Can someone please explain spamming to me?

I would say that – tops – 2 or 3 times I have clicked on SPAM. Purely out of boredom and I immediately regretted it and closed the page. Silliness takes over sometimes… = )

The more discussions about cheese linking to my cheese website, the more Google will recognize how important and relevant my website is to people searching for cheese.

Even if nobody clicks on the spammy links then and there, the spammer still gets the benefit of increased search engine rankings; an environment with enough exposure to people who fall for that fluff to make it profitable.

Spam is an unfortunate reality of building a web-based product, and dealing with it can be a nightmare.

The better of a job you do with your product, the more it’s targeted, and the more time you have to take away from development and put into defending your content.

I think richardhenry nailed it here. Also I would like to add to his response that sponsors pay more to advertise on someones website depending on the number of hits a website gets.

Well, there’s one little point that these spammers seem to miss.

The Google page rank for a question page is negligible, therefore the relevancy of those links is actually minor.

That said, Fluther’s home page rank is a 5, so they see the site as a treasure mine.
Sure, if you type in very specific terms, then you will get a hit and that is what they are banking on.

it just seems like an awfully slow and backwards way to build relevancy when there are so many better ways to get high quality links from higher ranked sites with no money and just as much time.

The ones i have seen lately for chat rooms are probably just trying to build an audience, since Fluther is one step away from live chatting anyways.

YES I am very interested in the answer also. (besides the one where the spammer is making millions of dollars)

I do not want to:
increase my load
increase my girth
be x inches longer
email/chat with a blonde/redhead/brunette and possibly date in REAL LIFE
go all night (I have work in the morning)
...
you can all probably name many more…

My mom once told me she gets “Increase your penis size!” spam 3 times a day. So I told her “Well, mom, in fairness, your penis is very small.”

@fireside: Google also includes spread in their algorithm, so it isn’t just a heirarchy of page ranks. If a site is mentioned on a few highly ranked pages, the system still expects it to be backed up in less valuable contexts.

Just because I managed to get an ad placement for my cheese on a high profile cheese review website, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any more important than the other cheeses available.

The little blogs and forums also need to be buzzing with talk about my cheese to make it really mean something and for it’s ranking to increase.

Hmmm…this jockeying for rank makes spam (or the idea of it anyway)
much more interesting that I had originally thought.

I just figured it was merely something along the lines of audience-building.
Which I didn’t get because it seems to antagonize the intended consumer?

Thanks, all!