Interesting spam: Wikipedia trackbacks

[AdoptionHelp]

I've been getting some very interesting spam on my wordpress blogs lately: trackbacks on wikipedia articles that are obviously spammy. By that I mean that the comment on wikipedia are obviously spam and the link to my blogs are removed before I even arrive at the page or get the notification. The trackbacks are posted on valid wikipedia entries.

My concern is that this is a move by an unsavory competitor to try to get my sites in trouble. I can't really see how this would be effective though. All I can come up is that it might eventually get my domains banned from being linked to in wikipedia. I can't think of any problems this would cause in google or other SE's.

What could be the purpose behind such a spam campaign?

Any feedback?

[TakeshiYoung]

Do you have any examples? You should be able to see the edit history of the page to see who added the link to your page and in what context.

[AdoptionHelp]

Example:

URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Dobbs_(North_Carolina)

Comment: Awesome web sites...

we arrived across a neat internet site that you could possibly like. Just take a look if you need...

It looks like a comment, but when I approve it goes under trackbacks. I'm assuming wikipedia doesn't have an army of blackhat spammers hitting up blogs to increase their rankings

[TakeshiYoung]

Ok, so a trackback is generated when someone links to your site from another site. This will show up on your site as a trackback.

Are you saying that you received a link from Wikipedia? Or that the trackback includes a link to Wikipedia? Or something else?

[AdoptionHelp]

Yes. A trackback as if its a link from Wikipedia. I can't find any record of the link being on wikipedia however. Its all very confusing.

Edit: Added a screenshot of the (temporarily) approved trackback. At the bottom the link "North Carolina" points to the wikipedia article mentioned above.

qcoSKH2

[TakeshiYoung]

Weird, do you know when you received the trackback? You can see the edit history for the page here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fort_Dobbs_(North_Carolina)&action=history

[AdoptionHelp]

I looked at this page and others that have come in like it, and cannot find the links.

[TakeshiYoung]

I did some research, and apparently trackbacks are really easy to fake (they just ping your blog with fake info). The comment "we arrived across a neat internet site that you could possibly like. Just take a look if you need..." sounds like there might have been a link there, that got cut out.

So basically spammers send these trackbacks that look like they're coming from legitimate sites hoping that they'll get approved so they can get their link posted on your site.

[JonathanRolande]

Hi Ryan,

I hope you are well.

I had the exact same thing yesterday, by the time I got to the page it had been edited. Well, I'm sceptical it was ever there actually because I could not find it in the edit history.

Funny thing is, is that it was that exact same wiki page! I just deleted it, perhaps Takeshi Young is right then

Someone must be experimenting with that page.

[AdoptionHelp]

This is by far the most likely explanation as far as I can see. Thanks for checking it out Takeshi!!