Spam 2.0: The Problem Ahead

Abstract

Webspam is one of the most challenging problems faced by major search engines in the social computing arena. Spammers exploit weaknesses of major search engine algorithms to get their website in the top 10 search results, which results in higher traffic and increased revenue. The development of web applications where users can contribute content has also increased spam, since many web applications like blogging tools, CMS etc are vulnerable to spam. Spammers have developed targeted bots that can create accounts on such applications, add content and even leave comments automatically. In this paper we introduce the field of webspam, what it refers to, how spambots are designed and propagated, why webspam is becoming a big problem. We then experiment to show how spambots can be identified without using CAPTCHA. We aim to increase the general understanding of the webspam problem which will assist web developers, software engineers and web engineers.