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iydkydg—7:36 PM

Most recent spam comments have been nothing but links. Usually, that's how spam comments work: hoping to hijack the host site's favorable (or, in my case, mediocre) Google PageRank to bestow trust upon their links to sham sites or penis enlargement pitches. However, recently we've been getting a lot with absolute gibberish for links.

http://afsqoqtb.com
http://txvdujvj.com
http://lyzvzxzm.com
http://jcryrlfp.com
http://myyfkmbq.com
http://aythlttf.com

I checked, and these sites aren't registered. (They're not even "parked!") What could this mean? Are they just testing my defenses, like the raptors flinging themselves at the electrified Jurassic Park fence? ("When the big one looks at you, you can see she's working things out...") Or are they waiting until one of these addresses has a critical mass of incoming links – then they'll pounce and post porn there?

Cabel Sasser and John Gruber say the impending domain name famine will mean nobody looks at the web address any more. We'll enter a clownpenis-dot-fart situation in which no good domains are left, and the only way anyone finds anything is by googling a pre-determined set of keywords. (Don't navigate to onebee.com, just do a search for "coach probst naked boobs bush sucks!") I suppose it's true, it's not the web address that sinks or saves you – it's the marketing.

Which calls to mind Coke's iydkydg campaign from years back. Pronounced "ih-dik-YIH-dig," it stood for "if you don't know, you don't go" and it was a points-for-rewards thing similar to today's mycokerewards.com. With Coke's advertising muscle behind it, even nonsense like iydkydg.com could get hits. Maybe that's what these sites are aiming for. The creators of "at first sight, quiches of Quebec taste bad" or "make your yellow friend kill my baby quetzal" just haven't got their sites live yet. In that case, I almost feel bad for deleting their comments. I'd link to a site with that sort of moxie, as long as it's not another goddamned social-networking hooha.

4 Comments (Add your comments)

"matthew steelman"Sun, 4/24/11 8:35pm

i love this article....why, i do not yet know. maybe its due to the fact that i am a dork who not only remembers the whole coke-a-cola iydkydg phase, but i also still have the t-shirt....does that make me a nerd. there is only a handful of people who remember this, and i am proud to be one of them....damn, thats sad.

"John"Wed, 6/15/11 10:19am

I can one up you Matthew. I still have my 1999 Coke Card in the carry case. =)

"therese"Mon, 7/4/11 10:32pm

too funny, I just got the shirt at a thrift store and thought it was kinda cool, but didn't know what it was from. Don't remember this campaign. Didn't notice the coke bottle on the back until I was washing it and then researched and stumbled on this link! Make that another nerd!

"Steve"Thu, 8/25/11 1:17pm

Just stumbled across my card in the sleeve as well!

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