Are these comments for real or just spam? is a post by Fiona Powell from the blog Chiefette
If you’re a blogger, then you’ll be hoping for comments from readers on your blog.
At least you know someone is reading your posts, right?
So it’s rather exciting when you receive a rush of comments and it can be tempting to publish them all.
But have another look at those comments. Do they mention your name at all? Does the comment actually relate directly to your post (eg they’ve agreed or disagreed on a particular point). If they don’t, then chances are the comment is spam.
As a moderator of lots of blogs and a blog community I read LOTS of spam comments. They’re unfortunately a sad fact of blogging – and now comment spammers have got smarter; they don’t pack their comment full of links anymore, they actually write a comment and get past all the spam filters.
Why do they do spam blogs with comments?
Who knows… most blog software marks comments as ‘no follows’ , meaning the link doesn’t give the link’s owner any SEO credit to help their google rankings. Sure you can click on the link – but who would bother? So the spammers are wasting their time because they don’t receive any link juice.
How can you stop the comment spam?
Make sure you have a spam filter enabled (like Akismet ) to stop the obvious spam. Ensure your comments are held for moderation before published and that you receive an email notification of comments held in moderation. Then moderate comments quickly and ruthlessly.
But the comments look impressive on my blog.
Trust me (and I’ve seen it) 90 spam comments on one blog post doesn’t look good. One real comment is better than 90 spammy ones. And the number of comments on your blog is just one measurement of your blog’s success; track traffic, subscribers and links back to your blog.
So what do spam comments look like?
Like this;
This post doesn’t make any sense, you should add more details, it may help the readers.
(Don’t be offended – it’s spam; delete it!)
Why have you deleted my post? It was very helpful information and i guarantee at least 1 person found it helpful unlike the rest of the comments on this website. I’ll post it again. Sick and tired of getting low numbers of useless visitors for your website? Well i want to tell you about a fresh underground tactic which makes myself $900 daily on 100% AUTOPILOT.
(Again, don’t be offended or reply; it’s spam – delete it!)
Wow this was doubtlessly one of the best blurbs I have go over on the subject so far. I don’t understand where you learn all your data but keep it coming! I’m going to send some folks to this site to take a look at this post. Awesome, totally fantastic.
(Great for the ego – but it’s spam. Where’s the direct comment to your post?)
Intimately, the article is actually the sweetest on this precious topic. I harmonize with your conclusions and will eagerly look forward to your future updates.
(yes, yes… but it’s SPAM)
I do not have time to read it all at the moment but I have bookmarked it and also added your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read more,
(This adds nothing to the dialogue on your blog, it’s SPAM).
So – cull those spammy comments and let the real comments shine.
