Reverse trackback spam

  • Doodlebee

    (@doodlebee)


    13 years, 9 months ago

    Okay, I know this is weird, but today I found yet another site that has a trackback from *me* that I never put there. I.e. it’s a trackback that links to a non-existent article on my website. It’s trackback spam on someone else’s site. But it looks like it’s coming from *me*.

    How is this possible?

    Some of it is REALLY old too – the one I found today says the trackback was posted in 2008, but it’s just *now* showing up in my 404 logs, which tells me that it was just recently put up.

    How is this possible?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Marventus

    (@marventus)

    13 years, 9 months ago

    Hi, Shelly.

    What could have happened is that someone added that trackback in a comment back then, and you recently changed your Permalink structure, so the link no longer points in the right direction.
    If I were you, I would check my comments see if there is anything suspicious.
    Also, do you have a spam plugin running on your site? This is really recommended to avoid these kind of problems.

    Cheers!

    Thread Starter Doodlebee

    (@doodlebee)

    13 years, 9 months ago

    Thanks Marventus,

    Actually yes, I do have spam stuff in place, and I moderate my comments. If there’s no soam in the comment, I approve it.

    of course, that’s only something I started doing about 2 or 3 years ago – and all of these weird things I’ve been finding are from 2008. but I’m pretty stringent about security on my site 9as well as on my server) which is why I don’t get how someone could put a trackback on a site form a post that doesn’t exist on my site. (yeah, makes sense right?)

    Marventus

    (@marventus)

    13 years, 9 months ago

    I don’t get how someone could put a trackback on a site form a post that doesn’t exist on my site.

    Doesn’t make much sense to me either, unless, as I mentioned before, the Permalink to your old post broke or was changed in the future, making the old trackback to throw a 404.
    There are many plugins out there that scan your comments for past and present spam, so that you can make sure got rid of it all.
    Watch out for false positives!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

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