![\"Joe.](\"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/joe.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nMeet Joe. Everyone, say hi to Joe. [Hi Joe!<\/em>] You\u2019ll get to know him better later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Twelve Mile Circle isn\u2019t exactly a high-value, large volume target like Google Sightseeing<\/a>. I do generate a modest yet reliable traffic stream as one can ascertain from little ClustrMap found elsewhere on this page. Is that why they are attempting to evade my quality assurance mechanisms? Ah, who am I kidding? Maybe everyone with a blog gets this stuff now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My arms race with the spammers has resulted in a ratcheting of progressive efforts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here’s what Joe had to say after visiting my recent discussion of European Capitals of New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hey buddy! This is a great research you worked with. I’m pretty much surprised European capitals diffused within the state. It’s tremendous news and I’m glad you did it successfully. Cheers I know! It’s just like real spam except it’s personalized with a phrase pulled from the first paragraph of the article. I tried to do something similar with a few of my other articles to see if could have been bot-generated, but the phrases didn’t make sense. I think it’s better-than-even odds that this one is human-generated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What leads me to believe it’s spam and not a sincere attaboy? Go ahead and look at that photo of Joe again and consider the facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Someone pays people in a Bangladeshi sweatshop to post spam with links to specific websites, to increase their page rank and come up higher in search engine queries. I don’t have a particular problem with the person at the far-end of this transaction trying to put food on the table in a place with considerably fewer opportunities than I am fortunate enough to experience. The slimy company that uses these nefarious techniques to sell SEO services by artificially increasing page ranks and the companies that purchase these services, however, deserve to be cursed. The joke is on them. I tag all comment links in 12MC so that all major search engines ignore them in page rank scores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joe, if you are real, I owe you a big apology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I’ve noticed two geo-oddities in the news recently:<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, Carhenge<\/a> is for sale<\/a>. My favorite quote from the article is, “motorcyclists riding to the annual summer rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, jokingly consider Carhenge a curse because it lures them into Nebraska, which requires bikers to wear helmets.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nSpam Warfare<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nJoe’s Recent Visit<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It Gets Personal<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nTelltale Clues<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nTotally Unrelated<\/h2>\n\n\n\n