Warning… if you leave me a mostly meaningless comment with a keyword in the name field, I will hit the SPAM button and Akismet with cause you pain across the entire Wordpress install-base. You have been warned. Moreso, if your comment is added to one of my older blog posts with good pagerank, I will be doubly unforgiving!
Technorati Tags: spam, akismet, wordpress, spammers, comment-spam, dofollow, nofollow, blogging, alister-cameron
23 Comments
you were wondering... I believe in rewarding commenters!
Unfortunately this practice of leaving comments with keywords in the name field has run rampant in the last couple of months - it’s driving me crazy too. I changed my comment policy and just hit delete, but maybe flagging them as spam is an even better idea.
I assume you “dofollow” comment author’s urls? I know that encourages commenting, but it also encourages spamming. I guess it’s a give and take, pro/con deal.
I personally nofollow, because of this very thing. I love comments, but I hate spam even more.
Amen brotha!
I was beginning to think it was just my blog or that Akismet was starting to fail or maybe it was because I haven’t upgraded wordpress in quite some time.
It has gotten really ridiculous lately. I’ve been getting upwards of 10-20 junk comments per day. Not overt spam that you’d usually see in the old days selling replica watches and male member enhancements, but junk comments with keywords as the name.
Obviously, somebody has figured out a way to pay people to leave almost innocuous comments on blog posts in an effort to get link love.
I should probably post something similar on my blog to warn people because I’ve been doing exactly the same thing as you….it’s all getting marked as SPAM.
I’ve taken to editing their comment if they don’t use a real name or handle, provided they say something worthwhile. Otherwise I’m with you and mark it as spam.
It seems the rise of manual spammers is happening at an ever increasing rate.
Oh yea, I left off my link just in case you figured this was a spam comment…I don’t do that manually
I’m annoyed with this issue too.
I no follow
and just select some commenter manually and link them with rel follow (my blog is small so I can do so hehe)
@Randa - Well, I think it is. Tell Akismet they’re spammers! That’s what Akismet is for, and that’s what they are! If you see them commenting on your high-PR pages, then you have EVERY reason to know they’re being very deliberate for SPAM-only reasons.
I think it is strange. You remove the nofollow tag and do not allow for people to use their keywords. That is contradictory. What is the use of it then? Having 100 links with your own name?
Furthermore, there are many sites (mainly SEO oriented) that do allow it. On my site you can also do it. I think it is a great gift, provided that people leave a message that contributes to the discussion.
I usually put my keywords and finish the message by signing with my name.
Well, this time, it is twice my name
Olivier.
Alister, thanks for the warning but getting such an email in my Inbox was not overly professional IMHO. If I leave a poor comment (feel free to do whatever you like with this one) do what you need to do. I like reading your stuff but this is out of the blue and no value at all.
Came through via remarkblogger.
As I said there, I’ve 11 comments in moderation. Whilst I don’t spam them, I do a monthly post whereby I name and shame the comment spammers, whilst linking to me.
COUNTER PRODUCTIVITY BABY!!
@Bill - As one of my email subscribers, it’s a little different for you and I apologise if it seemed unprofessional from your point of view. Most of my readers are either web or feed people, for whom it didn’t appear as an email title. I think the effect of the headline was rather different for you and email subscribers, and I’ll bear that in mind.
Remember too… I’m a marketer and my headlines are meant to be provocative, evocative, iconoclastic, memorable in tone, etc.
@Olivier - If you use a keyword you better be adding value. And I’m not trying to be a hypocrite. Heck, I comment with “Alister Cameron // Blogologist” on everything, and it could be argued the latter is a keyword… actually it’s my brand and that’s different. Either way, add value and I am a very forgiving person. I don’t think you personally need to worry about that
Thanks for the inspiration, Alister. I have been thinking about doing this for a little while now, and your adoption of this policy tipped me to it. However, my policy is that name ONLY goes in the name field. If you commented on my blog as Alister Cameron // Blogologist, I would delete your comment!
I’ve received a flurry of positive comments from my readers in support of this idea. In the long run, holding commenters to a higher standard will be better for our blogs, especially where Google is concerned.
I’ll be honest, I’m struggling to understand the vitriol that this issue is inspiring - maybe I just haven’t been on the receiving end of enough comment spam yet.
I find that a combination of Akismet and full moderation of all comments works for me - no comment spam need sneak through to my pages. Even so, I still check Akismet because I’d also hate to see someone who has a legitimate comment drowning in the spam bucket.
Jolly.
And another AMEN to comment spam. Thank god for Askimet, I kill more than I save. DoFollow is a great thing, but its gotten so out of hand that the spammers are hitting the dofollow lists and simply going down the line. I’ll keep following my commenters, but I’ll lay heavy on the spammers! Thanks for your insight!
Hi there..
Interesting about the feed vs. email title. I’ll keep that in mind too!
That being said, some commenters are just commenting for the sake of the juice, but sometime they do add something to the conversation. This is a borderline case for do-follow blogs like ours, and a clear comment policy like this will be very crucial.
This is my first comment post, so bear with me. I came over from Michael Martine’s site and although I understand the need to curb this before I becomes a real problem, I’m confused about what is acceptable. If I had signed my post with The Backfire Blog, the name of my site, would that cause me to be marked as spam, or am I just using my brand?
I think Michael has a slightly different take on this. He seems to be taking a zero tolerance stance on the issue, which is fine. It’s his blog and he can do what he wants, but if you have a commentator that comments often using a set signature style, in the name of the “community”, do you as the blog owner have a certain responsibility to let them participate in that manner?
I don’t really know the answer to that. I’m just tossing out the philosophical question.
Dave C. - I can tell you what I do on *my* blog to make the distinction.
If someone were to leave a comment on this particular article along the lines of:
“Great post! I agree that SPAM comments are a problem, something should be done.” And the “name” put in the comments field was “Replica Watches - Cheap”.
It’s obvious that a real person left this comment…it vaguely mentions the post, but come on…it’s so obvious that this is spam. It adds nothing to the discussion whatsoever and it’s obviously intended to just get a backlink.
Akismet is not catching those types of comments and it’s starting to take a lot of time to parse through these…
@Rob - That seems completely reasonable. I can understand why that person would get marked as SPAM, but what if I wrote my last post or this one and signed it Backfire Blog instead of Dave C.? Am I a spammer or am I just using my branding?
@Dave, I don’t know about anybody else, but as for me…if you leave a “legit” comment, I’ll approve it…I don’t care what you put as the name (provided it’s not rude or offensive).
Solution: no-follow.
I don’t mean to be a cynic, but if I were a
spammerSEO expert looking to up my ranking or the rankings of a client, the first thing I would do after setting up the website would be to find a long list of blogs that do-follow. Then I’d add somewhat meaningful/beneficial comments to posts, including the keyword I want to rank for and the url I’m trying to promote.I could easily get between 100-200 quality do-follow backlinks a day doing this.
Oh, and by the way, if you’re on a do-follow list somewhere, you have a giant bullseye on your blog too.
IMHO, do-follow is no good if you’re a blogger. If you’re looking to up your SE rankings, do-follow is a godsend.
Nathan,
Do you think spammers care if you add nofollow to your blogs? You understand that it is all automated and costs them next to nothing, right? If they don’t get PR from your links they still might get a couple of clicks. Even if they get nothing why would they spend their time to filter out your blog from their list, it only takes them a fraction of a second to post. Comment spam is hardly different from its email cousin. Its a matter of numbers.
nofollow does not solve anything. It only disturbs natural linking and punishes your genuine commenters.
You’d be better off using a plugin (preferably that doesnt require captchas) to fight spam. You can checkout a plugin that I wrote http://wordpresssupplies.com/wordpress-plugins/captcha-free/ (shameless plug
). This doesn’t replace Akismet but does complement it very well. Let me know if you try it.
iDope, I think you’re missing a key point….
we’re not talking about the automated garbage that the likes of Akismet or Captcha is going to work….these are obviously comments left by human beings, though shallow (add little to the conversation, but are very loosely related to the content of the post) and with obvious SEO type anchor text put in the name field.
iDope,
Rob is correct, we’re not talking about spam comments … akismet does a good job of catching those.
We’re talking about actual humans, doing their research to find do-follow blogs, adding a moderately on-topic comment, leaving a link to a site you’re trying to get backlinks to with the anchor text I want to rank for.
Dofollow encourages this kind of thing. And akismet/capitcha won’t catch it (neither will your plugin, I suspect).
I am fairly new to blogging and I am amazed to see how much of this landscape has been altered with the dofollow/nofollow scene.
By the way, what is the “acceptable” format for a name - just the first and last name? I do see keywords inserted for names - are all of these posts spammers?
Any help from those of you with more experience is appreciated.
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