I had this comment on a previous post in the last week, regarding this site’s stance of “targeted comment spam” – long story short, I don’t allow it.
Says the guy with thousands advertisements on his website. Talk about getting bent out of shape for nothing. It should really come down to the quality/relevency of the comment. You feel it’s rubbish, fine, delete it, just don’t do it because the guy put “used toyota cars” instead of “John”, what’s the difference? Comment is valid, he gave you content for your blog, you should be happy. Don’t label spam what isn’t.
What is he talking about? Well, to begin with, for those of you with a blog, you know doubt get blog comments from people who – instead of putting their names in the blog, put a keyword phrase they are trying to target. It counts as a relevant link back, but the comment quality is usually terrible, something like “Nice post, cheers!” or “Thanks, I learnt so much from this article!” (an article usually talking about my bowel deficiencies, or something like that). The worst is when they come across articles where I talk about being dumped or dead family members, and their comments were still blind “learning so much” etc.
To begin with, I allowed it. Hell, it was a comment, but I couldn’t say I was totally happy with it. I eventually stopped when both Debbie and Rick pointed out there was a lot of comment spam (both from what Debbie said in a comment and Rick texted me. To be honest, they just confirmed what my fears were. That it was a new form of comment spam.
And it is.
They are not useful comments, they are rubbish comments. The guy who left the comment above is quite clearly not a blogger, and has never been. Comment spam in this form is horrible in my eyes, and I do mark it as spam in the vain hope that it eventually stops.
Don’t get me wrong, I am semi-guilty of doing it myself. I’ve been pushing the Commodore 64 Forum on Retro Garden, so have been commenting on a lot of C64 blog posts. However:-
- I use the name “Retro Garden”
- My comment is actually useful, more than “thanks for reading”. Asking a question is good here.
- I usually subscribe to the blog in question, especially if it’s a Commodore 64 blog, so I can read it again.
In the 10 or so comments that I have left like this, all 10 have been published, I’ve had 5 linkbacks from future posts, 4 comments in return, 3 of the bloggers have joined the retro garden forum and one has plonked me straight on the blogroll. Sometimes, this is more important than the negligible SEO benefit.
And regarding advertising? Well, I do it to pay off some of the bills on this site (it covers it). I occassionally post about things that are paid posts, but it’s only things I think you guys would be interested in. Hell, I review Wii games anyway, if I get one for free so what. But I don’t post about things I know nothing about, nor pollute my content with Adsense.
I suspect however the guy who left that comment, now I’ve allowed his email address, will probably call himself “Cheap Replica Watches” and link to a spammy page.
Do you get comment spam like this? How do you deal with it? Am I being bent out of shape for nothing?
Comments: 5 Comments
Rhys Wynne, the author of this blog, is a 20 something web designer from Colwyn Bay. 
If they get through then they get deleted as soon as I spot them, they’re just as spammy as actual spam IMO
If the comment is constructive then I’ll usually leave it up but a “thanks for this post” or “this was very interesting to read” get bahleeted sharpish.
WP ate my comment damnit!
I delete them unless the comment is actually constructive and shows that they may have even taken the time to read the post, the responses like “This is very interesting” or “what an informative read!” get bahleeted
I get absolutely shitloads, since being featured on a bucket of dofollow lists, and I delete every single one of them. I don’t care how long they are, how sincere they are, how well thought out they are.. if you’re not using a real name or an equivalent nickname (and no “used cars” is not a nickname) it will be deleted.
I have a post from 200-flipping-6 about Halloween costumes that has all of sudden become the target of some idiot(s?) at a costume shop in Rhode Island. Unlike usual comment spam, they were relevant comments and each seemed different but all were about this one shop. I wrote a warning for them to stop. After the 15th comment in three days, I marked ‘em all as spam.
I have absolutely no problem with people using an anchored keyword instead of a person’s name in my comments on OpTempo. All I ask is that they comment that they leave be on topic so that it adds to the discussion at hand and of reasonable length. I’ve seen two advantages to do this.
First, it increases the amount of relevant content on a post. That means more content for Google and more long tail search terms I’ll snag. That means more money making search traffic.
Second, it increases the activity level on the site which not only makes it exciting to Google but to referral visitors as well. Many people love to jump in on active and interesting discussions so my referral visitors and RSS subscribers have gone up too. And, while my primary monetization depends on search traffic, I’ve found that I also get sales to regular visitors/subscribers too.
It is true that I get the typical “Great Post” auto-spam comments. Akismet usually nails them though. I also moderate all new commentators which allows me to screen those that get through. I rarely Akismet spam these commentators though. What I do is remove their link and put a few words in their digital mouth.