Jul

27

I’m not against website urls – I’m against comment spam

Filed Under (Blogging, Site Promotion, Technology News, Webmaster Tips) by Tricia on 27-07-2007

This is in response to those who have left comments on my post “Spammy comments and Comment Abuse“. I think that some people have misunderstood what I’ve written there.

Website owners that do not have blogs are misreading what I’ve written. Please read the post again and this follow up.

I do not say anywhere in my spammy comment post that I will not accept a comment at face value from someone leaving a website url rather than blog url.

What I did say was that a few were spoiling it for the rest by abusing do follow blogs – leaving similar comments on all my blogs no matter what the post is about, adding extra links, leaving lame comments that don’t have much to do with the post or my blog.

Bloggers are doing this too, but for the most part it’s those with website urls that are the most abusive. This makes me a little more suspicious of links to websites.

However, having said that – if you haven’t gone around to all my blogs leaving deep links to your website or a different website url on each of my blogs and your comment is relevant to the post well – your comment will get posted and I’ll leave your link in.

I tend to visit all the urls that are left in my comments. By this I mean I visit blogs and websites alike. If you are leaving an url to a link farm, and your comment is not relevant or if it’s very spammy (full of links!) well I will likely mark your comment as spam.

Please don’t be offended that my guard is up.

There’s just a few rotten apples out there. I get so many comments on all my sites that it takes a while to approve the comments. When I see suspicious behavior across all my blogs my guard goes up.

I love getting comments. If you leave me a decent comment I have nothing against that. Period!

One commenter on my Spammy comment post thought I wasn’t getting the point. That comments mean an increase in site traffic and possibly that I’ve gained a regular reader.

I totally get the point.

Perhaps when you see examples of the comment spam that HUMANS are leaving you’ll get my point too.

Valid comments will never be discounted on any of my sites. Seeing comments on a post does help encourage others to stop and leave their opinion as well. It can get a conversation going and help draw interest in the blog as a whole. I know that.

However, the kind of comments that I’m calling spam will never add to my sites conversation or traffic. These people are just dropping in to get a link or to leave as many links as possible and they don’t really care what I’ve written or what other visitors have written either.

I think I’ll gather some examples of the abuse I’ve seen and make a post about it – just to make it clear why my guard is up.

Also, while I’m at it … Leave your name:

I do reply to most of my comments as well so when someone only leaves a business name or a SEO related term and doesn’t at least sign their comment it makes me feel a little weird replying.

“Good point lumberjack discount wood cutter” – now doesn’t that look strange?

I like to get to know my visitors.

I want to write about things that I’m interested in that also interest my readers.

Naturally I can only tell if I’ve written posts that interest my site visitors if they leave comments. I get it. Yes, leave comments. I love them! Just please be sure to leave a comment that is actually about the post and not an ad for your site. Oh and yes leave your name!

Not being able to put a name to a regular commenter is kind of weird. If you’d at least also leave a name in your comment I’d appreciate it. Please don’t add an extra link with your name though. I tend to edit out duplicate links.

Hopefully this clears things up.

I’m not against website owners urls. I’m against spammy comments that do nothing more than advertise another persons site rather than add to the dialog of my post.

BTW I’m not just a blogger I also have two websites. One sites been in existence since 1995 so yes I know about site promotion and I’ve been around long enough to spot people abusing a site. I don’t tend to leave my website urls in comments that I leave on blogs because my websites are about exotic pets and they’d look a little weird on most of the blogs I visit regularly.

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Tags: blog, blogs, business, comment, comment spam, commenter, comments, do follow, leave comments, post, posts, self promotion, site traffic, sites, spammy comments, traffic, url, visitors, website, write

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14 People Had Something To Say. What Do You Think?

(14) COMMENTS

Comments:

14 Responses to “I’m not against website urls – I’m against comment spam”

1. Paula (1 comments.) on 27 Jul 2007 at 8:17 am #
   
   

   I had a few problems with spam even after installing the Askimet. Although I’m about to remove the ‘no follow’ tag so I’m half expecting a little more spam. I agree about the URLS – lol!
2. Snoskred (2 comments.) on 27 Jul 2007 at 11:09 am #
   
   

   Hi,

   I noticed on my comment on your previous post that you edited out my sign off and link at the bottom of the post.

   I’ve tried to get into the habit of copy pasting that into every comment I leave, so that people can always find my blog. As I said in that previous comment, not everyone knows that you can click on the name in order to get to the blog. And for example, with blogger blogs, by clicking on the name you won’t actually get to their blog, you get to their profile page. If that person has several blogger blogs, you never know which one is their main one and it can take people time to find them – or people might give up.

   You’ve said here you don’t want people to leave an extra link with their name, I will *try* not to do that across your 9 blogs however I’d like to point out that I do the same signoff whenever I leave a comment, wherever I leave one – on no follow as well as do follow blogs – and for the simple and basic reason that it makes it easier for other readers of the comments to know where to find me. I actually wish all bloggers would do this so that it is easier for *me* to find them. The only time I don’t do it is when I’ve forgotten to do it.

   I left a comment on one of your sponsored posts because I felt it was actually relevant to what you’d written, not to promote my site or my page. I thought you were really quite passionate in the review you’d written about a robot lawnmower and I thought you would be even more passionate about a robot vacuum cleaner. I thought it would be interesting to you. I now see you made the link no follow. After reading your post here I’m doing my best not to feel offended, but I have to say that I feel a little unhappy that you felt I was not being genuine and were unable to accept my comments at face value. I also put a link in that last blog post to a discussion which I thought might be useful and add to the discussion your post generated and I see you made that no follow too – it wasn’t to my blog, and the person to whom the link led did not know I’d posted the link there. I’d hate to think you thought they were after a link or something like that – that’s not the case.

   I honestly think you might want to consider putting do follow back on across all your blogs if this is making you so unhappy and wasting so much of your time trying to work out when someone is genuine and when someone is just wanting a link. Why not make it easier on yourself? Across 9 blogs which get a lot of comments, this must take up a lot of energy and you probably could use that for other more useful things.

   Just by being a do follow blog and on the do follow list you are probably attracting comments which it seems like you do not wish to receive. That’s fair enough – no blogger wants people to come and comment just to get a link.

   On the other hand, no genuine blog comment leaver wants to feel like they’re a spammer, and I have to say I am feeling like one after all this. You do run the risk of offending the genuine people who leave comments.

   I’ll be honest, right now if I had your blogs subscribed in my google reader, I’d be inclined to unsubscribe, because I feel a bit upset and insulted about this. Unfortunately you’re a part of the Bumpzee community that I read by RSS feed, so I’ll just have to try and memorize the names of your blogs in that community and try to remember not to comment on them, and try to get over how I’m feeling. I read about 700 blogs a day, so I might fail at this and you might see a comment with a link under the name. I hope you will understand if that happens.

   Snoskred
   (removed link especially for you but normally I would put a link to my site here for other readers to be able to find me. If someone is reading this and they don’t know how to find me – you can click on my name above my comment and it will take you to my blog)
3. Lucia (5 comments.) on 27 Jul 2007 at 12:13 pm #
   
   

   I suspect part of the misunderstanding on the part of your reader is they are not seeing many of the lame spammy comments before you moderate them. I have three blogs and I get them too.

   How is a blogger to react when she gets the same comment at three sites? An SEO word in the comment is hyperlinked for no apparent reason? And the author, whose email and IP address never appeared at any of the blogs, is supposedly named “Learn Spanish” (and hyperlinked to a website selling videos for spanish language tapes?

   I don’t lecture my blog readers, I just either delete those comments, edit out the url or send them to Akismet. It’s my blog; I decide which comments appear.
4. Tricia (31 comments.) on 27 Jul 2007 at 6:17 pm #
   
   

   Paula the spam I’m discussing in this post and in my other post about this are not standard spam – you know the stuff that Akismet usually catches- the comments that are usually on older posts and full of links for drugs etc.

   I just deleted a whole pile of the type of comments I’m taking about … lets see one was on my gardening blog on a review I did for expresso machines. The link the person left was to their own coffee related company and their comment said “Ahh, you should know its never worth giving up! Where would our economy be if our world wasn’t powered by coffee?” The comment had nothing what so ever to do with my post which reviewed some of the top end espresso machines and discussed how I like to go and sit in my garden to enjoy a cup of coffee as I gaze at what ever’s blooming that day.

   There are much better examples than that one of course.
5. Tricia (31 comments.) on 27 Jul 2007 at 7:08 pm #
   
   

   Snoskred – believe me or not, but I did not make the two links you pointed out – Robot vaccums and whichever the other link is that you found nofollow. I don’t do that.

   I’ve never altered a link to make it nofollow. You’ve left quite a few links on my sites and some you have made no follow yourself. If you didn’t do it then maybe wordpress makes the links nofollow when a certain amount of links are in a comment. I don’t know – I don’t think it does, but I know I did not make your links no follow. I don’t do that.

   I did try to make a few links in comments (NOT YOURS) nofollow and I managed to screw up the link! So yeah – I don’t do that.

   I either leave it, delete it or delete the comment. I don’t bother editing.

   One reason why I don’t want people to put extra links in their posts, particular a sign off link is because those comments often end up going into my askismet folder (that’s a spam folder). I fish them out. Many bloggers do not – they just delete whatever their akismet folder caught, often without looking through it at all.

   I don’t blame them, if they get a lot of spam it can take a lot of time to go through and retrieve real comments from the spam pile.

   I’m trying to do you and anyone else who adds extra links to their comments a favor – not necessarily on my site, but on others because most Wordpress blogs are set to put comments with more than one link either into moderation or spam.

   I can understand how you got into the habit of adding your signature line if you visit a lot of blogspot blogs and must leave your comment via your blogger signin. I’d probably want to do that too if a comment section was closed to registered members, but only if it was closed to registered members.

   However, the blogs that are on my do follow list must not require registration. I do not add them to the list if they do.

   It doesn’t make any sense at all for do follow blogs, especially on blogspot where the person will never get a link to their site if they have to sign in through blogger and the link thats left for them is to their profile page.

   So if you are following the blogs on my do follow list you should be able to leave your link when you fill out the comment form.

   If you made your signature link no follow I wouldn’t mind it as much – but it’s not nofollow. Still I’d probably have to keep fishing it out of my spam folder as I do now. You’re complaining that I take out your signature link, but I could just leave your whole comment in my spam folder where I find it almost every time you leave a comment. Fishing through my spam folder to find real comments is a waste of time, but I do it because I don’t like to miss real comments.

   The other reason I don’t want a whole bunch of extra links – especially duplicates if someone has already used that link when setting up their comment is because each outgoing link takes away from my site. I have to combat that by having more internal links or request that people do not add extra links within their comments.

   I also think that most people who have managed to change their blogs to do follow are aware that when visiting a site and looking at comments that have been left by others that you could click on the name they’ve left to get to the site. Yes there might be a few people out there that haven’t clued into that, but I don’t think there are so many that extra links need to be put in comments.

   I am not the only blogger who is upset with extra links and comment spam. Many just delete or mark as spam comments that have extra links – even if the comment is valid.

   Your comments might also be ending up in my Akismet spam folder because others are marking your comments as spam. Once you are on Akismets list of spam comments it’s hard to get out of that penalty box – I’m actually doing you a favor every time I tell akismet that your comment isn’t spam.

   I’m speaking out about comment spam and extra links on my blogs because I’ve seen so many other bloggers getting frustrated and just deleting the comments completely.

   I’m speaking out to let anyone who might be doing things that tick off other bloggers (not just myself) that their comment are more than likely being deleted on other blogs.

   I’m actually trying to help those of you who’s comments might be viewed with suspicion by other bloggers. Take my advice or don’t. I’m trying to help – not hurt.

   Yes it does take me a lot of time to go through the comments on all of our blogs and no I’m not editing each comment. If it got to that point I’d just close my comments! LOL

   I run the do follow list it would be pretty silly of me to suddenly make my blogs nofollow. LOL

   I will however be changing my do follow plugin soon. Only regular visitors that have left a certain amount of comments in the past will have do follow. Others will get dofollow links once they’ve visited enough times. I’m pretty sure you’ve left enough comments that this won’t affect you should you care to continue visiting my sites.

   Ok so do you understand now why I don’t like extra links?

   If I didn’t go searching for comments in my spam folder most of your comments would never make it onto my sites. I’ve actually been doing you a favor all along and yet you are pretty much yelling at me here. I can stop retrieving your comments if you’d like and leave them in the spam folder where they end up most of the time.

   I’m feeling a little upset and insulted too. I’ve explained this a few times in comments on my posts. (not always to you but others)
6. Tricia (31 comments.) on 27 Jul 2007 at 7:30 pm #
   
   

   Lucia thanks for trying to explain what we are seeing. I might not even post examples now after the last comment I got. There’s no point. I’m saving comments by pulling them out of spam, removing the links that are making them get in my spam comments and yet after doing that work and wasting my time doing that I’m making people feel insulted.

   I won’t be posting any more blog posts about this stuff. I’ll just do what I do on MY blogs and that’s it.
7. Lucia (5 comments.) on 27 Jul 2007 at 11:06 pm #
   
   

   Hey Tricia, I can come to your defense on something else too: adding or not adding “nofollows” in the comment text. Whatever you said you did: That’s what you did. What the visitor thinks they observed: that was probably done by Wordpress!

   I know this because I just wrote “Lucia’s Linky Love” and observed very mysterious things about “dofollows” and “nofollows” in the comment text. I also know the mechanics of stripping them out, and I know why things can behave inconsistently in comment text.

   While I was coding and testing “Lucia’s Linky Love” (my new plugin), I noticed this “nofollow” “dofollow” defaults behaved inconsistently in different versions of Wordpress. Why? I do not know.
   However, in some versions of wordpress “nofollow” was automatically added to urls in comments. Worse, sometimes the no follow was added if the blogger actually wrote the full html, but not if they just plopped the url in and let Wordpress turn it into a link. (Or vice versa– I can’t remember which. When I noticed this feature, I had to add a line of code to make sure I got out what I wanted out and left in what I wanted in in the four versions of WP I tested! )

   Also, some dofollow plugins strip that auto-added no follow out of comment text; some only strip it out of the author name. Plus, things behaved inconsistently. (This is actually because Wordpress is inconsistent. I coded to enforce consistency when I was able to figure out what various versions of WP do. Otherwise, well… who knows?)

   Anyway, quite often, the individual blogger has no cluewhat happens to follows in text and doesn’t control that. So, if a visitor accuses the blogger of adding or deleting “follows” in the text of the comment, that’s probably not a fair accusation. WP does that.

   Of course, if a person leaving comments accuse me of adding a nofollow, I can explain in detail. Also, I’ll check and fix my plugin if that’s the problem. I can do this because I wrote the darn thing! But visitors hurling accusations about adding do follows in comment text is unfair because that’s actually a Wordpress/ dofollow plugin problem.

   Oh.. obviously, you should all get my plugin. It’s better.
8. Snoskred (2 comments.) on 27 Jul 2007 at 11:39 pm #
   
   

   Well I’m on blogger, so I didn’t know wordpress does that. After reading these two posts it wasn’t a difficult (incorrect) assumption to make. I try not to make assumptions most of the time but this time I guess I made an ass out of me. It happens from time to time.

   My point remains – it’s a lot of work, so clearly you would be better off taking do follow off your blogs – at least, 8 of them. There is nothing wrong with doing that if it’s not working for you. The fact is do follow blogs are being targeted, and do follow blogs on any kind of list are going to have some real issues with this. I have seen bloggers struggle with this and then take it off, and all of them feel a lot better because of it.

   I know you run the list, but if you’re viewing *any* comments with suspicion then something not good is going on here.

   I wasn’t yelling at you – I was trying to tell you how I felt. If I were yelling, you would have seen caps. I can only think that we both feel a bit defensive on this issue – me because I don’t like being called a spammer but I want to leave the link so people can find my blog – I spend so much time writing what I feel are good comments and so many people follow them to my blog and become readers, and that’s what every blogger really wants, right? – you because you genuinely don’t want to offend genuine commenters but you’re having such an issue with the spamming you want to let others know what is going on.

   Lucia, I am a big fan of your plugin because it makes it easier for everyone. I’ve got no problem visiting a site several times because that’s what I usually do anyway though it might take me a while seeing as I read so many blogs. If I like a blog, I’m going to comment there.

   I like your blogs, Tricia. I’m sorry the spammers are targeting you but honestly after reading what that buy blog comments guy said about targeting do follow blogs and having lists of them to comment on, it isn’t surprising that your comment spam has risen lately. When I read through his site I thought two things- that’s one more good reason to leave a link at the bottom of your post, because he says he won’t do that, the only link he will leave is the one where the name is – and that’s why I will never join a text based do follow list, because I don’t want that kind of traffic coming to me.

   I’m going to have to seriously rethink how I leave comments if Akismet is going to keep putting me in the spam bucket. ;( Thanks for pulling me out of there, I do appreciate it. You put a lot of work into your blogs, anyone looking at them can see that. I’ll do my best to remember which ones are yours and not leave a link in them..

   Snoskred
9. Andy (1 comments.) on 28 Jul 2007 at 8:18 am #
   
   

   What people are no doubt after when posting a link in the message itself is no doubt to get the right anchor text in their back link. For this comment for example, I would rather have had “Internet marketing tool” in as anchor text than my name.

   Blatant spam is a cut and dry case, but how do you feel about people (with legitimate comments) entering their desired anchor text in the name box? Then at least they wouldn’t have the need to enter another link in the message.

   All the best,
   Andy
10. Brent Crouch (1 comments.) on 28 Jul 2007 at 12:58 pm #
    
    

    I just started my blog and it has less than 30 posts. I am amazed at the number of users that attempt to spam me everyday. I get more spam comments per day than I have posts. It is just crazy.

    I enjoy your blog. Keep up the good work.
11. Lucia (5 comments.) on 30 Jul 2007 at 6:00 pm #
    
    

    Andy,
    Thank heaven you used Andy instead of “internet marketign tool”. I would hate to have to address you as “Look, you tool!”

    When leaving comments, you need to realize that the blogger is offering a “dofollow link”, but they are not necessarily offering the “dofollow link of your dreams”.

    Bloggers like polite conversation and having commenters address each other as “Tools” tends to make the comment look a bit hostile.

    Even when the SEO term doesn’t force people addressing you to call you a tool, bloggers hate seeing SEO terms in the “name”. Many will strip the links, edit the name or report you to AKISMET. Some don’t mind that SEO terms. They will permit it to appear.

    This is a risk for you.

    After all, if one blogger reports you as spam, this affects your Akismet rating at all blogs.

    If you feel you absolutely must leave an seo term as a name, leave your name too. (For example: Andy — internet marketing tool” is less likely to go to Akismet than just “internet marketing tool”.) Also, before you start dropping seo terms in the “name” visit a few times and notice whether or not you are seeing seo terms in the “name”.

    If you don’t see any, don’t leave any! (Or risk the consequences.)
12. JasonJ (3 comments.) on 31 Jul 2007 at 5:48 pm #
    
    

    @Lucia – … the “dofollow link of your dreams” — that is hilarious. Is that domain name taken?
13. Debo Hobo (1 comments.) on 11 Aug 2007 at 12:16 am #
    
    

    I agree, don’t leave your url in the comments. It is linked to your name anyway. Don’t be spammy it is tacky.
14. matchedThe War on Comment Spam | The Web Files ( comments.) on 18 Sep 2009 at 2:46 am #
    
    

    [...] have in place to catch it. The spam that has continued to upset me throughout the summer has been human generated comment spam on my do follow [...]