
Their purpose is to get as many links as possible posted on various websites so that search engines can improve their page rank and they get more visibility on Google and others.

Latest example:


Spoiler












I looked up that user (chinese IP address btw) and saw the topics and post that he made-
100% are posts containing links and/or references to priceangels.
That's not the first time we ban such spammers, and most of the times its advertising the same website.
That annoying website is using morally inacceptable techniques to advertise its products.

As a result we've had to establish a banword filter. Every time someone uses that word, it'll be replaced by Shoptemp.
If you want to establish legitimate discussions about that website, feel free to use the site name "Price angels" without linking to it.

Thanks for your understanding!
Costello


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## Advi (Aug 14, 2010)

QUOTE said:
			
		

> As a result we've had to establish a banword filter. Every time someone uses that word, it'll be replaced by Shoptemp.



not like people wouldn't suggest that for anything DS-related instead.


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## IT LIES (Aug 14, 2010)

Testing word filter...

shoptemp

And, I noticed some awesome things in the pic. Like the spambot option and the topic section is the Trash Can which is probably in the Staff Only forum.


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## Costello (Aug 14, 2010)

this is made so that if they try to advertise their site again, it'll backfire and they'll advertise the gbatemp shop instead 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



thus decreasing their own visibility to the expense of shoptemp's
hopefully this should be effective enough ...


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## Infinite Zero (Aug 14, 2010)

What word has been banned??? shoptemp?
edit: Nope still visible


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## Phoenix Goddess (Aug 14, 2010)

Ahahaha, that's awesome.

Nice job Costello


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## Costello (Aug 14, 2010)

Infinite Zero said:
			
		

> What word has been banned??? Price angels?



the word "priceangels" itself.
I don't know if it's working because as an admin i can still use the banned words


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## Advi (Aug 14, 2010)

let me test if this trick works really quick, just as a precaution:

pr­ice­ang­els­.­co­m


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## tijntje_7 (Aug 14, 2010)

^ W...why?
Why does it still work? xD
shoptemp.
(if this doesn't work, we're still advertising them here 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




)

Edit: Works 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



But... ehh, why doesn't advice fox's test work? :/


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## Phoenix Goddess (Aug 14, 2010)

I guess because of the .com?
No clue.


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## Costello (Aug 14, 2010)

try again, should be better now...


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## Advi (Aug 14, 2010)

Costello said:
			
		

> try again, should be better now...


let me give it another shot
pr­ic­e­a­ng­els
(and no, I'm not trying to be a smartass, it's possible spammers will do whatever i'm doing)


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## Costello (Aug 14, 2010)

Advice Fox said:
			
		

> Costello said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


weird, do you use some kind of trick ? or have a special account?


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## BlueStar (Aug 14, 2010)

Uh, isn't this a wordfilter that could backfire?  Testing anyway.

shoptemp really sucks, they spam boards.


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## BlueStar (Aug 14, 2010)

Costello said:
			
		

> Advice Fox said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Trick will become apparent when you paste it into notepad, the old zero-width characters between letters deal


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## Phoenix Goddess (Aug 14, 2010)

Costello said:
			
		

> weird, do you use some kind of trick ? or have a special account?



He's secretly an admin.
Hmm.... does capitalization count?


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## Costello (Aug 14, 2010)

thanks bluestar, i didnt see the trick until i copied it into the notepad window...



			
				Advice Fox said:
			
		

> Costello said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



those kinds of chinese spammers are usually kinda brainless, and besides the point is they wont be able to create links which is important to improve their search engine rank. at least that's that.


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## ProtoKun7 (Aug 14, 2010)

BlueStar said:
			
		

> Uh, isn't this a wordfilter that could backfire?  Testing anyway.
> 
> shoptemp really sucks, they spam boards.


How dare you say that about ShopTemp! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	









Don't suppose the word filter could be ShopTemp rather than shoptemp...?


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## KingdomBlade (Aug 14, 2010)

Lemme try some alternative ways to type it and see how many of it is blocked.

price angels
shoptemp.com/
www.shoptemp.com
http://shoptemp.com
shoptemp
shoptemp
shoptemp
shoptemp
priceangel
Priiiiiiiceangel
shoptemp


Spoiler



shoptemp





			
				QUOTE said:
			
		

> shoptemp
> Pricepriceshoptemp
> preiceengelz
> 
> ...


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## Infinite Zero (Aug 14, 2010)

The con is when it is typed as PRICE with a space and ANGELS.


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## Costello (Aug 14, 2010)

Hello,

lately we've had shitloads of bots (well not actually bots, they're just chinese people hired to spam boards. I know: i've seen it with my own eyes)
they all sneakily advertised Price Angels dot com by posting links and asking questions that seemed legitimate.
Their purpose is to get as many links as possible posted on various websites so that search engines can improve their page rank and they get more visibility on Google and others.

Latest example:


Spoiler












I looked up that user (chinese IP address btw) and saw the topics and post that he made-
100% are posts containing links and/or references to priceangels.
That's not the first time we ban such spammers, and most of the times its advertising the same website.
That annoying website is using morally inacceptable techniques to advertise its products.

As a result we've had to establish a banword filter. Every time someone uses that word, it'll be replaced by Shoptemp.
If you want to establish legitimate discussions about that website, feel free to use the site name "Price angels" without linking to it.

Thanks for your understanding!
Costello


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## tk_saturn (Aug 14, 2010)

2 Other spammers you haven't banned:

jason1984 (who has Costello listed as a friend) ebuylife http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q...on1984+ebuylife
jevons depotgo


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## tj_cool (Aug 14, 2010)

Costello said:
			
		

> those kinds of chinese spammers are usually kinda brainless, and besides the point is they wont be able to create links which is important to improve their search engine rank. at least that's that.


Can't you censor the ZWSs to nothing (basically making them disappear)?


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## Langin (Aug 14, 2010)

lets give it a try:

Pirceangels
shoptemp

But if I see one I will say it.


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## Costello (Aug 14, 2010)

PharaohsVizier said:
			
		

> Am I the only one sensing a conspiracy theory here?  First it was ndscard sale, now prrrrriceangels, I can't help but think this is an elaborate scheme to stop mention of any site that has prices lower than Shoptemp just to promote them.
> 
> I mean it's understandable to remove sites because they spam, but this new idea of swapping out the name itself sort of jumped out at me.
> QUOTE(Costello @ Aug 14 2010, 04:33 PM) this is made so that if they try to advertise their site again, it'll backfire and they'll advertise the gbatemp shop instead
> ...


could've used another term but it wouldn't have pissed off the spammers enough. 
is promoting gbatemp's partner shop a conspiracy anyway?
if you think i'm joking about the spammers i'll open the doors to the trash cans and you'll see what the mods have to deal with every day...
next time i see one of those i'll make sure to send you the URL before trashing it!
perhaps google still has in cache some of the spam topics http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sou...q=&gs_rfai=


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## omgpwn666 (Aug 14, 2010)

That's so funny, that should piss of some of them advertisers who talk about "ShopTemp". lol


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## prowler (Aug 14, 2010)

PriceAngels aren't angels afterall (???)


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## DJPlace (Aug 14, 2010)

that'a werid i never noticed this at all hmmmmmmm....... how oblivus.


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## Adr990 (Aug 14, 2010)

- shoptemp

priceangels

- shoptemp

PriceAngels

- shoptemp.com

PriceAngels.com

Price Angels

Price Angels .com

[email protected]

[email protected]

( with - should be banned, without - are the bypass tricks I guess lets find out..)




Edit: I win.

priceangels priceangels priceangels priceangels

PriceAngels.com PriceAngels.com PriceAngels.com


@ Costello - To replace them with shoptemp, add all the combinations of this trick in the word filter, I suppose..


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## Dter ic (Aug 14, 2010)

i love shoptemp 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




yup works


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## tk_saturn (Aug 14, 2010)

DJPlace said:
			
		

> that'a werid i never noticed this at all hmmmmmmm....... how oblivus.


I saw the posts by AndyLao, he recently bumped up a few threads which mentioned PA and it was obvious he found them by searching for PA. However I wasn't sure if it was someone spamming on PA's behalf, PA themself, or just someone who had genuinely brought from them. I'm guessing Costello was able to know more based on the IP address.

If retailers are using secondary accounts on here pretending to be customers who have purchased from them, then they should be banned and their website blocked. But I can't say i've seen that many posts that mentioned PA which looked like spam, just AndyLao's. NCS on the otherhand should have all their sites substituted.

Costello still hasn't blocked http://www.r4idscards.com/mailsns/dstt.jpg which is the website which was being advertised in the spam PM's NCS were sending everyone, and is the image which was displayed. I myself had the image spammed in by PM inbox on here. Their other site which was also linked to in the spam PM's http://www.r4fords.co.uk/mailsns/dstt.jpg isn't banned either.

and let's not forget their other sites, which aren't blocked too:

http://www.ndscardstore.com/mailsns/dstt.jpg
http://www.volumerates.com/ (That's volumerate*s* and not volumerate operated by DX)

If you ask me, they deserved 100x to be blocked instead of PA.

I have no interest in PA, i've not brought from nor will I. But I do wonder if blocking PA was killing 2 birds with 1 stone...

When NCS were spamming, I went googling. I couldn't find any real forum spamming by PA, instead they seem to set up tons of quick blog style sites which have "powered by PA" such as http://www.tt-ds.net/ and use them to raise their google ranking. They had another type before and then let the domains park,  and they still seem to count towards google's ranking.


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## ProtoKun7 (Aug 14, 2010)

KingdomBlade said:
			
		

> EDIT: OMG! It edits code too.


Well, of course it would...


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## Costello (Aug 15, 2010)

PharaohsVizier said:
			
		

> Costello said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


of course you can mention them, we're just trying to prevent spammers from posting their crap.

tk_saturn: there are a bunch of banned "R4" website names already, i thought that one had been added already
anyhow do badword filters work in PMs? i have no idea...


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## Phoenix Goddess (Aug 15, 2010)

Let's find out.


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