Jul

Spammy comments and comment abuse?

Filed Under (Blogging, Site Promotion) by Tricia on 12-07-2007

I run the do follow blogroll and lately I’ve seen a few trends going on. Over perhaps the last two weeks I’ve noticed more and more people leaving comments and using website urls when they sign the comment.

I do realize that not everyone has a blog, but prior to this, the majority of people that have left comments on my many blogs were bloggers and they would sign their comments with either their own name or the name of their blog and use their blog url when leaving their comment.

I’m suspicious since there’s been a steady increase in the amount of people leaving not just business related website urls, but they sign their comments with what could only be called a SEO term. I must suspect that they are doing this so that the links they leave will give them higher standing on the search engines.

For the most part the comments that are being left by these people are relevant to the post – but some are a little empty or seem to copy what someone before them said. Then these comments are signed with “cashmere sweaters” and a clothing business website url. That’s not a real example of what’s been left – but you know what I mean, who signs an url with a product name? Only someone practicing search engine optimization techniques.

I’m sorry, but this makes me feel a little used. That might not be the commenters intention but that’s the way I feel.

Considering that my husband and I have oh lets see 9 blogs on the do follow list and that I tend to approve all of the comments I see trends.

I see people signing their comments with different names and different deep pages within their site, people adding extra links into their comments, people using tiny url within their comments, and people that say pretty much the same thing on all of our websites that they visit.

When someone says pretty much the same thing on all of our sites I feel that the abuse is confirmed. Sure, they might actually comment on the post but then they’ll say something like “I’ve been following your site and visit it daily” on all the sites. Surely you didn’t become a fan overnight when I’ve never seen you here before?

For the most part the people on the do follow list are not abusing the list members although a few newbies need a talking to I think.

Unfortunately getting a link on a do follow blog seems to have gained popularity and people are copying the lists on to other sites and none do follow list members are going around commenting on all the sites.

Not all of these people are abusing our kindness but some are and few people abusing sites that are giving links away for free kind of spoils it for the rest.

I love getting comments on all of my sites. Especially if the comment is true feedback on my post. I just don’t like feeling used by those who are only commenting for a link. I’d prefer that people only comment if they truly got something out of my posts.

Oh yes, another thing making me suspicious of the comments I’ve been receiving lately is the fact that there’s a new company where an advertiser can hire this company to write comments on blogs to get their link out there. You can read the article that was posted on Problogger about comment spam to learn more. If I suspect that someone has left a paid comment I’ll be deleting the comment. Apparently they’ll be targeting bloggers who’s links follow.

Now that’s something to think about isn’t it?

Comments:

24 Responses to “Spammy comments and comment abuse?”

Matthias KÃ¶brich (2 comments.) on 12 Jul 2007 at 4:20 am #

iÂ´ve never encountered this problem.
but maybe this is due to my blog not being that well-frequented…
the only thing iÂ´ve seen were comments like “nice;)” or “ok” but this isnÂ´t spam, is it?
concerning the links to companies – what is the actual problem there? if itÂ´s a comment with quality content then itÂ´s ok – if not, never mind. or is there something that can turn out as a disadvantage for my blog or bloggers in general?
J (0 comments.) on 12 Jul 2007 at 8:03 am #

I think you have to moderate like crazy
Snoskred (1 comments.) on 12 Jul 2007 at 8:53 am #

Usually the first time I comment on a blog I want to let the person know if I’m reading them via a bumpzee community or whatever. So I do feel a bit guilty on this one because I have a little cut and paste text file which I copy the Hi, I’m reading you via blah blah. It then has a gap where I can put the comment I wanted to put, then a looking forward to reading more from you, and my sign off, which is my name and blog url.

This worked fine when I was reading maybe two communities with about 160 posts a day between them, but when I started reading the do follow one I sometimes found myself confused as so many people are using identical templates whether this was my first visit to a blog (and hence the time to copy and paste my thingy) or if I’d been there before..

We’ve been having a great discussion over at Meg’s blog about the want to buy some blog comments and I wrote some fairly lengthy comments on that which I won’t repeat here, if you want to check out the discussion it is here – <a href=”http://blogpond.com.au/2007/07/10/psst-want-to-buy-some-blog-comments/” rel=”nofollow”>PSST – Want To Buy Some Blog Comments?</a>

The sign off came about as I had found there were a lot of newbies to blogging that did not realise you could click on the persons name to get to their profile (on blogger) or their website (on other sites) and they were searching for my blog. I used to get a lot of hits for snoskred but since I put the sign off that has dropped way down. It’s just easier for people to find me that way.

I never just comment for a link, just so you know. But I think that’s fairly clear often with the length of my comments. I just wanted to clear up the copy and paste thing in case you saw that on a few blogs.
bob (1 comments.) on 12 Jul 2007 at 9:00 am #

i don’t think that people that leave a honest replay and you can see they read the post are spammer. it doesn’t matter why he came and the he wanted just a link if he read the article, your message has been sent. and for that he can have his link.
melo villareal (1 comments.) on 12 Jul 2007 at 11:39 am #

everything in this world can be abused… I always check the website / URL provided… if in case there is no relevance and it smells like spam (not the food LOL) i just mark it as spam.
eve (1 comments.) on 12 Jul 2007 at 1:12 pm #

I’ve been getting alot of this type of commenting as well, it does feel a bit dirty. I delete the ones that are obvious spam, like you mentioned, ‘been following your site daily’, etc.

I can understand signing a comment with your website name, like for me ‘Confessions of a housewife’, BUT, not with a keyword- that is just plain tacky! Great article!
Chubby Mommy (1 comments.) on 13 Jul 2007 at 12:03 am #

I’ve noticed the same thing on all of my blogs since joining the do_follow roll, too. Fortunately, Bad Behavior’s been blocking many of them (I’m up to 12,980 blocked attempts on one blog now).

I’ve taken to stripping the URL and replacing the name with “Silly Spammer” but leaving the email addy intact. Just in case it’s legit. I like to daydream about signing those email addys up for every free newsletter I can find, just so they know how it feels.
Kai (1 comments.) on 13 Jul 2007 at 2:23 am #

Yep – have noticed the exact same thing since I removed the no-follow on my two blogspot blogs.

In fact, I see one of my most recent suspicious commenter’s above! (hehe)

It is definitely annoying – I delete ‘em
swollenpickles (1 comments.) on 13 Jul 2007 at 9:55 am #

Howdy,
I noticed something similar which is why i deactivated the do follow plugin. I got tired of cleaning out comments from “liver cleansing secrets that work” etc.
Tiffany (1 comments.) on 13 Jul 2007 at 4:34 pm #

I have seen this a lot on both my blogs as well. I’ve even have some leave links to XXX sites. No, thank you. i edit the ones that seem sincere and just dont know better and delelte the others expecially the ones that comment on like every post. I hate that!
In Disguise (0 comments.) on 14 Jul 2007 at 2:05 pm #

This is pretty interesting in that’s it’s another hypocritical take on where and how people use the web to their advantage.

Let me start by saying that most of the do-follow sites are also offering to write blogs for a fee using different services. Those who hire those services, (including yours truely) do so in order to rank higher on search engines. This is manipulation since no entry would ever have been written were the blogger not paid.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with this, but I do find it a bit hypocritical when a real person (not bot) leaves a real comment (not garbage) and chooses to at the same time play the system. This playing the system is exactly how all these bloggers are earning a living.

Perhaps you are also familiar with a few new Black Hat seo tricks which have intelligently automated this process of leaving realish feedback on blogs. THIS might be seen as abusive; but a real person leaving your blog an insightful comment who chooses to call themselves cashmere sweater for the minute boost it gives in SEO results? I don’t think thats abusive.

I think these bloggers should be thankful for this real traffic, since once the Google algorithm stops recognizing certain types of paid posts, 95% of these blogs will have lost their reason for being and the sole monetization left will be advertising, which needs traffic, which might just be ‘cashmere sweater’ coming to leave a true comment
Musings of a Manic Mom (1 comments.) on 14 Jul 2007 at 2:40 pm #

You know, I noticed an increase in my spammy comments when I joined the Do Follow blog roll too. I just use Akismet and it takes care of it, however it is still annoying!

I do think that your comments will go up on their own anyway, as people are sharing comments in hopes that you return to their site as well. That was the premise of the Do Follow blog roll anyway.

Anyway, I won’t add any SEO terms and I am certainly not signing out with a website
Tricia (31 comments.) on 14 Jul 2007 at 7:35 pm #

In disguise – why is this post hypocritical? Yes I write paid posts and paid reviews and I advertise on my site. The difference is I choose to do that. I can accept or decline a review offer. The only way I can turn down what I suspect might be a LAME paid comment is to delete it.

I can’t choose what companies might come to any of my sites and leave a comment that’s been paid for though.

Not all of the comments I receive are valid. Many are pretty spammy and yeah they come from real people. These comments also contain links to websites rather than blogs and use SEO type terms in the user name field.

If the comment does nothing to add to the post why should I keep it?

Would you keep a comment that babbled about their own post on a different topic and linked to it three times? No you probably wouldn’t.

I became a do follow blogger well over a year ago. I’ve been rewarding my visitors for a long time. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to feel that a few are spoiling a good thing.

It looks like you are saying you are an advertiser who has paid others to write posts for your company or site? If that’s true should the bloggers who have written a post for your company keep all the comments in the post that recommend competing sites?

Would you mind or would you penalize the blogger at the site where you bought the post by giving them a poor rating somewhere down the line when you discovered all the comments under your post advertising similar products or websites?

Unfortunately I get a lot of spammy comments on my paid reviews and when they are promoting a competing site I tend to delete them to protect the post that an advertiser paid for. If a person brings up a valid point I might keep a comment but if they really are spam why keep them. I would hope an advertiser might appreciate the fact that I protect the posts that they’ve paid for on my sites.

If you read my full post I didn’t say I deleted all of the comments from people who sign their comment with a website business url or use SEO terms in their link. I just said it made me feel a bit suspicious.

Am I not allowed to wonder what their motive is or feel a little abused when I see them comment on all NINE of my sites with similar types comments but different urls and SEO terms? With so many sites it becomes obvious who’s gaming and who isn’t.

There’s also good gaming and bad gaming – even bloggers do it to each other.

Now, as I said in my post if a comment pertains to the post and adds to it I keep it. Why not? Where you thinking I delete every post that makes me a little suspicious? If so I do not. I keep the majority of comments I receive.

It’s the spammy ones that pretty much have two or three lines that are the same on ALL my blogs that make me feel suspicious and used.
Aziz (1 comments.) on 16 Jul 2007 at 4:53 am #

Jeez! Where do people get such business ideas from? It’s so ridiculous.

By the way. I believe people who “Do Follow” links do so to increase reader comments. Don’t they? I’ve done it on my blog too. But how does it help?
Flanture (1 comments.) on 17 Jul 2007 at 11:12 am #

I think you should delete every comment that you consider as spam. I know this can be time consuming work but it just has to be done. Maybe some script can help or blocking certain ip addresses?

My blog host doesn’t provide installing ‘do follow’, but I would like to see it, because often I have 0 comments and it isn’t nice to see.

best wishes.
Chris De La Rosa (1 comments.) on 17 Jul 2007 at 8:31 pm #

Well at least you’re getting clean comments. from the 3 blogs I run I get about 50 spam comments a day (pills, xxx, manhood, etc)..well until I saw the “no comments” feature in wordpress. Now I stuck not accepting comments, though there were a few good ones that did apply to what I was posting.
Ventrilo Server (1 comments.) on 18 Jul 2007 at 10:10 am #

Isn’t it kind of a double edged sword though. While some people may be leaving comments on here that help them or a business, their traffic will also help you increase overall traffic on the site and your alexa rank. Doesn’t this help you make more money and gain more exposure?
bharadwaj (1 comments.) on 20 Jul 2007 at 4:01 am #

Hi,

It is quite true that there is a difference between a reader and a commenter.
A reader reads your blog and very few readers leave comments, especially if they use feeds.
On the other hand, i guess i don have to complete the sentence.

Still, if the number of comments is low, i don mind using “follow”

To avoid spammers, you can use comment moderation.
Jim (0 comments.) on 25 Jul 2007 at 8:27 am #

What is wrong with leaving a website URL and not a URL to a blog?

I don’t think you understand the benefit of Do-Follow. You get readers… higher alexa rank… more comments for interesting conversations… more possible ad-clicks… and finally, you might get a full time reader or RSS subscriber.

You also get UGC user-generated-content in the form of comments. This “fresh content” is good for your blog.

I’m guilty of using the dofollow list to drop my site URL when I can. It’s a fun way to find new blogs and read some interesting posts. At the same time, I can promote my site.

So I find your blog from the dofollow list… now it’s up to YOU as a blog writer to grab my attention and keep me interested as a reader. I’ve found some great sites that I’ve bookmarked and subscribed to RSS feeds by reading the dofollow list. I have also found some crappy sites with re-hashed content that I will never visit again.

I don’t think you “get” the whole dofollow thing. You’re not just “rewarding your visitors”… your visitors are rewarding you. It goes both ways.

I’m not going to drop my URL here since it offends you. But you can look at my email address and figure out who I am… I’ve left comments on another one of your blogs. The comment was relevant and on-topic… it just so happens I was looking at the same product as the software you posted about.

*** Note: I’m not talking about people that don’t read your posts or spammers that leave unrelated comments. I’m totally against that.
Sleeping Dude (1 comments.) on 26 Jul 2007 at 3:14 am #

I just delete spamming comments once a week, luckily I don’t have too many comments so it takes a minute. If amount grows I’ll simply write an add-on to make it semi-automated (rocks to be a programmer
Stephen Lauder (1 comments.) on 26 Jul 2007 at 6:05 pm #

I can understand how it is happening. After all, many people jumped on the do-follow movement as a way to drive traffic to their sites (it was a nice little viral marketing campaign).

No, I’m not a long time reader who loves everything you write. Yes, I did find this site thanks to the do follow lists circulating. But, don’t count it against me, just because I want to leave a comment about something that I do have an interest it.

I also don’t get it, why it’s ok for bloggers to comment with a url in their signature, but not a basic website owner. Personally, I’d rather build a diverse group of followers rather than only those who blog.
Lucia (5 comments.) on 27 Jul 2007 at 12:36 pm #

Steven and Jim,
You left real sounding names in the “name” box. You didn’t riddle the comment with SEO terms and links. No one is complaining about comments like yours. The issue of website owner vs. blogger is irrelevant when the comments are real high quality conversational comments– like yours.

In order for you to understand the problem, you need to see the comments. I have three blogs. I am getting comments from people leaving names like “cashmere dog sweaters” “Learn Spanish”, “Thai Dating service”. I am not making these up; I quite literally had comments by people entered these as names. The comments also included an SEO term that was linked to a web site.

It just so happens that bloggers don’t leave this particular type of comment. (This is possibly because bloggers know how it feels to try to have a conversation with someone “named” cashmere dog sweater.)

You may wonder what happens when I get this type of comment? Depending on how bad the comment is, I may report to Alexa, delete only, or just strip the link.

So do many, many, many do follow bloggers.

As a practical matter, this means that if a website owder is trying to boost their SEO this way, they are wasting their own time. They will not get a link from my blog. Period.

You are correct to point out that bloggers join do-follow in their own self interest.

I joined dofollow to increase traffic, boost my Alexa rank and gain visibility. I also want conversation. Joining dofollow works on all counts. I have attracted some regular visitors who only visited because of the dofollow list. It’s great.

But I will not give dofollows to border line comments. I will delete comments that are spammy. Who decides which are which? Me.

Is stripping the link fair? I think so. That I stripped a link or deleted a comment is entirely visible to people like “cashmere dog sweaters”. If they decide to never visit again and not boost my Alexa rank, I accept that.

If they complain, I will simply tell them they made a poor business decision. They chose to visit and leave a meanigless link on a blog I control. I have the power to delete the link. In fact, I feel an obligation to delete what I consider to be spam. I deleted it.

If they want to improve their site rank, don’t try to do it by leaving spam on my blog. It won’t work.
Tricia (31 comments.) on 27 Jul 2007 at 8:12 pm #

Wow I never really expected that this would generate quite as many comments as it has. normally I’d reply to each and every one of you separately but since I haven’t been doing that as the comments came in I think I’ll just reply here.

The bloggers who have commented here who have been experiencing much the same things that I have know where I’m coming from. As I’ve said in my latest post I’m not against those who leave website urls when they are setting up their comment.

If you are leaving valid comments and not adding extra links- especially within the comment itself to sites that have nothing to do with my post then I really don’t have a problem with whoever comes along to leave a comment.

If you are filling your comment with “SEO” terms, and “linking” to the “SEO” words within the comment then no matter how valid the comment might be I’ll probably delete it.

By this I mean that if you look at the paragraph above where I place quotes around some words … just think if those were links to a SEO company? How would you feel if you had a comment like that, filled with links? That’s what ticks me off!

Someone also just got upset because I delete her signature link at the bottom of her comments. Well first of all I’m pulling her comments out of the spam box. I could leave them there. It’s her extra links , and many other commenter’s extra links that gets their comments in the spam box in the first place.

I’ve also been accused of making certain links within comments nofollow. I don’t do that. Perhaps my editing out signature links messed up the comment that already had a nofollow link within the comment making it look strange and now very obvious that something happened there.

My latest post is actually in response to Jim’s comment on this post. I’m not against website urls. I’m against abuse. People that leave valid comments get their comments posted.

I became a do follow blogger to reward my LOYAL visitors – not just anyone who dropped by once to leave five links in their comment.

I fully understand that people caring enough to leave comments means that I’ve generated some interest in my post or my blog and I appreciate that.

I want comments. I love comments. I love real comments.

I do not love comments full of links that have nothing to do with my post or my site.
Dave RH (1 comments.) on 18 Aug 2007 at 6:45 am #

Hi Tricia,

I’ll be completely honest…I have used this technique before to gain links that will give me juice in the search engines. However, whenever I comment on a blog for this reason, I will only comment on posts that I have something to say. Something that will add to the post or the discussion going on about the post.

The way I look at it, if I am going to get some link juice from my comment on your blog, then you should get some quality content written by me as well. Personally I feel this is a fair trade off for both parties involved.

I would suggest you just burn the comments that are copied over all 9 of your sites that don’t really add any discussion as they are obviously spamments that won’t help your site.