How to Spot Spam Comments on Your Blog
Spam comments used to be easy to recognize, since they were mainly just nonsense with links to porn websites and online storefronts selling drugs and designer knock-offs. Now spammers have learned to play into bloggers’ egos. After all, who doesn’t like to get a nice compliment? The purveyors of spam have learned to disguise their links with vague but profuse flattery. Unwitting bloggers want to believe the compliment is real, so they let the comment (and the link) stay.
I see these comments on my blogs with increasing frequency, and I immediately nuke them. Here’s how to recognize them so you can delete them yourself:
1) They’ve very complimentary, yet they’re also vague. Most spam comments won’t refer to anything specific about your blog. They’re of the “This is so great, I’m going to recommend it to all my friends” variety. Someone who’s inspired to leave a real comment will usually mention something specific that inspired them to comment.
Here are real spam examples, taken from my blogs:
Hi! Someone in my Myspace group shared this site with us so I came to give it a look. I’m definitely loving the information. I’m book-marking and will be tweeting this to my followers! Great blog and amazing design.
Having read this I thought it was extremely informative. I appreciate you taking the time and effort to
put this content together. I once again find myself personally spending a lot of time both reading and posting comments. But so what, it was still worthwhile!
2) They’re written in very poor English. The task of leaving spam posts is generally outsourced to overseas spammers who do it for pennies. They have little to no command of the English language, so they copy and paste poorly written lists of comments like these:
Exciting post and thanks for sharing. Some factors in right here I have not believed about before. Many thanks for making this kind of a great publish which is truly quite nicely created. will be referring a good deal of friends about this.
What’s up to every one, the contents existing at this site are in fact amazing for people experience, well, keep up the good work fellows.
3) They mention a non-existent problem. Some spammers think their comments sound more legitimate if they claim your site is loading slowly or not working in certain browsers. There’s no real problem, but they’re trying to divert your attention from the fact that you’re being spammed. Here’s an example from one of my blogs:
Hey just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few of the images aren’t loading properly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different internet browsers and both show the same results.
The one common thread in all these cases is a link embedded somewhere in the post or user name. Don’t bother to follow these links, as they could take you to a site containing malware. When a comment fits the characteristics above, just delete it. It’s not a real compliment, and the links will lead your readers to scammy and potentially dangerous websites.
