# SEO Spam messages via form on my website, what's their actual objective?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seo-spam-messages-via-form-on-my-website-whats-their-actual-objective/700852>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 9, 2014, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seo-spam-messages-via-form-on-my-website-whats-their-actual-objective/700852 "2014-10-09T11:56:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seo-spam-messages-via-form-on-my-website-whats-their-actual-objective/700852/1 "2014-10-09T11:56:43Z")

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I get a load of spam messages arising through the contact/comments forms on my website; exactly the same wording every time (different name - today it claimed to be James Cameron):

> [@](#):
>
> Want more clients and customers? We will help them find you by putting you on the 1st page of Google. Email us back to get a full proposal.

I’ve emailed these people back before (from a disposable account), pretending to be interested, just so I could subsequently tell them to get lost, but they never respond.

So is it just a scheme to try to get a contact email address off me, to be sold on to spammers? If not, what could possibly be their motivation?

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**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seo-spam-messages-via-form-on-my-website-whats-their-actual-objective/700852/2 "2014-10-09T12:44:11Z")

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They only want to put the links to their websites on your, and a million other, websites. They aren’t soliciting custom nor wanting anything else from you.

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**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seo-spam-messages-via-form-on-my-website-whats-their-actual-objective/700852/3 "2014-10-09T12:56:41Z")

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> [@Claverhouse](#):
>
> They only want to put the links to their websites on your, and a million other, websites. They aren’t soliciting custom nor wanting anything else from you.

Sure - that would make sense for the comments stuff that gets published on the pages (and I do filter out some examples from that), but in the main, the messages as quoted above are just coming in via the ‘contact us’ form.

I guess maybe they don’t get the distinction, or maybe it’s a bot that has just detected a form and is blindly filling it in?

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**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2014, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seo-spam-messages-via-form-on-my-website-whats-their-actual-objective/700852/4 "2014-10-09T13:33:43Z")

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That sounds likely.

Of course it can be very difficult for a blogger to erase particularly flattering comments of an Oriental floweriness complimenting one’s posting style with lavish exuberance.