In the beginning there were blogs.
And yea, God saw that they were good.
After all, what a fantastic way for anyone to become an online publisher.
Sure, the word "blog" doesn't roll off the tongue. It sounds more like you are about to upchuck yesterday's hot dog.
But being short for "web log", it does work in a "oh well I guess it will do" kind of way.
The beauty of blogs is that you can post your thoughts in a matter of minutes (as I doing right now).
The thing that makes it even better is that readers can comment on your entries and add value to the discussion.
Over the years, unscrupulous marketers have created tools to create backlinks to their sites by posting comments on any blog they can find. By creating backlinks from a number of blogs, they hope to increase their own search engine rankings.
Not on my watch, bub.
Now Wordpress and Moveable Type have built-in spam filtering tools that catch a lot of the garbage.
However, the best defense against comment spam is a good offense. In this case, I moderate ALL comments on my blog. In other words, if I don't want to publish your comment, I won't.
Here are examples of the newest tactics comment spammers are using to attempt to game your blog.
Notice how generic the comment is. It could go with ANY blog entry and slip by the attention of publishers who don't know what to look for. This person is NOT commenting on my blog. They are trying to get attention to their site by using the keyword "temperature control" and linking to the url displayed in the comment.
Aw, isn't that sweet of russia_2009@mail.com to say such kind things about my entry? "It will be interesting that further?" Huh? Oh, wait. The url they are linking is for a russia women dating site. Great...
This clown isn't even being subtle. "Hello, I am going to use your blog to promote my cr@p." Ain't gonna happen. Well, if anyone wants to visit this person's site, you can see the url. Hmmm, I guess he DID use my blog to promote his cr@p! ;-)
So there you have it. Comments like this never make the cut on my blog. I delete them before they are approved.
And if you wonder why your comment doesn't display after you submit it, it's because I am reading it to make sure it is legitimate.
Comment away!
It's Del.icio.us!
Furl It!
October 13, 2009 09:58 AM
Personally, I only moderate the first comment, but since many of my blogs are in Danish, it is easy to spot the intruder.
October 13, 2009 10:07 AM
And the Delete button was made. For this purpose, spams be gone.
October 13, 2009 10:09 AM
I hate spammers too, but you have to, well, somewhat admire their creativity.
This is what my spam looks like lately.
Submitted on 2009/10/13 at 8:26am
"подробней пожалуйста"
Author: felix, denwarez.ru
Is this a language, code or what? Maybe it's spam for the spam eaters. Maybe they're hoping I'll copy it into a blog about spam and set off a fire?
October 13, 2009 10:17 AM
Now I'm afraid to make a comment Joel - I've been seeing more and more of these comments as well.
October 13, 2009 10:18 AM
This is really very interesting. I have never thought that spammers will go to such length just to get their sites noticed.
As for the generic comment, erm ... I do post some generic comment too but of course not in the way like what you have mention in your post. Looks like I have to be more careful in my future comments.
But I would like to know if the person who comments but do not have a website (like me), how do we know whether that is a legitimate comment? As we do not have a url to do comparisons.
Thanks for sharing Joel. This post really make me sit up and take notice on how I post my next comments on any site that I visit in the future. Do not wish to have any site labeling me as a spammer when I don't even know where I have gone wrong. Got to improve the way I write my comments from now on.
October 13, 2009 10:22 AM
Joel, thanks!! As usual your info is so useful.
October 13, 2009 10:57 AM
I've also noticed that the very advanced spammers will actually come to my site for real and leave a real comment to get past the site owner approval process. I think they're a real commenter... let them through... and their comments don't have to be approved from then on.
Then, they hit me with the spam. Annoying, but easy to spot and delete now.
October 13, 2009 11:24 AM
Hey Joel -
Spammers will always be creative as they see the benefit being so high. I wish someone would create a whitelist of blog commenters that would integrate with Wordpress. You could make it similar to Google's Page Rank. People with high authority would be allowed to comment without being moderated while those with very low authority would be required to be approved.
As more Internet Marketers teach blog commenting as a way to generate traffic, spammers will try the path of least resistance. It does appear to be humans in most cases who post this drivel though. So look at it this way, you are giving someone somewhere an income they wouldn't have otherwise Haha!!!
Keep up the good work. I always enjoy your viewpoints and understanding how a true professional does things.
PS Feel free to link back to my site :)
October 13, 2009 12:32 PM
Hi Joel,
With all the great tools available to bloggers today it is fairly easy to filter most of the garbage spam that is getting pushed out on our sites.
Of course, I use Akismet on all my blogs and for the ones that REALLY matter I have installed Intense Debate. This adds yet another layer of filtering to my comments and even rates the commenter with regards to the quality of their comments.
Keep up the great work (Had to throw in a Kudo/smooze for you!)
October 13, 2009 01:02 PM
Wow...what a post! I never come across such a lovely post which is very well written, to the point, and have everything blah blah blah. I get a few of these comments that read very much like the instructions on a package of chopsticks.
Welcome to Chinese Restaurant.
Please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks the traditional and typical of Chinese glonous history and cultual. Hold tirst chopstick in originai position move the second one up and down Now you can pick up anything:
I use a very simple text based verification spam filter (which diplays a mock 7 before and after the actual code), with instructions to ignore the number 7 at the beginning and end of the string, anyone who actually READS just enters the generated code minus the first and last number and their post is automatically approved.
October 13, 2009 02:38 PM
Actually, any post that somebody puts their url in is spam. I'm guilty as all of you are too. They're getting their opinion and comments out just so their site will get noticed.
Let me also comment on how those spammers get past the captcha. They pay people in the Philippines $2 an hour to run a blog bot that whenever there is a captcha, they get a prompt on their screen, see the captcha, and enter it for the bot.
Imagine paying several of these people just $2 an hour and racking in thousands of links to your site a day. Cheaper than buying them where links can be anywhere from $1 each to $10 each and more.
Not all bots follow the "nofollow" tag either. So let's say search engine bot X doesn't follow the link (as it's supposed to), but search engine bot Y does follow the link, when X indexes Y, it will see the link there and then follows it. If the meta tags on the page itself instruct the bot to "index, follow", what's to stop it from doing that? I'm not even going to go into bots that don't follow the robots.txt or robots meta tags. That just upsets me even more.
October 14, 2009 12:29 AM
Hi Joel,
I like the effort you are putting into making sure that all the comments live on your blog are really from the readers of your blog & we appreciate it.
I personally think its a great way of showing to your readers that you care about them.
However, I still have one complaint. Now, since you really read it anyway to keep spammers away, take few minutes more to respond to few good ones anyway. I know your thoughts on ours is cherry on cake, you know. Time consuming but a worthy effort for sure.
October 14, 2009 01:09 AM
Hey Joel, i reckon you might just have saved yourself some valuable time by discouraging people using those unsubtle little tricks, but what really winds 'me' up is the fact that on a couple of my sites I have submission pages for information that's vital to further action. Those pages draw these suckers like an electro-magnet, with the latest craze being activists from middle-east countries spouting their political offerings.
Wordpress as a blog-host is great at raking them out into the garbage pile, but to a techno-phobe like me, operating in a tiny little privateer corner somewhere in the UK, using Yahoo as his 'main' website host.....Hmmmm? It doesn't half take some time up. (Talk about looking for needles in haystacks).
Anyway, good to know I'm not the only one who spends his time this way {:-))
Keep smilin' ... Pete.
October 14, 2009 02:50 AM
I have to disagree a little with Steve.
I moderate every post on every site, because I've become a target for "Russian Dating Sites" as well as some people who believe in using profanity and obscenity in their comments.
However, when I comment on a post, it is because the topic interests me and I have an opinion (usually a strong opinion). When I take the time to comment on a post that is totally unrelated to my niche, as I understand it, it doesn't give me a boost in Page Rank because it doesn't relate to my topic.
But just because I don't get a backlink that helps me doesn't stop me from voicing my opinion on topics that interest me, or outrage me.
There are many valid reasons for commenting other than SEO, etc.
I may not be the best marketer on the planet, but I protect my blogs and websites AND I comment when it feels right.
JMHO,
Your friend,
Brennan
October 14, 2009 11:11 AM
When our blog went live a few years ago the first comments we got (that very day) were lewd spam comments. They find you fast those spammers. Our major concern was not so much about the spam itself but what it said about our online presence and what our visitors would think. Its all about perception. We installed Akismet and put processes in place to monitor comments.
Its important to have a policy for deleting comments though. All spam should be deleted of course but don't be tempted to delete a comment simply because the point of view contradicts yours or is negative. Use this as an opportunity to respond in the public forum - you will gain respect and improve your brand image as a result.
October 15, 2009 12:18 PM
For awhile I was comment spammed alot and then it calmed down. Without making any changes it seems to be picking up lately. Thankfully like you I moderate everything and all of it is caught.
November 13, 2009 09:28 AM
I wish Google would stop (and TELL people they are stopping) using any kind of incoming links in their page ranking algorithm. Half the fake comments don't even have words - they are just a mass of letters in any order. It would be very easy to Google to simply blacklist any URL presented like this.
I manage several dynamic websites and I have to watch half a dozen areas for these fake postings. Even on static site, every single form I design eventually gets hacked - no matter what validation you put in somehow they find the back end files. I now have to accept and forward emails from forms because otherwise my client will get inundated with junk.
I really believe if Google stopped using incoming links for Google Rank, we developers wouldn't waste hours having to delete and manage it.