URGENT: Please remove links to comparehomeloans.com.au

[Mark Doliner]

First an explanation of what happened, since it might not be clear to
Adam Smoulders/Comparehomeloans.com.au:
- The URL you pasted is a link to the archive of our "tracker" mailing list
- Our bug tracking system sends emails to this mailing list for all
new bug reports and for any changes to bug reports
- In May 2011 someone created an item in our bug tracker that
contained a bunch of spammy text about home loans with links to your
web site
- We deleted the item from our bug tracker, but the archived email remains

To be fair to the poster, it's possible the spam wasn't generated
_directly_ by him or his web site. It's possible someone affiliated
with this website paid some sort of shady SEO company to "boost your
search result ranking for a low low fee!" I think this is more likely.
I think this sort of thing probably happens frequently and I think it
isn't always obvious that the shady SEO company is spamming the hell
out of the Internet.

Lesson: If you're running a web site, be extremely skeptical about
working with SEO companies. Ask them specifically what they're doing.
Good SEO involves improving your website by making it friendlier to
search engines (and users) and adding better content. You can raise
awareness by placing targeted advertisements in reputable ad networks
or by pitching your product to relevant press. Bad SEO involves paying
someone to plaster links to your website all over the Internet.

So while I despise spam and spammers, I think it's a little unfair to
vilify Adam and comparehomeloans.com.au so quickly. I mostly just want
to raise awareness--I don't care enough to bother removing the spam
from our mailing list archive.