Update October 24, 2006
Waking up this morning, I saw Yunata’s comment about the changes in Kecak.com. I applause for the change in management, and Yunata’s commitment to create a good company.
As you may noticed, this entry was posted 3 years ago, when Kecak.com sent comment spam to this blog (and many others). 3 years later, it seems to me that Kecak.com turned to be a good company. I felt it from Yunata’s comment.
I believe nothing can be a better evidence of a good company than showing people that they are correcting mistakes, and committed to make changes.
My fellow readers, if you are search for Kecak.com in Google and reached this page, AND if you have the time to read through what happened three years ago and today, I believe you will feel more confidence in dealing with this company, because they made progress!
I didn’t remove this entry (as stated in my reply), since this can make positive impact on Kecak.com.
Good luck to Kecak.com. We have some shared experience three years ago, and I will be more than happy to see a great company there.
Jian Shuo
End of update
My site is attacked by the Comment Spam – the advertisement posted on my blog entry.
Here are examples:
Good Job …Well done
Please also visit my Bali site at http://www.kecak.com
Posted by: Elizabet-Bali Resorts and Bali Resort on October 20, 2003 10:09 PM
Source: http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20030302_guestbook.htm#1009
The Next Version of Email Spam and Net Send Spam
Actually, it is the next wave of spam after Email spam and Net send spam. Becaues of the wide adoption of the same system – the MovableType or other simliar system, and the anonymous nature of these system, it is very easy for the bad guys to send the spam to millions of blogs in serveral hours.
Not only links
The comment spam not only bring more visitors to their website. More importantly, it add much value for its Google PageRank. From Google, we can see that there are 1560 pages/sites link to this site, so their PageRank is already PR6. It is a good number that help them list high in Google search result. Just a simple test: Type Bali in Google and you will find out it is listed as the 7th website.
Google judges the importance of a website by the link pointing to them. A link to a site stands as a vote to that website. Actually, the spammer has stealed the vote right from my website. It is bad.
The Trick Behind
The spam happens two weeks ago. It seems that the spammer thought of the idea in one night. Just after I wake up one morning, I found a lots of entries with the same name and content on many of my pages. It was really a hard job to delete them one by one and put their IP address into the block list.
Regarding this Spammer from Bali, they are creating very bad reputation for the beautiful island of Bali. I receive serveral spam from this guy every day. I know the name of this guy – John or William. It is for sure that they are fake names. Look at the two comments below (originally posted here)
Great site !!!
Please also visit my Bali site at http://www.baliforyou.com/bali/
Posted by: John- Bali Hotels Travel on October 20, 2003 10:15 PM
Good Job …Well done
Please also visit my Bali site at http://www.kecak.com
Posted by: Elizabet-Bali Resorts and Bali Resort on October 20, 2003 10:17 PM
It seems that the two comments are pointing to two different website. They seem to compete with each other. However, they are exactly the same site. Here are the details of the post.
Entry: Emails and Privacy Policies
IP Address 202.146.236.4
Author: Elizabet-Bali Resorts and Bali Resort
Email Address: william@kecak.com
Comment
Good Job …Well done
Please also visit my Bali site at http://www.kecak.com
Entry: Emails and Privacy Policies
IP Address 202.146.236.4
Author: John- Bali Hotels Travel
Email Address: john@baliforyou.com
Comment
Great site !!!
Please also visit my Bali site at http://www.baliforyou.com/bali/
You see, these two comments came in with only two minutes in interval and came from the same IP address.
Moreover, by using the Google search, you clearly discover that this spammer has successfully spamed 653 pages using the term Great site !!! Please also visit my Bali site at and 286 pages with the pattern of “Good Job …Well done Please also visit my Bali site at” by 12:37 AM 10/21/2003
Please note that the number is only the pages indexed by Google at the time of last crawl. My victim page is not on the list yet. So the pages infected by this spammer should be at least serveral thousand.
Moreover, http://www.putritour.com are also a alias for this big spammer.
Disaster for Bali Island Website
If this company continue to conduct this kind of criminal on the web, the websites of Bali Island will face big problem. I am seeking for blacklist for MovableType spam and found MT-Blacklist (via MovableType.org). Websites containing the term of Bali has already been listed in the 400 spammer list by default. I believe more and more website will implement this kind of blacklist. At least I am going to filter all comments with the term Bali in content.
The Solution
Just as we have worked together to shut down EndAds.com before, we will finally find out the way to stop them from doing this. Before the spammers stop by themself, I am going to implement the anti-spam MT plugin in the next few days.
Good luck, the spammers.
Appendix
Automatic Email Response from their Contact Page.
===========================
Dear Jianshuo Wang,
We received your message today. We would like to offer our sincere thanks to
you for for Inquirying
Our staff responds to Inquiries during regular business hours, although we
also attempt to answer Inquiries in the evenings and weekends whenever possible!
Inquiries are normally answered within 4-8 hours on week days and 8-10 on
weekends. You should be receiving a personal response by e-mail from one of our staff
shortly.
Best Regards,
Ngurah Narendra
========================
PT.Kecak DotCom
Jl.Raya Kuta 88R
Kuta – 80361 – Bali – Indonesia
Ph:+62 361 766880/766881/66882
Fax:+62 361 766810
Email:reservation@kecak.com
Website:www.kecak.com
See, they still dare to publish their phone nubmer while Net Send Spammer EndAds.com did dare to do it.
Update Baliforyou.com Appologized Oct 11, 2003
Here is the story.
Good job, Jian Shuo!
Go get ’em!!!
Hi Jian Shuo
Just to make sure that I’m not mistaken for the spammer of the same name above, I’ll use the username “WilliamW” for posting from now on. :)
These spammers are so pathetic …
WilliamW
Hehe, don’t be worry, WilliamW. :-) I definitely know this william posting on my site is my friend while that William is not.
Please note “lolita”, a new spammer.
Yes. Lolita is a new spammer: http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20031020_kecakcom_comment_spammer.htm
I have spent some time to remove all their garbage post….
did you try the anti-spammer tools for MT?
Your Bali spammer is not using his real name, in Bali there are only 3 names and everyone has on of these three names, Wyan, Katut and I can’t remember the other one but it’s definately not what he is signing.
I know they will not use their real name Check out this post:
http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20031106_endadscom_caught_by_ftc.htm
EndAds.com have to pay for what they did. So will these comment spammers.
Dear Mr. Jian Shuo Wang,
Please let me introduce my self, I’m Octaviano, and I am writing this comment since I couldn’t reach you by e-mail.
I am the one who responsible to rebuild site kecak.com, as you will see the change has good progress.
I found you had a problem with Zack regarding spam to your blog sourced by staff member of this company, he had apologized to you. It’s been 3 yrs ago, and Nowadays we are already changing management. We are renewing all stuff including website, unfortunately your blog still mention our mistake. And this is become very bad reputation because it is cached by google in page 1 with keyword “kecak.com”
I know this is your personal writing, but we are asking to to take this artice down. Also the other one http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/20031111_appologize_from_baliforyou.htm
Please consider this request, since this is important for us as new team in this company. We start everything new, we are rewriting everything in good manner.
Thanking you in advanced,
Hi Yunata,
Thanks for letting me know the change of Kecak.com. It is good that Kecak is changing management, so hopefully, spam is not an issue with the company.
I do understand your situation, that it is not a good thing to have a negative comment on your company that was listed as #1 result in Google. I may have impact your busness. You know what, I do not feel so comfortable for the impact of this blog. In my vision, my blog should always have a good impact to the good guys, and sometimes have bad impact to the bad guys. Since you have changed from “bad guys” of the old time to “good guys”, it is fair that the negative image be removed.
This is what I am going to do. I will put an update on this page, and congratulate the refreshment of the company. I will let people know that the company has changed, and it is no longer the spammer three years ago.
However, I don’t want to remove the two entries I wrote. There are two reasons.
1. I never remove entries because of pressure/suggestion from outside. Sometimes I felt I did something wrong, or made false statement. Even in that situation, I will add update instead of removing the entry. This is to keep the integrity of this blog.
2. You cannot remove the history by removing an article. Kecak did something bad. This is true. However, you are making great progress, and this made you seem to be an even more credited company. Feel good about it and don’t be too shy to hide the history. It is part of the company. If I were you, I will proundly tell people what the company did wrong, and what is the improvement.
So good luck to your business. As a bonus pack, I have added a link to your site. Considering the high Page Rank of this site, I am helping you to on the search engine search result. Hopefully, when your company grows to a big and reputable company, you yourself will be the #1 result in Google, and my little blog will fade out. I will be happy about you then.
Well..
Thank you. This is fair enough to me. As you know, i am working hard to correct the mistakes. If you found other else “bad entries” (may be from your readers) please let me know. I also have published email for reporting purpose and i will be more than happy if your reader can help me too. Here we go .. abuse (at) kecak.com.
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