Comments, Spam, and Comment Spam
May 29, 2009 by Lillie
Is it just me or is it getting harder to separate legitimate comments from spam comments?
Often legitimate comments are easy to identify. They add relevant insights, new information, or another opinion on the topic of the post, and they are posted under the commenter’s full name (or least a nickname). Sometimes they simply affirm the commenter’s agreement or encouragement to the blogger, but they clearly show the commenter is responding to a specific post. Occasionally, a few words that agree or encourage without specifically mentioning the topic are readily recognized as legitimate because the commenter is a regular reader who has left comments before.
Many spam comments are just as easy to identify. They promote pills, porn, or propoganda; are frequently posted using a keyword instead of a name; and may have several links in the body of the comment.
Then there are the ones in the gray area.
The comment may be relevant to the topic but be posted by a keyword instead of a person. I always remind commenters that with KeywordLuv, they can use both their name and keywords. Then I can address them as a real person, and they still get their keyword link. I would much rather chat with John Smith from Dayton Used Cars than with Dayton Used Cars. I can’t help envisioning a used car typing the comment, and I can’t get excited about carrying on a conversation with a used car or insurance or a dentist or … whatever. Note: as of 8/31/09, I changed my comment policy and automatically mark as spam any comment left with keywords only and no name.
Other times the comment may be left by a commenter who uses a name but without responding directly the topic of the post.“Great post,” “I agree,” “Thanks for sharing,” and similar sentiments may be sincere, but they are also the kind of comments left by robots or by humans who haven’t taken the time to read the content of the post. If the person has commented before, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt. However, comments of this nature from first-time commenters are treated as spam.
The spam comments that offend me the most are the ones that plagiarize as well as spam. These may be fairly easy to catch on recent posts but can slip through when left on old posts. My first experience with this was a single comment left on an old post. The comment added insight on the topic of the post, so I approved it. The next day, I had more than a dozen comments from the same “person.” The comments were posted immediately—comments are held for moderation only for the first comment. When I started responding to the comments, as I do to every comment, I recognized one of the comments as something I’d heard before. Reading the earlier comments revealed that the new comment was a repeat of a comment left months ago by someone else. That discovery led me to review every single comment left by this spammer, and every one proved to be copied from an earlier comment. I deleted all the comments and blacklisted the spammer, but that taught me to check more closely on comments on older posts.
Since then, I’ve found this happening frequently. Some are creative enough to take a sentence from each of three or four different comments so their comment isn’t identical to any other comment but is identical to parts of several different comments. Worse, some of the spam comments take material directly from the post itself. They have the nerve to leave me a comment composed of my words in the post they are commenting on!
The spam comments that puzzle me the most are the ones that are nothing but question marks, sometimes a few, sometimes hundreds. My only guess as to why anyone would do this is to get a comment past moderation with the expectation of lots more spamming with links included in future comments.
Other than spam, the only comments I don’t approve fall into one of two categories:
- Comments that are disrespectful of my beliefs and values. Respectful disagreement is allowed; rudeness or disrespect of me, my readers/commenters, my faith, our country or troops, or my values is not allowed.
- Comments that link to sites that I don’t consider appropriate for a Christian audience, such as blogs on how to enhance body parts, sites that denigrate people or values, and risque entertainment. Occasionally I may approve the comment but delete the link, but usually I delete the comment.
I love comments and encourage them with DoFollow, CommentLuv, KeywordLuv, and other plugins designed to make the commenting experience easy and fun and to reward them with links that help with SEO. I visit the site of every person who leaves a comment here and often subscribe to their blogs as well. I reply to every single comment, and I thank commenters monthly for being part of the community.
Too bad that spammers make moderating and responding to comments more of a challenge for me and all bloggers.
Are you finding it more difficult to sort out spam from legitimate comments?
Great post… I mean, I agree… No wait I mean, thanks for sharing…
Seriously this is a real problem, several of my blogs are dofollow as well and some of the spam I get is maddening… The other day I got one which sounded really genuine about how they used google to find some information and found my blog and how useful it was etc etc and then I noticed the name given for the comment “Lose weight in 7 days”… SPAM!
Thanks, Gary.
Gary Sims´s last blog post..FreeNAS vs. Windows Home Server (Part 2)
Gary,
I’m sure a lot of DoFollow blogs have this problem. I really, really, really don’t like comments with keywords as names. So far, I haven’t established a policy of not allowing them, but it may come to that.
I actually have a dofollow blog as well and ran into this problem A LOT at the beginning. However, now that I have Askimet up it really doesn’t seem to be to much of an issue for me.
Also, it’s tough to b.s. a comment on my blog.
Stuart Foster´s last blog post..I’m Kind of a Big Deal. People Know Me.
Stuart,
I couldn’t live without Akismet. The graphic is my Akismet stats from my dashboard.
However, Akismet doesn’t catch all the spam, especially the hard-to-detect ones that repeat previous comments. And I also get some false positives, though not a lot.
I’m extremely grateful for Akismet but still have to watch closely.
lol @ Gary Sims
I was going to do that.
Anyhow, I know I may be in the minority, but I kind of feel that the spammer although doing their job and riddling your post with a useless comment, may actually benefit from you post and the information that is contains.
For instance, lets say you get….
Name:FreeCreditReports
URL:www. yadda yadda . com
Comment: This was a great post, thank you for the information.
That can be taken two ways, SPAMMER !!!!! and mark it as spam, or, He is blatantly plugging his site or someone elses site that hired him. Would it not be acceptable if it was exactly the same comment, but with Mark as the name?
I try to look on the good side of people, so, if there are not a million links in the comment and it looks like they MIGHT mean what they say, I give them benefit of the doubt, but if they hit all my posts and post the same little blurb… then we have an issue
Sean McRoy´s last blog post..Billy Gillispie sues University of Kentucky
Sean,
That’s why I find it so difficult—it isn’t always easy to tell. Although I do allow keywords for names, I always point out to the commenter they can include their name as well. I like to talk to people, not keywords.
And when it’s a “great post” type comment, I allow it if is from someone who’s commented before. I sometimes leave those comments on other blogs because I sincerely want to compliment the blogger but don’t have anything insightful to say on the topic. If it’s a first-time commenter, I usually delete it. And, as you say, if the same comment appears on a dozen posts, there’s no doubt!
Here is one I came across lately:
I got one a week ago telling me great things about my custom wordpress theme, how good looking it was and asking me where I got it.
I even took the time to write back an email explaining in detail how I made the theme, but the same comment kept popping up every day on different posts.
The crazy thing was the fact that the blog being spam advertised was a personal blog, but yet the author decided that spamming other blogs with (as they proved to be) irrelevant comments was better then trying to write original content and provide value.
I mean, seriously…lol. That’s all I can say – lol.
Rados´s last blog post..Salon Equipment Packages
Rados,
That is frustrating. When it seems like a sincere, legitimate comment—and you even take the time to respond in detail in e-mail—and then realize it’s spam … that doesn’t make the blogger a happy camper.
I appreciate that you are loving comments and encourage them with Do Follow for SEO purposes. Keep posting great idea. Have a nice day
engineering (if you wrote YourName@Keywords, I could address you as a real person, and you would get your keyword link),
Yes, I do love comments—especially when they are from real people.
I believe comments should be relevant and have a little more content than just, “Thanks. That was great.”
On the plagiarism issue (sort of off comment topic), we post our articles to various sites and found that some of our articles were posted to blog sites we’ve never visited. No due credit was given to the author of the articles, my boss, David Bowman. So, we e-mailed the culprits and kindly asked them to credit the author or remove our articles. A few of these “bloggers” e-mailed us back with some words of their own. Needless to say, we weren’t successful at deterring this from happening. C’est la vie.
Hope you find a successful option for dealing with span comments.
Alina,
Copyright violation is a huge issue on the Internet. I wrote a series on copyright some time back and discussed this very subject.
I would only allow regular posters to get away with “thanks for sharing” type posts. To me, a comment has to add value to a discussion, such as with the sharing of different information, a twist on the topic or an update on a situation, even disagreements (as long as they are not of the “you suck” variety) add value. It’s all give and take, and more posters need to give.
Simo,
I agree. However, there are times I’ve been known to leave a “great post” type comment—though I will say a little more than that and do it only on blogs where I comment regularly. But sometimes I just want to let the blogger know I appreciated their post but don’t really have anything relevant to add. As you say, though, that’s only appropriate if it’s done by a regular commenter. The first comment I leave—and the first comment I approve here—has to add to the conversation in some way.
The one thing I don’t understand with the ridiculous comment spam, why are they even wasting their time?
Askimet for Wordpress is quite amazing, although I have caught some honest comments that Askimet thought were spam, so I always go through the spam manually without mass deleting.
Heidi,
I wonder the same thing. Akismet catches most spam, though occasionally something slips through or something is held as spam that really isn’t.
Lillie, believe it or not that Spammers are everywhere, no matter at online or offline world! In this case, I must give you the credit here for listing out the guidelines of what’s considering as “Spam”!
Honestly, some people are tend to break or misused the rule, hence it’s important to have the Akimset to protect you from being the victim of Spammers.
wilson´s last blog post..Lotions Are Not Too Good For Newborn Babies!
wilson,
You’re right—junk mail, telemarketing phone calls … all kinds of spam. People who do those things obviously aren’t interested in establishing long-term relationships with their customers. They’re just after a quick sale. It makes so much more sense to build relationships and get continued business rather than continually spamming trying to get new suckers.
its a common problem with all do-follow blogs . Akismet plugin remove most of the spam comments for me . I think your main problem would be that most of the persons are not using their proper names with keywords .
gagan,
Using keywords instead of words is one problem, but probably worse than that is the problem of comments that are copied from earlier comments. When the comment is left on an old post with a lot of comments, it’s hard to catch. And Akismet doesn’t catch it because it is (or at least was when left by the original commenter) a relevant comment.
Wow! I only got one spam comment in my 2 months of blogging. At first, I didn’t know what to do because it was in Chinese. So I approved the message. Then something about it kept gnawing at me, the comment was just too long!
So I used a translation program and translated the text. I was mortified to find that it was promoting a pornographic site! It was worse because the girls in the photographs looked extremely young. I was really upset. So deleted, I banned, and I tried to erase it from my blog’s memory.
I haven’t received other spam comments, but I check my comments and their source frequently.
Thanks for this post. I didn’t realize that some spam comments are trickier. I will stay alert for that type of spam.
Have a great weekend!
Beatriz´s last blog post..Fiction Friday
Beatriz,
I can imagine how terrible you felt about approving the porn site comment. I’ve learned to always click on the link to visit the site before I approve a comment. There have been several times when what appeared to be a relevant and thoughtful comment came from a porn site or other site inappropriate for my audience.
You will get more spam over time—the popularity of your blog for spam increases with the popularity of it to readers you want. However, DoFollow really makes the spam increase many-fold. I think it’s worth it to reward my commenters with a do-follow link as a thank-you for commenting. But it does require extra vigilance.
I used to work at an email marketing company that was all-out spam at the beginning but at that time the concept of spam was just taking shape and the owners cleaned-up the operation quickly and were pretty honest and transparent about making things easy for users to un-subscribe to the email lists (even though at the time there were plenty of unscrupulous people making profits by not following the rules). But anyway what this taught me is that this spam business moves in stages, like security and encryption, where the hackers or spammers figure out new techniques and then the network and security admins figure out solutions, one after another for a long time. There are some rough spots but we just have to make it through. Comment spam is pretty popular right now and sometimes sophisticated, the balance has to be found, and hopefully there will be some new tools before too long to make it easier.
encino,
Good point. That reminds me of a time when e-mail spammers first started putting their messages into images rather than text. The spam filters at the time were geared to finding spam words in text, and suddenly the most vile spam started coming through. I was shocked and couldn’t figure out what happened. When I complained to my Web host that something was wrong with the e-mail spam filter, they explained the problem and shortly they figured out a way to catch the image spam. Just one stage in the life of e-mail spam. You’re right that we’re going through something similar with comment spam now.
Also, I think that sometimes the comments that just don’t seem to make sense could be hacking experiments that either didn’t work correctly or some spammer just trying out senseless things.
encino,
I never thought about spam being a hacking attempt.
Well, I used the term a bit loosely but I think if someone writes a program to use somebody else’s digital property in a way that they would object to (comment spamming their blog with pill advertisements for example) then it might be “hacking”.
encino,
I understand what you’re saying.
Hi Lillie,
It is getting harder to tell. Some spammers are getting smarter by leaving legitimate comments. Sadly,it has made me think twice about all new commenters. I have Akismet too but that doesn’t help with comments that appear legitimate. It seems that as systems get smarter, unethical people will keep finding ways around them. Thanks for bringing this issue to light. We can all help one another be more aware.
Karen Swim´s last blog post..Hot Sweet Cup of Possibility
Karen,
You’re right—there will always be unethical people trying to circumvent any protections we have in place. When we encounter new ways of getting around the filters—such as comments made up of excerpts from other comments—we should alert each other.
If the spam is getting very bad, then an option would be to force people to login before submitting. But with doing this the number of comments will drop very fast.
Bill,
There’s a much simpler solution than that—I could simply eliminate DoFollow and eliminate a very large percentage of spam. But the problem isn’t severe enough for me to even consider that. I want to reward my legitimate commenters, so I will put up with a lot of spam.
However, as mentioned in the comment above, it’s a good idea for us to share what we’re facing from time to time to help each other combat spam. I never knew about the spam copied from legitimate comments until I discovered it on my own blog. I wanted to alert other bloggers who may not know about it either.
The question of spam comments is an often debated one. yes it is irritating to get spam comments, but they reason you are getting them is probably because you have a good Page Rank. The sites with lower Page Ranks don’t get as much spam.
The best way to deal with for me has been by using Askimet. It gets 90%, all except what you call the gray ones!
Sarika´s last blog post..Virtual Hairstyles and Facial Hair for Men
Sarika,
Actually my Akismets stats show a 99.8% accuracy rate. But it’s those comments in the gray area that are a problem.
When someone leave a ton of questionmarks as a comment, it is almost always because they have written it with some foreign letters (like the Greek alphabet).
Since those characters aren’t supported everything goes haywire, and they are shown as questionmarks.
Jake,
Thank you for clearing that up. I should have realized—I know question marks are common when there are file conversion errors. However, it never dawned on me that was the reason for question marks in comments.
CommentLuv is a good way to avoid people from using anchor text in the name field. I too feel it makes your blog look spammy.
You also do a good job customizing the rules directly above the comment section. This makes it clear what you expect. If people don’t follow your rules don’t feel guilty and just delete them.
Altesino´s last blog post..Free Organic Shampoo Recipes
Thanks, Altesino. I think I will do a little more customizing and specifically say commenters must leave a name.
Lilie
I think your rules already state that. (or did you just tweak it since my comment?)
I’d also clear state that a couple of blog comments marked as spam blocks users from commenting on all Akismet enabled blogs. That will make anyone with half a brain not spam you.
Altesino´s last blog post..Free Organic Shampoo Recipes
Altesino,
I did tweak it by repeating the KeywordLuv information at the top as well as under the name field.
I didn’t know what I or any individual blogger marked as spam was used by Akismet to ban the spammers from all Akismet blogs. Thanks for letting me know.
Do you have Askimet plugin activated? You probably do since it comes pre-installed with wordpress (I’m still a wordpress newbie) but it really helps in moderating spam…though it’s still not a walk in the park. Can’t imagine how difficult it would be for a popular site such as yours.
rohan,
Yes, I have Akismet installed. The graph of Akismet stats is from my blog’s dashboard. Akismet doesn’t catch comments that appear (in fact were at one time) legitimate but which are copied from an earlier comment. But it’s a huge help. I couldn’t function without it.
I am very much thankful ti you that you show your respect to those comments which are not spam and also which shows some relevancy to the topic….
Spam comments are like lots of ants on your food….and it should be get removed…I think using WordPress plugins really help you or even those who want to get rid of spam comments….this is through the SEO point of view…..
Snv,
Good analogy comparing spam to ants.
Lillie,
Comment spam is most frustrating.
Blogging is about legitimate bloggers voicing their thoughts, feelings or opinions and about legitimate readers responding – hopefully in an appropriate fashion, and I become quite annoyed about the fact that some parties view the writing space which we as bloggers share with blogging friends or legitimate associates.
That said, Aksimet does seem to filter most of it, and I personally try not to let the rest bother me too much.
Andrew´s last blog post..Will good intentions wither in tough times?
Andrew,
The obvious spam that Akismet catches, even obvious spam that Akismet misses, doesn’t bother me. I find it very frustrating, though, to have to check every first-time comment to be sure the commenter isn’t simply copying and pasting an earlier legitimate comment. It’s such a waste of time, but that is happening so frequently now that it’s necessary to do that checking.
Anyhow, I know I may be in the minority, but I kind of feel that the spammer although doing their job and riddling your post with a useless comment, may actually benefit from you post and the information that is contains.
Tatang,
That’s a nice theory, but there’s only one fallacy with it: the spammers don’t read the article so they can’t benefit from it. They may read the headline and think they know what it’s about, but they really don’t pay attention to what the blogger said.
For example, I have a post about being attacked by a Doberman. It’s part of a group writing project, and the title is “What I Learned from Animals.” I recently got a spam comment talking about how much we can learn from our pets about love and caring—obviously the spammer hadn’t read the post that said I learned to be wary because I was seriously injured by a pet.
I agree, it has been harder for me to pick out the spam from the real comments. I know I have approved some comments that turned out to be spam. I wonder if that’s because my blog is DoFollow.
carla´s last blog post..Make Green the New Wedding Color
carla,
DoFollow has a lot to do with it. I notice every time I see a pingback that another blog has posted a list of DoFollow blogs, I get a new surge of spam—even more than usual.
Thank you Lillie for replying on my comment….its a big privilege for me…
I totally get frustrated of the spam comments…the people who adds such comments is just for getting the link juice….and nothing else.
I always used to delete such spam comments manually and sometime also it automatically goes to spam filter…
Heartily Thanks to you for showing importance to my comment….
Regards,
Snv
Snv,
I always respond to comments, and I certainly wanted to acknowledge your good analogy.
I can imagine it’s hard work to let only the valuable comments through. I’ve also seen a lot of other dofollow blogers writing about the same issues. The link means a lot to me, but contrary to a lot of comments I always read the posts and try to tell something new in my comments. I hope someone will develop a useful tool that would help you guys with fighting lame human spam.
Andrej,
I’m delighted to give a do-follow link to any commenter who participates in the conversation, anyone who reads the post and responds with something relevant.
Maybe Akismet or someone will come up with a way to check all previous comments to see if the commenter has just copied and pasted another comment (or bits and pieces of several other comments). Those are the hardest to catch and the most annoying to me.
Hey Lillie,
Dominic Tay here. Well, you should have seen by now from the comments above that many people are suffering from blog spam.
The website I put in the URL box above is my blog and I’m very thankful I had Akismet enabled all along. I have about 1,600+ posts there because it’s an article directory and I receive tons of comment spam.
And like Rados, I had a message saying that they found my blog very interesting and stuff. I originally wanted to send the blog poster a friendly thank you message until I kept receiving the same old comments day after day.
Blog spammers are getting real good each and every day!
Anyway, I’m glad to meet you, Lillie. “Great post”… Ha!
Dominic Tay´s last blog post..Use subliminal messaging to root out your addictions
Dominic,
Yes, it’s apparent I’m not alone in being frustrated with comment spam. With 1600+ articles, I can imagine that you gets tons of it. And it would be very difficult to catch the comments that just copied previous comments—you couldn’t possibly remember what comments have been left on all those articles. And those comments like you and Rados mention, that seem to be personal and sincere, then turn out to be spam are really annoying.
Definitely! And IMHO, you actually did a great thing by using KeywordLuv. (I’m actually testing it out as we’re speaking)
This way, you are really adding backlinks to those who are legitimate and sincere in their comments.
Great to hear from you, Lillie. (You’re real quick with the comment replies!)
Dominic Tay´s last blog post..Use subliminal messaging to root out your addictions
Dominic,
KeywordLuv is great, and I’m trying to train all commenters to use it properly. I still get comments from people who leave no name, only keywords. I’ve just about reached the point that I will automatically delete those—I’ve been allowing them if the comment is relevant, but in my response, I ask the commenter to use their name. And sometimes the commenter comes back and apologizes and gives their real name.
I like the way you introduced yourself in your first comment. It’s much nicer to chat with a real person than with a keyword.
I’m so glad to hear from you again, Lillie!
I can’t agree more. No one likes talking to keywords.
Have a great day, Lillie!
Dominic Tay´s last blog post..Get Your Ex Back – How to Get Over a Broken Heart
Dominic,
I broke my record of quick replies.
I was away from the computer all day so I didn’t see the comment right away. There goes my short-lived reputation as being a prompt responder. 
Very interesting that you say that. It’s becoming harder and harder to regulate comments on blogs. I have several blogs about humanity, world culture, business etc…keep up the good work my mother actually told me about your site.
Ben Behrouzi´s last blog post..Recession Times & Your Company’s Happiness and Wellbeing
Ben,
Thanks to your mother for telling you about my blog. I have enough trouble keeping up with spam on my one little blog—I can’t imagine dealing it with on several blogs.
I get a lot of comment spam. Askmet is great at dealing with most of it, but there is a lot of spam where people say things like “I really like this post. Thanks for the useful information. I’ll check back again.”
Spam.
If they don’t say something in their comment that addresses the topic of the post directly, they are spam. On the other hand, they don’t really hurt me, but still, i don’t want to encourage them.
Alex
Alex,
That kind of comment seems harmless, but sometimes the spammer uses that innocuous comment to get through moderation then starts sending comments you really don’t want.
Worse to me, though, are those that copy other comments. When they appear on old posts, they’re hard to catch.
I’m not a blogger myself, but I do comment on blogs, especially commentluv blogs in order to make the most of the keyword links. My comments often are not accepted and I’m not sure why, maybe because they are borderline spam (the gray area as you call it) or maybe because the keyword I use has the word ‘free’ in it? I don’t know.
Stephen,
It may be the word “free” in your keyword and URL. Your comment was caught and marked as spam by Akismet, but I retrieved it from Akismet and approved it. There was nothing in the content of this comment that looks like spam to me, so if this happens to you frequently, it may be the keyword.
You might experiment and leave some comments without “free” in the keyword and see if comments are accepted more frequently. If so, that is probably the problem, and you have to decide whether it’s more important to get the keyword in whenever possible (even it means fewer comments are approved) or to get the comment and keyword link more often (even with another keyword).
If you do decide to experiment, I’d be interested in hearing the results.
Another possibility: In a comment above, Altesino mentioned that having comments marked spam by several bloggers using Akismet will automatically mark comments from that person as spam on all Akismet-enabled blogs. I had not heard that before, but if that is the case, perhaps some of your early comments were marked spam (rightly or wrongly) so Akismets stops all your comments now. I’m just mentioning that as a possibility; I don’t really know.
Keywordluv is good for reduce likelihood of being spammer. Using both of keyword and name in field. Spammer basically leave their keyword instead of name in name field. But the comment should be the first to determine about spam instead of the name. I don’t really see using name@keyword will take more advantage than keyword except reduce likelihood to be spammer.
sama,
There is one more advantage to using a name and keyword than just helping to sort out whether the comment is spam or not. I feel awkward replying to “used cars” or “New York lawyer” or “white teeth.” I can’t relate to keywords the same way I can relate to “Joe@used cars” or “John@New York lawyer” or “Susie@white teeth.” I would prefer just a name but understand the value of a keyword link so am willing to provide that for commenters. But I just them to be real people, not keywords, when I talk to them.
i get lotsa “great post” in my blog also ^^
maybe you surely have a great blog
leon,
I’m sure we both have great blogs.
But those “great posts” comments are still spam.
In my own point of view a good comment is the one that share a knowledge and make other react or interact in your idea.We must stay focus with the subject.
James,
I agree. A relevant comment clearly responds to the topic of the post.
Yes comment spam is becoming a major problem for bloggers now and takes lot of time to moderate them. I am glad you are still holding the nerve and supporting the dofollow movement.
Also about the keywordluv feature most people are not that aware about it and they just leave the name space with the keywords. I think it’s also because the change doesn’t show up in the preview, so I guess you can edit the message above the comment form rather than explaining each and every visitor.
Ben,
I didn’t realize the change doesn’t show up in preview. Thanks for letting me know. I’ll add that to the information above a new comment.
Whenever I used to comment on the blogs which i like and which are serving me with the information i am looking for, I read the whole blog very patiently and aloso the read the comments which are putting some impact on the topic and also having some different ideas to share….
That is why I feel the comments should be added in a proper way to have others to follow you and to get noticed by others….
Snv,
You make a good point. When you leave relevant, interesting comments, people are apt to read your blog and become interested in what you are doing.
Those who leave spam destroy the chance others will want to follow them.
Most bloggers are usually faced with the dilemma of whether to approve or not to approve a comment. It is really a matter of your personal choice. Like you said, spams can easily be detected when they are not related to your post.
Cornelia,
The ones that are so hard to tell are the ones on older posts where the commenter has copied bits and pieces of other comments. So the comment is relevant, just not original.
Hi Lillie,
There are a several problems we have to face when we have the Do Follow blogs, we have to check every comments manually and also to get rid of those comments which are spam….I think Lillie before approving the comments it is important to check the URL of that comment and than approve it as, it should be known whether one doing comments for getting the link juice or they are doing for the purpose of becoming a part of discussion and also to put their points too, related to the topic….
thanks and regards
Snv
Snv,
I do click every link and delete comments that may be relevant comments if the site is inappropriate. For example, I have been getting a lot of comments from an “escort service.” Some of the comments are really good, but the link goes to a page with nude photos of women. Those comments always get marked spam along with comments from sites that are OK but the comment is not relevant—or my pet peeve comments that are copied from earlier comments or the post itself.
Your comments always end up in spam. I don’t know why.
I cannot tell you how many porn comments that I have gotten on my site, and I am also sick of hearing people say “great post!”, when it is so obvious that it is automated by a robot. Lame.
C,
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if “great post” is sincere or spam. There are times when I say something like that in comments, but I try to expand a little on why I thought it was great. On the rare occasions I leave a brief compliment as a comment, it is on a blog where I comment regularly so the blogger can easily recognize it’s a sincere compliment.
However, there’s never any doubt that comments from porn sites are spam. That’s why it’s so important to click every link to make sure—it’s usually obvious, but not always.
One of my blogs has been getting loaded with spam comments over the past week. I have seen several comments here with people using “tools” I guess you can call them, to help seperate the legitimate and the spam comments.
Anyone have recommendations for the best “spam comment tool?”
Ron
Ron,
Akismet is the best spam filter, in my opinion. Beyond that, much of it has to be manual. So far, to the best of my knowledge, no one has figured out a tool to catch the comments copied from earlier comments or the post.
Hi Lillie,
I never thought of comment spam. Plagiarizing the old comment and adding some new??? I should check my mine, I maybe also a victim of this tricks. Thanks for informing us about that, we should be aware of it.
Laura,
That type of spam is most apt to occur on older posts that have a lot of comments, though I’ve been getting more on recent posts. Obviously, it’s easier to catch on recent posts, especially if they don’t have a lot of comments. Something will sound familiar, and when you go back and read other comments, you see the duplication. But who can remember 50 or 75 or 100 comments on a post from a year ago? Now I make it a practice to go back and look when I get comments on old posts.
I do get comments with all question marks, I thought it would be a different language which cannot be translated by the browser. Also, occasionally I get some weird language comments, I used to try to translate using online tools. (but that wasnt worth it) Now I usually delete it.
Thanks for reminding about using keywordluv. I did not know that I can use the real name as well as keyword.
Christian,
I used to spend time trying to determine if comments are legitimate or not. Now with so many, I just delete if I have doubts.
Thanks for using your name. I always point out to people the advantages of Keyword Luv because many don’t understand them.
It is very important tocheck whether the comments we are getting on our posts are relevant to the topic or just doing it to get the backlinks to their site.
Well, i always go through the blogs and check the comments as it is very important to check it.
Thanks and regards
Snv
Snv,
I moderate first-time comments (and some people, like you, tend to end up in spam no matter how many times I approve comments). I also check all other comments when I reply to them. You’re right—every blogger has to monitor the comments on their blog.
Hi, Lillie
Thanks for the reply.
But i am very much surprised that my comments goes to spam, as for me it is very important to add valuable comments as i get all the information from your blogs.
Thanks and regards
Snv
Snv,
This comment was in moderation but not spam. I’m not sure what’s going on.
This is a regular problem. They come up with the most innovative standard one-liners to post on all blogs like
“I cannot find your RSS button. Can you point me to it?
or
“Your blog looks great. Can you tell me what theme you are using?”
or
“I just added you to my Google Reader”
or
“I Googled this topic and found that most people agree with your point of view”
Its really insane!
Jack,
This amazes me. Most of us have probably been fooled by one of these comments the first time it appeared on our blog. Taken by itself, any one of them could be a legitimate comment. It’s only when you realize that it’s posted everywhere or that it’s posted on a inappropriate post (such as a question about your theme on a post about a serious issue) that it’s easy to recognize as spam.
comment luv and keyword luv are the wonderful options to add to your blog. It gives readers incentive to add relevant comments by being rewarded with a backlink.
sabby,
I like to reward those who take the time to read and comment on my blog.
Ah spam! Wonder how life would be without them. No need to moderate the comments and you’ve got a lot of time on your hands. Unfortunately, plugins like Keywordluv and Commentluv can attract these (shall we call them) link sharks as much as those people who leave relevant and insightful comments. Since the least we can do is have Akismet on our sites, there is still the possibility of these people building up on spam even if you don’t approve of their comments, I guess they just have to make our lives harder. However, I am thankful that you installed these plugins; it just shows you really take your readers seriously.
Lucky @ Dog Halloween Costumes´s last blog ..Hat and Collar Dog Costumes
Lucky,
I enjoy interacting with commenters. However, I could do without the spammers. Akismet has caught almost 200,000 spam comments in the last year.
This is a really great post not that i have a really big problem with spam content atm but yea sometimes they do appear on my coments filter since i dont get to much its easy for me to sort or delete but i do know of other fellow bloggers online who have big issues with this i guess the bigger the blog the more value the spamers see in it
Simon,
The more traffic a blog has, the more spam it will get. But also, I think Do Follow increases the amount of spam, because spammers would love to get those do-follow links.
I have written 588 articles on Ezine articles and I think the best was 3 comments on that site for one of my articles. I think people assume that they are going to be spammed by Ezine articles.
I am in the business of promoting my website and keywords and I can see your frustration, yet also I have trouble taking time out from doing the Lord’s work.
It’s good to have a person of the faith. I am going to book mark you and read you more!
Matthew,
Wow! 588 articles—that is a lot. Promoting Web sites has to take second place to doing the Lord’s work.
I liked what you had to say. I would hate all that spam. I am not sure how this works. I see you are a lady of faith, and I think I will follow you.
Sometimes I get too busy doing the Lords work I need to sit at His Feet more. You blog may be a great place for that!
Matthew,
I posted the Advent readings and prayers this year for myself because I tend to rush around and not sit at His feet enough.
Yes we all need to sit at his feet. We can only minister out of the overflow, if we all rush around we may be ministering from the flesh and not from the Spirit.
Thanks for you comments, They did not come to my inbox, I am not sure why they didn’t. I may not have had comments ticked. Yes the 588 articles took 4 years to write..
You have a terrific website
Thanks for your insight, Matthew.
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