What’s the deal with blog comment spam?
Every morning, I have to delete multiple comments on Phoenix Real Estate Guy. I’m not talking the usual things about porn and pharmaceuticals, those are almost always caught by the anti-spam plugins and filters.
I’m talking about people that insist on advertising in the comments. Plugging their wares (often completely unrelated to the article they are commenting on) and my fellow real estate agents advertising their websites, listings and open houses.
Maybe “spam” isn’t the right word. But it feels at least as icky as spamming.
Why would anyone think it’s appropriate to leave comments like these:
Nice blog!!
Sell your home quick by making available alternatives no else has told you about. Whether you are looking to move fast, downsize, relocate, liquidate an estate or are dealing with the threat of foreclosure, divorce, or bankruptcy, the professionals at Sell My House Dallas.com can help you in getting
YOUR HOME SOLD TODAY !!
Visit us at [link redacted]
Or:
Val Vista Lakes IS a great community. I invite your readers to come see the open house I’m holding on Sunday at [123 Main St]. It is a beautiful home!
I used to take the time to send commenters like this an email, nicely explaining their comment clearly violated my comment policy on no advertising in the comments. I’d also include tactful verbiage on how it was just plain rude to advertise their services on someone else’s blog.
I sent probably 40 or 50 of these emails and got one response along the lines of “Sorry, you’re right, I didn’t think of it that way”. I got a few responses from people saying “I have no idea what you are talking about, I never left that comment” (they apparently ignored the part in my email that talked about how some “SEO services” practice this ridiculous tactic), and one even told me, “I’ll comment anywhere I want to, it’s a free country”. (Yeah, but it’s my blog…)
These days I don’t bother with an email. I just flag the comment as spam and block the name and email from commenting. Yes, I could block the IP address too but that can lead to legitimate people being blocked.
But it’s a never ending battle. Every day, every single day, I get people leaving blatant ads in the comments on my blog.
I’m this close to just shutting off comments completely. Problem with that is I like the interaction commenting provides. I’ve learned a lot from many of the commenters on TPREG. I don’t want to close that off just to stop a few knuckleheads.
I just don’t get it. Doesn’t simple common sense dictate that it is rude to plug your company/self/product on someone else’s site? Is it wrong that I find this so annoying?
Jay Thompson is a real estate broker, father, husband, wannabe geek and has a blogging problem.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I had the comments turned off on my blog for several years until I started missing the interactions (I’ve since retired the blog) but I received thousands of automated spams daily (most were caught but there were a TON of what you describe above drive-by-spammers toting their products at the expense of your blog.
There has to be a better way.
Jay – Imagine just how productive we will be if we don’t have to filter the noise to get to the real conversations. I find it extremely annoying as well.
I’m pretty sure that disqus has settings to hold comments with links in them until you’ve reviewed OR a commenter has to be approved before comments are published. Akismet catches about all the junk, but the link rule helps as well. It does get frustrating, I’m sure, but like you said, the only way to solve it completely is to kill commenting all together. And that’s not what a blog site is about … Unless you just enjoy hearing yourself talk.