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After this SPAM was posted I noticed that the user behind it is actually using their profile page as a SPAM vehicle too.

I take the links out of these things and change the titles because it prevents the scrapers getting the data (which I suspect is the SPAMMERS goal), but is there any way to flag a profile - I can't see one.

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Users have extraordinary leeway about what is allowed in their profile (no illegal or offensive content). There's nothing inherently wrong with the content of the original profile — at least in the context of the profile being spam — as long as they are providing a good contribution to the system.

See: Are user names that represent domains allowed?

Unfortunately in this case, the content is also spam and should be flagged and removed on sight (probably the user, too).

But please don't start vandalizing posts in some sort of ill-considered head-on-a-stick gesture. Just remove the links and flag the content as spam as quickly as possible. Vandalism is not a good response to fix a broken window. It makes your site look like trash by adding more bad content; drawing even more attention and exasperating the original problem. Thanks.

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  • Hi Robort. It's really not a head-on-a-stick gesture. The only reason I can see, or more accurately money I can see, in spamming stack sites is that the scraper sites pick up new questions nearly as quickly as Google does. There the spam content persists forever. Hence killing the links/title when it contains branding. When you next see a spam question Google it and watch the results for an exact string match over the next few hours, you'll see what I mean.
    – toomanyairmiles
    May 14, 2012 at 15:50
  • Also, yes I get that sites are allowed profiles. This is clearly keyword rich spam, not a company answering questions about it's products, which I would welcome.
    – toomanyairmiles
    May 14, 2012 at 15:52
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This is covered on meta.SO: Flag abusive users. In short, moderators can do various things to spammy users if they spot a trend of spammy questions.

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