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More computer tips
These days you have to monitor your guestbooks closely because of a phenomenon called guestbook spamming. It's often done by unscrupulous people promoting unsavory sites. Sometimes they're paid to do this. The primary goal is to get their sites listed in search engines. Safeguard your guestbooks!
The best way to safeguard your guestbook is to use one that can be put on moderated. That way you can remove the posts before anyone sees them. That will also cut down on the number of guestbook spammers trying to pollute your guestbook. So when shopping for a new guestbook, please make sure it CAN be moderated, then either keep it on moderated or switch at any hint of trouble. If you don't moderate your guestbook currently, then monitor it closely. There's often an option to have posts e-mailed to you - make sure you choose and configure that option.
Here's my struggle with the guestbook spammers:
I originally had two different types of guestbooks on my site. The first guestbook was an original guestbook by Matt, and even when I removed the link to the page for signing the guestbook - the spamming continued. They had obviously placed that page on a link list - or maybe it was spammed by a robot.
The reason I'm mentioning robot, is that other people who have written about guestbook spamming, seem to consider spamming by robots to be the leading theory. Here's one proponent of that theory:
WebSpiner on Guestbook
Spamming.
I also have another guestbook system, a modification on that script by Matt. Here you'll have to actually go to the guestbook and click on a button to get the sign page. I haven't figured out a way it could be done by a robot, because there are some variables that get passed to the script before you get the page where you sign the guestbook. I had lots of guestbooks fed by that system at the time. The penpals guestbook got spammed so badly, I finally moved it to another type of guestbook. But Duane's guestbook still got spammed pretty badly, and I figured I'd have some fun with these guys.
So I modified the script for the guestbook to look as though it would accept the link, and that it would be entered successfully. The problem - for the spammers - was that although the links would get sent to me, it would not get included in the guestbook entries! It didn't take long before some of the spammers started experimenting, placing the links in other places. And one person bomb-signed the guestbook with loads of posts in one day, with lots of lewd stuff in German (I read German). It goes with the story that most of the guestbook spamming was done by one or more Germans, for some reason. They're not the only ones doing this, but I got hit particularly hard by the Germans.
I noticed that one guy in particular must have checked his post, because he entered it again - word for word, but this time included the link in another place. So I'm pretty sure that was a human, not a robot.
Web Spiner has lots of resources on search engine optimisation and promoting websites, so it's well worth checking out the rest of his site as well:
WebSpiner web site.
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