# What's this website commenter's game? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 2, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-website-commenters-game/830444 "2019-03-02T19:32:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![2Bits](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e95f7d/32.png) [@2Bits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2Bits)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-website-commenters-game/830444/1 "2019-03-02T19:32:14Z")
I have a website that updates three times each week and allows user comments. For the past month someone (some thing?) has been creating a user name on the order of “bfcxgvhansdz” but never precisely the same twice and there is never actual comment. What’s going on? ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-website-commenters-game/830444/2 "2019-03-02T20:47:47Z")
We get a lot of sign-ups here with names like that. Almost all of them are spammers. A lot of them are what we call profile spammers. They sign up, put a link in their profile, and never post. They are relying on search engines picking up the link and rating it higher because it is linked to from multiple sources. I always report the links to google. I also usually change their signature to something like “this profile has been identified as spam” so that other search engines will pick up the link as spam (hopefully - I have no idea if this actually works or not). Check their profile. There’s a decent chance you’ll find a spam link there. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-website-commenters-game/830444/3 "2019-03-02T20:56:14Z")
So are you leaving the spammy link in place on the profile pages? Why not delete it? ---
**Author:** ![2Bits](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e95f7d/32.png) [@2Bits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2Bits)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-website-commenters-game/830444/4 "2019-03-02T21:00:08Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > We get a lot of sign-ups here with names like that. Almost all of them are spammers. > > A lot of them are what we call profile spammers. They sign up, put a link in their profile, and never post. They are relying on search engines picking up the link and rating it higher because it is linked to from multiple sources. > > I always report the links to google. I also usually change their signature to something like “this profile has been identified as spam” so that other search engines will pick up the link as spam (hopefully - I have no idea if this actually works or not). > > Check their profile. There’s a decent chance you’ll find a spam link there. Thanks. I think you are right on. I’d missed that there was an email address tied to the username and in each case it is “algernol@…” That email is on a database of blacklisted spam and email addresses. Scumbag(s)! ---
**Author:** ![2Bits](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e95f7d/32.png) [@2Bits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2Bits)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2019, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-website-commenters-game/830444/5 "2019-03-02T21:45:36Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > So are you leaving the spammy link in place on the profile pages? Why not delete it? I delete them. Or mark them as spam to be specific. For some reason it doesn’t cause them to automatically be tagged as spam. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-website-commenters-game/830444/6 "2019-03-04T15:21:24Z")
They are bots ---
**Author:** ![2Bits](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e95f7d/32.png) [@2Bits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2Bits)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-website-commenters-game/830444/7 "2019-03-05T17:56:39Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > They are bots Can I do anything to make them go away (or go directly into a spam file)?