by Good day! Thank you for reading my most magnificent pleasing thread post!
Those two sentences either have you laughing or closing my post before the final exclamation point. Scratching your head? Well, you’re lucky. You must not be familiar with blog comment spam.
Hello, Spammers! Goodbye, Spam!
I’ve been wading through a fair amount of spam comments lately. Every day, I make sure to cleanse my blog of those carefully crafted crap nuggets. Why? Because a clean website is a happy, SEO site.
Spam comments are all about the link. The goal: clicks, and tricking Google into believing they’re relevant resources.
Where does spam come from? Does someone bang out each of these beauties? Did human thought create this? (By the way, these are all true examples, printed exactly as written. You’re welcome.)
- “Magnificent goods from you, man. I’ve understand your stuff previous to and you are just too excellent. I really like what you have acquired here, really like what you’re stating and the way in which you say it. You make it entertaining and you still care for to keep it sensible. I can’t wait to read far more from you. This is really a wonderful site.”
Those sentences make a modicum of sense (though anyone actually reading my site knows I’m not a man) and display somewhat sensible sentence structure. The message is generic enough to work.
Unlike, say, this comment. Yes, I have copied and pasted it in its entirety:
- “For example, many myth stories begin with the birth of the hero, followed immediately by the death of the father.”
You wonder a bit as to the origin of this speciousness. I like to image a bunch of chimps in a room, randomly typing. Voilà — spam comments!
Generating spam isn’t hard; the right tool and template make it easy to post prolific and pesky blog comments for profit.
Humans do type in text (though bots do “create” quite a bit). A few opt for the old if-its-long-enough-she’ll-believe-and-approve strategy. Note the sprawling structure:
“Hey Elton here,
look I know you get messages all day long offering you SEO…
pay me $1000’s now and you “may” see results in 6 months time.. is the normal BS pitch!
how about some advertising that works, and gets you results in days not months!
let me and my team put you on 60 LOCAL sites that get BIG traffic and will get the phone ringing this week..you don’t need to pay 1000’s to get the calls coming in, you just need to be in front of your local markets. Getting calls and sales does not need some over complicated SEO strategy!
1. We put your Business on 60+ local directory sites and social media local groups. (Facebook etc.)
2. calls come the same week.
3. you make more sales.
4. rinse and repeat
o did I mention this all costs less then a meal out!
this works fast..
get all the info here [link deleted]
use use coupon code TWNETYFIVE on the website to make this the best ROI you have seen, get calls and sales this week!”
Gotta admire this one, which alludes to earlier spam with a sort of hang-dog real person needy pathos. Aw, I feel sorry for the guy!
- “Hmm it appears like your blog ate my first comment (it was extremely long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I wrote and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog. I as well am an aspiring blog writer but I’m still new to everything. Do you have any tips and hints for beginner blog writers? I’d certainly appreciate it.”
For every long yin, there’s a short yang. Pithy! Nonsensical! Capitalization challenged!
- “This i like. Cheers!”
- “Great, yahoo took me stright here. thanks btw for post. Cheers!”
- “It is retailer shelving—retail retailer shelving.”
This is one of my favorites, because it is actually a complete, interesting thought. Also totally irrelevant, and the poster’s address revealed it to be hips-deep in spammy intent but call me crazy—it works for me.
- “In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.”
Some blog spam puts on a cloak of concern. It’s touching, really. They’ve cluttered up your comment box because they care:
- “hey there and thank you for your information – I’ve certainly picked up anything new from right here. I did however expertise some technical points using this site, as I experienced to reload the web site lots of times previous to I could get it to load properly. I had been wondering if your web hosting is OK? Not that I am complaining, but slow loading instances times will very frequently affect your placement in google and could damage your high-quality score if advertising and marketing with Adwords. Anyway I am adding this RSS to my email and could look out for much more of your respective intriguing content. Ensure that you update this again soon..”
- “This is a message to the Holding On to Weight after 50 – Enjoying the Journey admin. Your website is missing out on at least 300 visitors per day. Our traffic system will dramatically increase your traffic to your site: [link removed] – We offer 500 free targeted visitors during our free trial period and we offer up to 30,000 targeted visitors per month. Hope this helps 🙂 Unsubscribe here: [link removed]”
“A good comment spammer will spin out tens of millions of spam comments” ~ Nate Shivar
Some blog spam comments do come across as human. That’s because they most likely are. Remember: the goal is to get that link on the site to help generate traffic. The better crafted ones, not randomly selected and copied phrases, will sneak by your spam filter easier. Do any of these comments make you think twice?
- “Good day!, Thanks a lot for this pleasing thread! When I was finding best swimwear for my type of shape I found vintage bikini. Website where I discovered most popular selections of high waisted vintage bikini: [link removed] I hope it will help you!”
- “Hello fellow webmaster, just like you I am a webmaster trying to make a dime in this business. I recently discovered this great method that teaches you how to make some extra money with your website: [link removed]
- “Did you get some of your thoughts from here (similar perspective): [link removed]”
These guys asked really, really nicely. While I applauded the extra attention and politeness, I spammed and trashed it anyway.
- “This is such a great website. please check out our website at [link removed] thank you and have a great day.”
Every now and then, those weird comments are fairly offensive. Tell me this gem won’t set your eyeballs rolling:
- “site promotion will always be a tedious job but you can outsource site promotion on some indian or pakistani guy-“
And while “offensive” may be a product of your politics, I was not pleased when “president donald trump” (author’s lack of caps, not mine) stopped by with this grammatically challenged and bit of wisdom:
- “It’s difficult to find knowledgeable people within this topic, but you be understood as you know what you are dealing with! Thanks “
Stemming the Spam Flood
Dealing with blog comment spam is a lot like getting rid of nut grass in the yard. When the weedy invader appears, you have three good options: pay someone to spray and tend, obliterate the problem by installing AstroTurf, or crawl around meticulously pulling those suckers out yourself. Similarly, you can pay for a new spam blocker or upgrade the blog’s existing service. An easy, low-maintenance fix is blocking comments altogether. But where’s the fun in that? Some real people actually do have something to say and want to connect. Isn’t that why we blog?
Manually approving all comments keeps spam at bay and provides a bit of entertainment. Like porn and nut grass, you know it when you see it. Horrific punctuation and spelling, incomplete sentences, unrelated links, and nonsensical content are solid indicators. (Though there are exceptions. There’s always that one random friend whose legit posts read like several cocktails were involved in its creation.)
If a comment sounds borderline authentic, the poster’s address usually provides the big spammer reveal.
- “Really? It really is excellent to witness anyone ultimate begin addressing this stuff, however I?m still not really certain how much I agree with you on it all. I subscribed to your rss feed though and will certainly keep following your writing and possibly down the road I may chime in once again in much more detail good work. Cheers for blogging though!”
- “I’m amazed, I have to admit. Rarely do I come across a blog that’s equally educative and entertaining, and let me tell you, you’ve hit the nail on the head. The problem is an issue that too few men and women are speaking intelligently about. I’m very happy that I came across this in my search for something concerning this.”
Irony’s a nice, sophisticated touch. This next one makes me smile.
- “Hello, i read your blog from time to time and i own a similar one and i was just wondering if you get a lot of spam comments? If so how do you stop it, any plugin or anything you can suggest? I get so much lately it’s driving me crazy so any assistance is very much appreciated.”
The downfall to sifting through blog comment spam? There are days when any comment feels like a good comment. In those weak moments, when you’ve despaired that anyone out there is reading all your most magnificient pleasing content at all, it’s awfully tempting to just let a bit of that flattering spam stay.
- “Hello there! I simply wish to offer you a huge thumbs up for the great information you have right here on this post. I will be coming back to your website for more soon.”
- “I am impressed, I must say. very seldom do I stumble upon a blog thats both educational and entertaining, and let me tell you, youve hit the nail on the head. Your post is important; the matter is something that not many of us are speaking intelligently regarding. i’m very happy that I stumbled across this in my explore for one thing relating to it.”
- “I’d have to check with you here. Which isn’t something I usually do! I get pleasure from reading a put up that can make people think. Additionally, thanks for allowing me to remark!”
- “I discovered your site website on google and appearance several of your early posts. Continue to keep on the very good operate. I recently additional your Feed to my MSN News Reader. Looking for toward reading far more from you afterwards!”
