So any signs that “tag spam” has started yet?
“Tag Spam” will be (or is) the practice of associating unrelated content (pr0n links, adverts, viagra pill adverts, press releases) with well-known tags with the purpose of encouraging click-throughs to said content.
Seems like a natural extension of referrer, comment, and trackback spam, and I’m curious to know whether it’s happening yet.
Actually doing it seems very easy given the open API’s of sites like del.icio.us. And given Technorati’s support of the rel=”tag” attribute, I can create tag spam by just setting up a blog, posting a bunch of random entries and then pinging their site. Therefore seems just as hard to manage as the other types of attacks.
Time to start engineering in trust metrics I think.
Tag Spam
Published
Lost Boy 
Not following tags
“Do not credit this link” is a useful assertion that cannot be gleaned from surrounding content.
Thus, rel=”nofollow” is a good if old idea. At least one of my two search predictions for 2005 is already coming true.
Creator assigned keywords, or…
What is “Tag Spam”? Or better, Tag Spam exists?
Leigh asks So any signs that “tag spam” has started yet? (found because he uses “trust metrics” a keyword to which I’m subscribed in a number of service). Here I ask the same question. It seems very unlikely that web…