How do you market a bookmarking service without attracting spammers?

1 pointsdjhomeless18y ago2 comments

I am struggling to come up with a sound plan to market a key feature of my social search service without attracting the wrong kind of attention.

Basically users can syndicate bookmarks from our service to delicious, magnolia, and simpy at once. Or they can do the opposite, syndicate from these cool services.

The problem, this kind of feature is also highly sought after by spammer hordes. The wrong kind of attention could turn my little bootstrapped service into Squidoo overnight.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance!

Geoffrey

2 comments

2 comments · 2 top-level

noodle18y ago

its unavoidable. if you offer a good service, spammers will try and find a way to exploit it.

the best thing, imo, you can do is have a vocal, clear anti-spam policy. make it up-front so that people know you're on the watch. let them know you're working on things to stop spammers.

the second best thing is to actually try to be on the watch and to be developing checks and balances that make using it for spam harder to do.

getting the information and intent out there will do more for you than developing silently or quickly banning spammers. be clear and visible about an anti-spam policy so that good users will appreciate it and spammers will be wary.

djhomelessOP18y ago

We've held them off until now, but agreed a good t&c goes a long way.

The issue is I would love to push it more, as I know a lot of people who use more than one service. I for one use my own service (grin) and magnolia.

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