I assume their main intention is to get traffic to their website, maybe to get
advertising revenue or something. I think it's called affiliate marketing.
The worst scenario is that the webpage is actually infected, and infects
computers that visit it. I would remove the link from your website, just in
case. I can't see how adding the link would result in more traffic to your
site. Perhaps that was a coincidence?
Given it's the exact same page with a different sender and story, I'm guessing
this was set up by a more careful spammer than normal. My impression of
affiliate marketing, when I first heard of it in the early 90s, was that it was
a "make money at home in your spare time" type of exercise. Proponents claim
quality over quantity is required to get results. Note that the spelling and
grammar is good, and the story is believable.
So how do you spot one of these? Looks like the normal things like bad spelling
and ridiculous story don't work with these. My suspicion was aroused by the
flattering nature of the email, and I thought it was unlikely someone in her
position would be enthusiastic enough to want to improve the world by adding a
useful link to our site.
I checked her link using my iPad. My theory is that iPads can't get infected,
fingers crossed. I didn't want to look at it on a PC. I googled a few words
from the page, and found the exact same wording in a dozen or so pages.
Unfortunately one of the other moderators had let it through to the list before
I'd finished checking it out.
I've always thought it would be impossible to detect a spam if it was carefully
constructed and well targeted. I guess one just has to be suspicious of all
kinds of offers.
Peter Shute
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Charles
> Sent: Wednesday, 23 August 2017 8:50 AM
> To: Peter Shute <>;
> Cc: Birding_Aus <>
> Subject: Scamming?
>
> Peter, Carol,
> This is a similar one I got in June.
> I don’t know that there is a negative effect for the recipient.
> I added the link to my website and noticed a spike in page views but beyond
> that no problem I am aware of.
> Should I be looking out for something more sinister?
>
> Chris
>
> Chris Charles
> +61412911184
>
>
> Licole Monopods
> http://www.licole.com.au <http://www.licole.com.au/>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "Diane Miller" <
> <> >
>
> Subject: Licole, thank you for the photography help and inspiration
>
> Date: 12 June 2017 at 11:47:19 pm AEST
>
> To: <>
>
>
> Hi Licole!
>
> I just wanted to send a quick note to thank you for your site, some
> savvy young artists and I are getting a lot of use from it! Our newly born
> photography workshop is focusing on nature imagery this summer so we've
> been searching all over for any tips or helpful resources we can find. Right
> now we are doing studies of birds so we've been looking for inspiration,
> which is how we stumbled onto your page here:
> http://www.licole.com.au/links.html ...it's been tough finding non-spammy
> sites for the kids so you have our thanks!
>
> We've really been enjoying bird watching, and your page gave us a
> lot of ideas to help us on our endeavor. As a token of our thanks we wanted
> to share another handy page that one of our superstars Mia found; it's a
> detailed guide to birding with tips on how to attract/find birds and identify
> them. Maybe you might even find it useful for your page? Let us know what
> you think.
>
> Beginners guide to bird watching-
> http://www.homeadvisor.com/r/birdwatching-guide/
>
> Hopefully you like it too! If you do decide to add it I'll be sure to
> show
> the gang you liked her find. I love sharing so if you have any needs or cool
> ideas please feel free to share! Maybe any birding hints? Thanks again and
> sorry for rambling, I'm excited about this connection. :o)
>
> Cheers and well wishes,
>
> Diane Miller
>
>
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