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16 Ways To Spot and Avoid Spambots on Twitter

Spambots suck. After getting hit by a flood of spambots pasting themselves into otherwise legitimate #FollowFriday (#FF) tweets, I've decided to share a list of "red flags" to help get rid of unwanted bots.

16 WAYS TO SPOT AND AVOID SPAMBOTS ON TWITTER

1. The avatar is too good or too awful: either too magazine perfect/posed, or else it looks like a crappy old photo from decades ago. Also watch out for accounts that show a pic of a "sexy girl" which seems too good to be true.

2. The avatar or profile page background is an ad to buy followers or likes.This one's a no-brainer. (And no, you can't buy real followers this way, you can only buy bots, so don't do it!)

3. The avatar's gender does not match the name on the account.

4. The account name is a string of random letters and numbers.

5. The account name is foreign. See #6 below for a list of countries/continents to avoid.

6. The account has the word "bot" in its screen name or account name, or a name that sounds spammy, like a business you have no interest in. Other words bots love to use in their names are "facts" and "quotes." While fact- and quote-bots do tweet interesting stuff, they will also sneak in ads from time to time.

7. The account is based anywhere in the Arab countries, Asia (except Japan or South Korea), Africa (except South Africa), China, Eastern Europe, India, Pakistan, or Russia. While some accounts from these countries are certainly real people with interesting things to say, in my experience, the vast majority appear to be spambots. Most of the accounts I've seen from Western Europe, Mexico, and South America seem to be more or less "real people" (at least so far).

8. The account is clearly foreign, but is pretending to be American or British, and/or claims to be based in the USA or UK, or to be in multiple countries.

9. The account does not tweet in English, or only in broken English, and never says anything meaningful, or only tweets on one or two topics. For example, a "sexy girl" who constantly tweets about her loneliness and heartbreak in an obvious attempt to sucker guys into following her.

10. The account never replies to or initiates conversations.

11. The account replies to a conversation but in an inappropriate or slightly off manner, or tries to sell you something out of the blue. The bot clearly does not quite understand the context of what is actually being discussed. Note that bots are particularly attracted to tweets containing hashtags. Some are better at having extended "conversations" than others.

12. The account tweets mostly beautiful or funny photos, quotes, advice, aphorisms, or brief, one-sided conversations with itself. Sooner or later, these accounts will sneak a few spam ads into the mix.

13. The account has well over 10,000 followers. Note that many successful people who are "Twitter Famous" as well as celebrities have large follower counts but are real people. That means a high follower count is not a sure sign of a spambot. You have to dig deeper. Check out their profile and tweets. If they have conversations with their followers or make meaningful replies, they're probably real. Likewise, if they're an author, artist, filmmaker, motivational speaker, musician, politician, or other expert in their field with links to their work.

14. The account's following count exceeds their follower count. The latter is a dead giveaway the account is trying to grow itself as rapidly as possible… however, plenty of real people do this too, so it's not a foolproof way to spot a spambot.

15. The account follows you, waits for you to follow back, then unfollows you. This is done due to Twitter's follow limits. They must clear a space in order to gain more followers, and you're it. They are hoping you won't notice they've unfollowed you. (Use a free app like JustUnfollow.com to track your unfollowers.)

16. The account demands "F4F" (Follow for Follow) in its first ineraction with you, but does not follow you first. Some real people may do this, but they're jerks. A polite later request to get a followback after they follow you is different and reasonable.

So what do you when you discover a spambot?

You can ignore it, which means not following it back or RTing it, but chances are, it will keep spamming you. The best thing you can do is both block and report it as spam to Twitter. That means you will no longer see tweets from that spambot and Twitter may ban their account. Of course, the spammers will just make more bots, so it's a never-ending battle.

If you'd like to learn more about cybersecurity, read "Protect Your Twitter Account From Hackers."