Spammers use GooglePages (and why you probably shouldn't)

Due to being excessively easy to setup, GooglePages has found itself to be a favorite amongst spammers.

A quick, informal survey of the last roughly 1000 e-mail spam I received revealed links to GooglePages sites in about 30 of them. That's 3 percent of all spam!

While my mini-study was highly unscientific, I've noticed the problem often enough to say pretty definitively that Google has a problem on its hands.

GeoCities websites have in the past had similar problems - but it seems that Yahoo's done a fairly good job controlling the problem as of recent.

The question I have to ask myself is, "In order to make SpamButcher the best spam blocker possible, what should it do when it sees an email containing a GooglePages site?"

While SpamButcher doesn't block all messages containing links to GooglePages sites, it definitely gives them some extra examination. The odds of a given email being deleted if it contains such a link is much higher. The problem is wide-spread enough - that I would speculate other anti-spam products may take similar measures.

So, if you want your email to get received reliably, don't put a link to GooglePages in it. The only way to be sure the recipient will get it is if they've whitelisted you.

For that matter, it seems avoiding GooglePages in general may be a good idea until they get their act together. If you can't send email out to all your friends boasting your new website, what's the point?

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