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November 22, 2004

After several years of watching spamvertised domain names in spam links (and adding them to my "delete at the server" list), I used to wonder if spammers would get tired to concocting yet more combinations of words that convey "meds," "savings," "rx," "pharm," "free," "herbal," "4U," and other likely suspects. My list continues to grow, but they've had to branch out to other techniques to find unclaimed .com domain names.

Because the actual linked domain can be hidden behind HTML message links that say anything, a lot of domain names in the last year or so have been either total gibberish (like a cat walking across a keyboard during domain registration) or, more recently, almost dictionary-attack-like combinations of two or three real words (in English) that have nothing to do with the spam subject. I'd share some of them with you, but I don't want to advertise these sites for the spammers.

As long as spam recipients continue to preview messages from, click-through to, and buy from spamvertisers, the spam meisters will continue to concoct yet more domains du jour.