I used to be good at catching a spammy comment and was equally good at marking it as spam. But recently, I always have trouble telling spammy comments apart from the real comments left by real people, whether or not they are bloggers. I have found that either the spam robots were getting better by sounding more and more like a real person, or I wasn’t getting better at detecting them.
When I think a certain comment is suspicious, the first thing I would do is to visit the site. If the site was an aggregator of some kind, or if it was written in a foreign language, or if it did not appear to me like a site that was maintained by a real person, I would mark that particular comment as spam.
If I was convinced that the site was maintained by a real blogger, I would then check out the “About Me” page to get the blogger’s name. I really don’t mind it if you used a nickname, or “your name @ your site” for example “Patrick @ Pays To Live Green” or “Nicole Price @ Great Prices Here” because I understand that it is a form of personal branding. But “Webmaster Radio” or “Genel Kultur” or “Affiliate Marketing” or “Discover” or “diet” certainly DO NOT sound like a real name to me!
The next thing I would look at is the comment. If the comment added value to the discussion on a certain post, I would let it pass, but only after I have changed the name of the commentator. However interesting a comment is, I would never let the commentator be “Affiliate Marketing”. If I couldn’t find a nickname on your blog, I would change your name to “Anonymous”. But if the comment was obviously a time-waster, I would hit the MARK AS SPAM button *flush*
The reason I monitor my comments is because I do not want to allow anybody to think that my blog is their playground. I do not want them to think that it is OK to drop me a useless comment and get some link love back to their sites. Moreover, I want my regular readers and regular commentators to know that my blog isn’t flooded by spammy robots. As much as each comment is important to me, I would rather have fewer meaningful comments than more meaningless ones. What values do those meaningless comments bring to my blog and my readers? None.
Because I do not receive hundreds of comments daily, I am able to mark a certain comment as spam (or otherwise) within 24 – 48 hours. But if you have a huge following, or if you receive a lot of comments, what do you do with these spammy-sounding comments? Do you give them the benefit of the doubt?
Since I don’t have a large following, I don’t know what I would do for sure about spammy comments.
If I did have a large following, I’d have the comments set to turn off after just a few days. That would at least limit the number of posts the spambots could use.
I don’t get that many comments on any of my blogs, so I don’t have that much of a problem. I have noticed however that I have had to delete a lot od things lately as they are definitely spam. On blogono, the software catches them and sends me an email just in case I want to keep the comments.
I wish these people would find better things to do with themselves LOL
I am glad that you are choosy, just as I am. I am also glad that you checked me out to satisfy yourself about my boanfides. I do the same.
@The reason I monitor my comments is because I do not want to allow anybody to think that my blog is their playground.
agreed !!
anyway, later this week i found some “looks” real comment go to spam folder, is this better bot you talk about? luckily my comment traffic are not that great, so it doesn’t take much time to evaluate them one by one.
It is getting increasingly difficult to decipher spam from genuine comments. As you mention the comments are relevant to the post but they are from a strange commentator. I just try to judge each comment as it comes in and if it doesn’t add anything to the discussion and looks fishy I don’t publish it.
Since I don’t have a large following, I don’t know what I would do for sure about spammy comments. :biggrin:
Hope you’re not gonna flush my comment just beacuse english ain’t my main language (and yeah, that strange looking language on my blog is polish ;) ).
No problem, Pawel. English isn’t my first language either :grin:
I kind of get a kick out of going through my spam sometimes. It is interesting to see their process.
Since my blogs deal with health, it is usually blatantly obvious that it is spam, but every so often you see somebody being a little creative with it. However, it is still rather obvious, especially if you investigate their link.
I am also glad you take the time to investigate commentors. I hate it when I see a really good blog that either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about these kinds of comments, so they get overrun with the “great post” kind of spam.
I think closing the comments like Mike said and for that matter you do is a good idea. That and checking the sites they are linking to are probably the best way. You have to be careful when doing that though, especially if you are running windows.
I run a plugin called noscript, which basically disables the site from running any scripts, like java, until you say it is okay. I always use it, but some people think it is kind of restrictive.
I would at least suggest enabling noscript when you are investigating spammy sites.
Since I don’t have a large following, I don’t know what I would do for sure about spammy comments.