Through BlogPopuli I found a couple of blogs, both of which had suspiciously similar content about pensions and financial planning. More suspiciously, a lot of the links on the blogs pointed to the same site, which was showing as 'visited'. Indeed, I had visited the site in question - they'd submitted multiple mirrors of that site (a company offering financial management) to the ODP and I'd been clearing submissions from some of the categories that they had spammed. Compare and contrast the following (which aren't linked directkly to avoid referals, spammers don't like their tactics being publicised):
- Exhibit A - http://mjrfm.blogspot.com/
- Exhibit B - http://mjr-news.blogspot.com/
- Exhibit C - http://www-financial-advice-uk.blogspot.com/
- Exhibit D - http://mjrfm.qlogger.com/
Of course, this isn't a new practice, but in the past it's either been unethical porn sites or... well... unethical porn sites that have been doing it (the latter has also been guilty of referer spamming too).
In any case, a quick check at the ODP revealed that at least one of those blogs had been submitted to us, but hadn't yet been reviewed. I can guarantee now that they won't get very far with them, but it's a worry
