target

PandaLabs has identified over a million spam links used to target Google searchers looking for information about automotive parts from Ford and Nissan especially. Panda calls it “a major Blackhat SEO attack” designed to dupe searchers into downloading spyware or purchasing phony security software.

Expect more sophisticated spamming in 2009. And thanks to the economy, an increase in scams targeting the down and out, the tax-rebate hopeful, and the noble yet digitally naïve pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps market.

The hell you say! Politicians and prostitutes, sexy scandal cover-ups?

Newspaper classifieds have a friend in scammers. Though hemorrhaging sales to Craigslist, fraudulent posters there may drive legitimate businesspeople back to where they've done business for decades.

Last week I watched the blog storm surrounding Target’s decision not to talk to a blogger, because it only focused on traditional media outlets.

Here are two Goofus and Gallants in one post as marketers continue to demonstrate how to and how not to.

With mine and Jim’s previous posts about Wal-Mart’s missteps in social media, I couldn’t resist the temptation to share a little about Target, who has recently been caught as it is learning its lesson on transparency and disclosure.

Recently I’ve read about otherwise sane Internet Marketers (also called SEO’s) targeting Digg comments at an attempt to direct traffic to a particular website. The first thing that came to mind was that running a campaign specifically to garner traffic from the comments of a techie social media site is probably not going to have a great ROI. I may be wrong, depending on your target market, but nonetheless blog posts abound SEO’s spending lots of time on ineffective strategies abound.