A Look At The Different Types Of Comment Spam

One of the biggest issues currently facing bloggers is the spam epidemic. Not only are spammers stealing our content, but they are also spamming us via blog comments.

Traditional Spam

Some comments are obviously spam. These are sent all over the place in massive quantities. They are the main threat - but luckily they are almost always caught by Akismet.

Less Spammy Comments

Several new programs and services have come out recently that let people advertise their blogs via comments. Essentially they spam you, but not nearly as badly as massively sent spam comments. Here’s one I got the other day:

The program they use simply copies your title, tosses it in with some text, and makes it seem friendly. One look at the URL should make anyone think it is spam.

Paid-For Comments

Another way you may get comment spam is from “paid-for comment” services. Basically they pay people advertise someone’s product or website. This form of spam is much less dangerous (it doesn’t hurt your blog’s appearance as much), but it should still be dealt with.

The best way to figure out if a comment was paid-for is to look at a few things:

E-mail Address - If it is a yahoo address (or gmail, hotmail, etc) but the URL is some product page - be aware. Usually they are from paid-comment services.

URL - If the URL points to a product page instead of the homepage for a blog or website, you might also be dealing with a spam comment. Often times the product being advertised will be similar to auto-blog software or “get rich quick” books.

Do they talk like a robot? - If the commentator sounds like this: “This water purifier is the greatest water purifier on the planet… blah blah”, then it is most likely someone getting paid to comment.

Be Strict

Put a zero tolerance policy in place that says spam and paid-for comments are not allowed. Be strict about it as well - delete any comments that seem a bit too spammy. However, do take note that sometimes public relations people from big companies might leave comments talking about their product if you talked about it on your post. Those are alright. What you want to look out for are people who are attempting to get a bunch of free advertising and to hype up a product.

While a comment like “Cool, I run a SEO blog of my own also” may be acceptable depending on where it links to (check the website), comments like “Our service is the best service and it can make you money” are usually considered a bit spammy. Good companies won’t go around trying to hype the heck out of their product in blog comments. That is what press releases and ReviewMe/PayPerPost are for.

Stay tuned for more Back To The Basics posts.

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