Pligg Auto Submitter Released

This is a couple of days old now, so forgive me for writing this post a little late. I did start it over the weekend when i got news of the release but didn’t finish my blog post until today.

Saturday saw the release of Syndk8’s Auto Pligg Submitter, for those who aren’t aware, Syndk8 is pretty much the top black forum on the net and Pligg is a sort of content management system which is effectively a clone of the much loved Digg.com. Pligg allows members to submit news stories about various topics and then vote and comment on said stories. This in turn effects what shows up on the front page, and how long for, its a social media news site.

The Pligg Auto submitter is being sold for $189 which for what it actually does is peanuts. Basically the software will allow you to mass spam almost any Pligg based site out in the wild. You would be forgiven in thinking that it isn’t a big deal until you realise that some high profile sites such as Sphinn.com are using the Pligg engine.

Lets look at some of the features that the Pligg spammer (i mean auto submitter) has…

  • Automatically register for accounts. Even breaks CAPTCHAs!!
  • Create UNLIMITED profiles and identities
  • Submit stories and comment to 1000’s of sites
  • Automated pinging after each submission
  • Stats to show succesful submissions
  • Proxy support

So as you can see, it’s a pretty rounded product, and the big thing here is that it can break captcha’s which is a pretty big deal in the world of spamming. Basically you are getting a piece of software which can automate the posting of hundreds of stories and links back to your site without you hardly lifting a finger.

So lets look at this from the point of spamming and building your site up, you could spend $180 on this product and be able to spam a hell of a lot of sites and get some decent links in or you could spend $180 one ok quility link. If you do a Google Search for “powered by pligg” you can see that the results number in the 1,380,000 range. Even if you assume that 25% of those sites no longer exist then you still have a massive amount of sites at your disposal to spam. Lets also check out the number of Google Searches going on at the moment…

As you can see from the image above, even though this software has only been out for four days, the amount of people searching for “powered by pligg” to spam the sites is pretty high, so what can webmasters do about it?

  • Remove the “powered by pligg” footprint in your template
  • Take a look at using ReCaptcha instead of Pliggs built in Captcha system, there is a (sort of) guide on the Pligg forum
  • Add in another layer of capture which asks a questions such as “is water a liquid or gas?”
  • Ensure that you monitor the number of users in the admin area, if you see this number shooting up then its safe to say that you are being targetted
  • Like the above point, watch to see the number of stories being submitted, if they jump up then you are probably being targetted

I would imagine that within the next couple of releases Pligg will probably address a lot of the loopholes that the auto submitter is using to work, however it seems that this is an on going project from Syndk8 so it looks like this battle will last for some time. I must admit the Pligg development cycle can be a bit hit and miss so only time will tell what will happen.

In closing, i have tried to write this post from both the positive view points of a spammer and also the negative viewpoints of a Pligg admin, who knows, i may even use this software to promote my own Pligg based site 🙂

If you liked this post give it a Sphinn over at Sphinn.com

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27 Comments
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GiorgosK
15 years ago

There is already many pligg sites full of spam

I suppose the launch of such a tool will make the situation even worse. Hopefully the webmasters will put into effect the countermeasures that you presented.

Great writeup.

web site design
13 years ago
Reply to  GiorgosK

If you already own AutoPligg read this post anyways. I promise you'll learn something

Jeff
Jeff
15 years ago

This is a great tool for spamming!

Facebook Applications
12 years ago
Reply to  Jeff

spamming ? isn't that an inappropriate word for this great tool 🙂

Fifty Studio
15 years ago

Does it violate licensing to remove “powered by pligg”

Gab Goldenberg
15 years ago

@Fifty – I heard it does violate the license and that’s why Sphinn has left it up.

@Dean – Nice article. I’ve got a related idea on how to use the software better than the default install and was thinking we might talk shop – just added you on msn; feel free to email me too (it’s Gab from SEOmoz’s offices after SMX Advanced).

Anthony Shapley
15 years ago

I don’t really see an issue, these sites want you to submit your stories. All this does is speeds it up a little. I’m not using it, but am certainly tempted to.

The only time it becomes a problem is when there isn’t any Quality Control in place to make sure shit isn’t accepted into these pligg sites.

Its a great bit of software for any halve decent blogger trying to improve visibility.

Webmastercoders
15 years ago

I’m wondering if we can just use an image link to pligg instead of the html link. This might help out… Version 1.0 is suppose to have email verification, this too will help… I recently looked at my logs, received 22 registered attempts, so far so good. Thanks for the info. Less wookie, poor wookie..

juju
15 years ago

hi chewie, can you tell how to install user reg by email addon to pligg 9.9.5? the pligg forum did mention it but it seems not suitable to version 9.9.5…

Alfredo
15 years ago

there is always a lazy tool for lazy people. this is one of ’em.

Eligio
15 years ago

I was looking for the software and stumbled on this site, i was too tired to get outrank by people who is using this tool. i might try this one day. cool toy for spammer.

perdere peso
14 years ago

Thank you! These tips worked fine. Though I’m still pissed off: I can’t spend 30 minutes (much more!!) every time there is a new Pligg security threat. Too bad for the people behind Pligg!

seolinkpro
seolinkpro
14 years ago

you guys are so naive… we will find your pliggs… and we will spam them.

Chewie
14 years ago

Hi,

Unfortunately i haven't used Pligg for some time so i am unable to answer
your question. Try leaving a comment in the Pligg Forum.

Thanks

2009/11/10 Disqus <>

ginica
ginica
14 years ago

I think they are updating their interface right now – but they seem to be not quite done yet. When I use the search box I get a message that user name and password is required and that search is only for employees.rent a car

Danny
Danny
14 years ago

Auto submitters are some of the oldest spam tools, their main issue is that are relatively limited in imagination (eg. will not change the details of any link) and this will make google eventually rate your site as a “black seo” site. I tried this for an automotive tools site and it didn't harm the pagerank or search rating.

Encyclopedia
13 years ago

oh search range with powered by pligg is 1%2

Encyclopedia
13 years ago

oh search range with powered by pligg is 1,380,000 range.
then that pligg will be spaming by imacros.

150660570
150660570
13 years ago

So as you can see, it’s a pretty rounded product, and the big thing here is that it can break captcha’s which is a pretty big deal in the world of spamming. Basically you are getting a piece of software which can automate the posting of hundreds of stories and links back to your site without you hardly lifting a finger

Suoi_tui
12 years ago

Thank you, it's great  Admin Site chewie

Logo Design
12 years ago

I will try this soon to check this how it work. Thanks for share about this.

seo for website
14 years ago

Bookmarking Demon claim that there tool can submit your … Since the release of Pligg

beats for sale
13 years ago

i never heard of pligg. imma go and acheck that out ^_^

Ashwani
Ashwani
13 years ago

Nice post dude, Keep it up.