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Comment Spammers Seem to Love Me

Has anyone else noticed the new form of blog comment spam occuring?

To make sure we’re on the same page, let’s define comment spam.

In Wikipedia it is defined as, “automatically posting random comments or promoting commercial services to blogs, wikis, guestbooks, or other publicly accessible online discussion boards. Any web application that accepts and displays hyperlinks submitted by visitors may be a target.”

Basically it is someone posting comments on your blog with NO intention of being part of your blog’s conversation while adding zero value. They simply post a comment (automatically or manually) just for the link back to their site.

Posting GOOD quality comments on blogs IS a practical way to generate some incoming links and traffic, but you MUST be a part of the conversation. Get involved. Add some value. Give a real opinion on the article. Ask a real question, etc.

Now onto the issue of the newer form of comment spam…

Instead of just spamming your blog with an obvious ad which instantly gets deleted, they spam your blog with what looks like a “more normal” comment…or they praise just how wonderful your site is.

In other words, the spammers tell me just how wonderful I am.

For example, here is a common one:

“I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.”

How nice?

They found my blog on Google. They added me to their reader. And they’re looking forward to reading more in the future…

How do I know this is spam?

I copied that whole paragraph. Then I entered the paragraph as my search phrase in Google.

Here is what comes up…

WOW!

Look at all those blogs who approved this spammed comment.

I caught them this time, but we can see from the Google search a lot of others did not (there are likely similar spammed comments we didn’t catch around here).

How about this one:
“This post is really a must bookmarked for me! Thank you so much.”

Seems innocent that they’re going to bookmark it, but notice how the first sentence is worded a little strange. Do a search on Google and bingo…EXACT same comment on multiple blogs (although not nearly the volume of the first one)

Google search shown…

How about this one:
“Nice writing style. Looking forward to reading more from you.”

Wow…sounds real innocent.

But back to our trusty Google search…

The exact same phrase used 17,000 times on Google.

So how do you determine if something is likely blog comment spam or if it is a real comment?

1. Real comments are obvious. They mention things that are IN THE ARTICLE. They stay on subject with the post and the comments before them.

2. Real comments do not have links all over them (OK sometimes they do have a few links but we delete them out if we approve them).

3. When in doubt, copy and paste the comment into Google.

Written by Terry · Filed Under All 

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Comments

28 Responses to “Comment Spammers Seem to Love Me”

  1. Don Osborne on March 19th, 2009 1:19 pm

    First, if you Google this comment looking for more than more than one link, you’ll be disappointed. Most emails I get from having opted-in only promote the sale of something. Very few provide useful, timely advice. Yours did and do. Thanks for the heads up.

  2. Michael Worthington on March 19th, 2009 1:20 pm

    Thanks Terry!

    I’ve been fighting blog spam for a long time, and
    like most people, can spot the obvious, but this
    is new to me.

    I’ve probably approved some of these types of
    comments myself.

    They never quit trying, do they?

    Michael

  3. Dr. Michael Beck | Chiropractic Marketing on March 19th, 2009 1:26 pm

    Thanked you Terry for most nicest blog post.

    :) Only kidding. So is there a way to block the IP’s with wordpress so you don’t have to deal with this in the future?

  4. Dave Hamilton on March 19th, 2009 1:28 pm

    Terry,

    My blog gets blitzed with spam comments also… some this “under the radar” type, some just obvious junk. (I can’t believe there’s that much Viagra out there to be sold.)

    I agree it’s good to identify it… but the logical next question is- what to do about it?

    I notice you don’t use a “captcha” on your blog comments… any reason? I’m looking into it. It seems this would help, and I know there’s some cool plugins available.

    Maybe that’s a follow up post?

    Dave

    P.S. I found this article very informative. And nice writing style. I look forward to reading more in the future. (ha ha… couldn’t resist.)

  5. Samsudeen I cricketdotcom on March 19th, 2009 1:54 pm

    Hi Terry, nice post. But do you beleive its a better and safer option to use a blog or website with nofollow tag for the comments section ? I beleive most of the websites and blog have nofollow tags. If i am not wrong, your blog doesn’t have a nofollow tag. I am sure you have reason to not use nofollow. It would be of great insight if you can share the reason with us.
    regards,
    Samsudeen H

  6. Terry on March 19th, 2009 2:18 pm

    In my system I have Akismet running and also have Comment Timeout turned on (both WordPress plug-ins). This reduces a lot of spam. The above types are some of the ones that get through at times.

    I don’t use a captcha system for comments more than anything because of personal dislike of them (THIS is not a valid business tested answer). I’ve had times where I can’t figure out how to get a captcha right and couldn’t order someone’s product!

    WordPress is automatically no follow unless you install a do-follow plug-in. Currently I do have that plugin running. I feel at the moment this is fair for people who add value to the conversation. We do of course monitor these comments heavily. I may change my mind in the future on this and turn off the do-follow though. So that’s no promise of keeping it this way.

  7. Chris Cade | Inspirational Video on March 19th, 2009 2:22 pm

    You mean now I have to actually do things like type your name, Terry, to get my blog comments approved? :)

    In all seriousness though, this is interesting and makes a lot of sense. If it’s not getting caught by Akismet, then the person is probably using something like CommentKahuna.

    Perhaps this is a great money-making idea for a WordPress plugin developer – create a comment plugin that Google’s the entire comment, and if it finds more than X (variable) number of results, then the comment is automatically deleted and the IP is added to a ban list.

  8. Pat Doyle on March 19th, 2009 4:10 pm

    I have had a lot of comments like that as well. I try to delete them, but I probably have been fooled and have probably approved some too. It does make you lose faith in the value of comments. I get more of these spam comments than regular comments, unfortunately.

  9. Stephen Spry on March 19th, 2009 4:28 pm

    Hi Terry

    Wow! Over 1 million for the first type of comment… someone HAS been busy!

    So there are now a million very good reasons to:
    1. moderate all comments received before publication
    2. check the link provided, and see if it is somewhere you want to link to
    3. if it doesn’t add to the conversation, simply delete it
    4. if you decide it IS spam, then hit the spam button so Akismet can “learn” from this tactic

    Cheers
    Stephen Spry

  10. Tom Volkar / Delightful Work on March 19th, 2009 4:33 pm

    Sneaky bastards aren’t they. Thanks for this alert. Is there anything we can do in addition to deleting the spam comment? Is there a way to send back a bomb or something to blow up there robot? I’m only partially kidding. :)

  11. John on March 19th, 2009 5:21 pm

    This is my firs comment.. Do you moderate prior to approval?

    One step that might help defeat comment spam…. require
    a CAPTCHA to reduce the automated comments..
    Who has experience with that?

    You could get a plugin that allows comments to go up without
    moderation once a commenting party has a spotless track record.

  12. Ian Brodie on March 19th, 2009 6:17 pm

    Hi Terry,

    I use the “Lucia’s Linky Love” plugin – it nofollows comments until you make a predetermined number of them (usually 3). So it rewards regular commenters in your community with a dofollow link – but discourages spam because “casual” links don’t get a follow.

    Ian

  13. semmy @ minisite Design Service on March 19th, 2009 7:54 pm

    Hi Terry, You make me laugh!

    “I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.”

    Yes this is very nice comment! I realize that this is a spam comment, because last time my grammar is so bad. LOL, but this guy give me a good comment.

    Until I read your blog, I forget where which url, you add some plugin, and the akismet one, So I install that program to prevent the comment spam. thanks Terry

  14. Elisheva Wiriaatmadja/ Money Blog on March 19th, 2009 8:11 pm

    I have turned on Akismet as well and it does filter most of the spam comments I get.

    What is annoying me right now is the Popularity Contest plugin which shows the most popular posts based on views, pings, trackbacks and comments. All the spam comments the posts get are counted towards the popularity of that post. I have one post that got 200′s of spam comments but only a few views. But it is listed as the most popular post.

    I do wish there was a way for all those spam comments to be completely deleted WITHOUT even getting into my spam box.

  15. Joe Duchesne on March 19th, 2009 10:58 pm

    After reading your article I did a quick search for ‘automatic blog commenter’ and the first one I came across (link removed) blatantly sells their software promising people that the reason other webmasters are getting rich has nothing to do with knowledge, experience and usefulness of their site but with the automatic software they use!

    Unfortunately, this only makes more work for the rest of us…

  16. Jonathan Aluzas on March 19th, 2009 11:16 pm

    I’ve had some awesome ones, including:

    “Arena Fitness, coolest domain name :) ”
    “Arena Fitness, now in my RSS Feed :) ”

    I’m not using these examples to get my business name into this comment, this is actually what they said. The first time I got them I was excited that I had gotten comments (and, for a moment, I was pleased that someone thought I had the coolest domain name). Then, when I published my next post and got the exact same ones I put two and two together and deleted them.

    But my favorite example is the current strategy that someone is employing where they bombard my posts with comments in Russian.

  17. Copywriting Dean on March 20th, 2009 2:13 am

    I’ve been getting them too. It’s a recent phenomenon for me. Akismet has been great at catching spam, but these comments are getting right through. Pretty sure you can block by IP if it’s a consistent problem.

  18. Welly Mulia on March 20th, 2009 7:43 am

    Hahaha Terry.

    I think I’m one of those tricked blog owner victims that got tricked into approving comments like this.

    I need to be more careful when approving comments in the future.

    Thanks for the heads up!
    Welly Mulia

  19. Tom Gallagher on March 21st, 2009 12:30 am

    Hi Terry
    Thanks for this blog session. I am virtually a newbie and trying to build my business but did not realise there were so many sneaky people out there. Now I can watch and check.Thanks again. This is an exciting business to be in. I now have a lot more freedom to spend time with my family.
    Keep up the good work.
    Tom Gallagher

  20. Chas on March 21st, 2009 9:42 am

    Somebody asked about comments “not getting in”.. The plugin “Bad Behavior” works that way. It’s not the “be all end all” for spam but it stops many BOTS dead before they even get to your blog. I know it works because If I need to verify my blog to somebody, I have to shut off the plugin or the bot never gets through. They claim it even reduces your server load. I also despise CAPTCHA’s, except for the original “Captcha”. It seems to be using familiar words and numbers with limited distortion. And I discovered that it’s not Caps-Sensitive, also nice compared to looking at a pile of worms and deciphering WTHeck letter or number they are.

  21. jackmendoza on March 22nd, 2009 3:59 am

    I always get a kick out of those comments. I have a site that’s built on a WordPress framework and I forgot to lock out comments on a few of the static pages like the Contact and About pages, etc.

    Nothing like getting, “I found this very informative and can’t wait to put the information in use with my own business” on your Contact page that consists of nothing more than contact info and a form.

  22. Sharon Wilson on March 24th, 2009 6:37 pm

    This is quite funny. I’ll have to google some of the generic looking comments on my blog to see what pops up. Great post.

  23. Tamara Suttle on March 25th, 2009 11:44 am

    Terry, I’m just now starting to read blogs and preparing to start my own later this year.

    I’m embarrassed to say this but think it’s worth noting that newbies like me often make the mistake of posting empty comments out of ignorance combined with good intentions. I”ve certainly left comments without real substance . . . cluelessly thinking that I was attempting to join the community. And, I think that once I even left a link to my site in the body of my comment. The difference is that I didn’t blast a lot of sites with the same empty comment and my link — just the ones I sincerely wanted to engage. Ha ha. Lessons learned. Thanks for the tutorial!

  24. Dave on April 1st, 2009 12:09 am

    I really did find your blog on Google, and I have read a few of your posts, and I did subscribe to your feed. Oh…and I do look forward to reading more from you.

    haha

    Pretty smart if you ask me. I think I would have missed it.

  25. Andy on April 6th, 2009 11:28 pm

    Just get the wp-spam free plug-in and activate askimet. You’ll never see spammers again. I got something like 500 spam comments in one day (no joke) so I decided to do something about it :-) .

    Oh, and the obligatory: I found your blog through google…

  26. Michael on April 14th, 2009 11:10 am

    Spammers are so annoying, i mean what is the point of posting comments if you’ll only get un-targetted traffic?

    Personally i only use Akismet which comes with wordpress, blocking by ip is not the best idea, cause savvy spammers can fake the ip or use a proxy and might lead to you blocking legitamate ip addresses.

    anybody else tried using captcha for blog comments, what plugin do you recommend?

  27. akmarhova on April 21st, 2009 6:04 am

    I hate spammers and I hope they will make law to stop spammers.

  28. Esc Tech Site on May 13th, 2009 12:39 am

    I totally agree with you. I don’t oppose people posting links to there sites within the comment sections but for that backlink I at least want some content out of you. I hate it when people make 1 liners are some generic your blog is great post beause these don’t give you anything. Post about the topic I have and give a bit of content.. I’ll happily approve your comment and give you link.. heck I’ll even ask you to come back and comment some more.

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