There are many advantages to leave a comment in the blog, you can get a dofollow backlink, you can drive more traffic to your blog, you can also build your brand, but the requirement is that you have to follow the comment policy and leave genuine and relevant comment to the blog post. Leaving a bad comment on the blog can simply ruin your blog or website, as well as your reputation.
Nowadays, people used to leave comment to get a dofollow backlink, they outsource it or hire people to leave comment for them, they use auto commenting software to leave comment in relevant blog, all they want is just backlinks. I don’t see that they’re serious with their blog and don’t even want to build their brand.
Spammers used to be more clever in Year 2010 when they leave a comment that doesn’t look like spam comment, their comment is very tricky and you may think that’s a legitimate comment, so you may approve it if you don’t check it properly.
Beware Of Comment Spammer In 2010!
As usual, I moderated all the comments from first timer yesterday, I’ll first read the comment, then look at the avatar, then visit the commentator’s website, then only decide whether to approve or reject. I’ve received few ‘spam’ comments from a commentator yesterday and a few ‘spam’ comments from another commentator today.
Here is how the comment looked like :
1) Case #1
Spam Comment from Commentator X
VS
Legitimate Comment from Stefan
2) Case #2
Spam Comment from Commentator Y
VS
Legitimate Comment from Davor Gasparevic
Can you see that? Spammers used to copy comment from other commentators, if you don’t really read and check on the comment, I believe that you would probably approve the comment. There is no way to prevent this but you can avoid this by yourself, I believe that you read every comments left on your blog, when the spammer copies other commentator’s comment, I’m sure you’ll know that.
Nowadays spammer becomes clever and they do have an avatar too. I’ve never seen spam commentators left comment in this way before, it shows that spammers are improving themselves and they will make their ‘spam’ comments looked great in Year 2010! So, beware of clever comment spammer!
Have you experienced similar case in your blog?
About Lee Ka Hoong
Good catch Lee. I believe the current best method to check if it’s a valid comment is simply to check the commentators website. If it looks alright, I approve the comment. If not, I’ll delete it even though it might be valid.
.-= Stefan´s last blog ..The Don’t Quit Poem =-.
@Stefan,
Yeap, checking commentators’ website is the essential step to moderate comments, usually I’ll check on the About page to see who is the author, then I’ll come back and check other things.
You are so great Lee! Sometimes, the comment is so tricky. I can’t even to differentiate the spam comment. Thanks for your alert and sharing!
.-= Kok Siong Chen´s last blog ..Angelman Syndrome – Angel-like Genetic Disorder =-.
@Kok Siong,
Yeah sometimes I was headache when it comes to moderate comment, I spent quite some times to find out which was legitimate and which was spam comment.
So a new kind of comment spammers have made their entry. Thanks. I will keep a watch on them.
.-= Agent Deepak´s last blog ..I Will NOT Comment on Your Blog =-.
@Agent Deepak,
Their intention is to get the advantage of the dofollow backlink, so they will do anything to make the comment looks “real”.
I rather have no comments than have spammy comments.
Just press Mark as Spam at askme Plug-in, it’ll do the jobs :D
@alantanblog,
But the blog is really bad without comments. Both sides have the risk, just take some times to read and moderate comment. ;)
Hem… it seems that almost all of dofollow blog in which i comment, use moderation strategy to block the spammers.
.-= Dana @ Blogging Update´s last blog ..The Right Website Design Company Can Help Your Business =-.
@Dana,
That’s the only way I guess. But I only moderate commentator who is first time leaving comment in my blog, after that their next comment will be displayed automatically. Of course, I’ll read on every comment as well, if the comment is too short and without any meaning, I’ll just click “Delete” without any notification since I’ve stated it in the Comment Policy.
This is an excellent followup to a situation I described where someone copied Jan Geronimo’s comment on ProBlogger exactly.
Funny thing about that was there seemed to be a real person and a real web site backing the comment, some kid in Indonesia IIRC.
I’ll email you the link to that if you like, Lee.
.-= Dave Doolin | Website In A Weekend´s last blog ..Help Haiti Blog Challenge: I’m Yours… All Weekend =-.
@Dave,
People who did this definitely was not serious to blogging or online business, they didn’t treat it as a real business and they just did it for fun.
That would be great if you could email me the link. :)
Thanks for including my name as an example :D
For your question, I still get old-school (lol) spam comments, 2 days ago a dude actually wrote a comment with more letters and words than my blog post, which was quite long itself (700-800 words roughly), and it was full of pharmacy, viagra and other stuff of links (to make you d***k longer hehehehe).
But this is actually a good practical post. I mean spammers clearly realize that old tactics don’t work any more, so they actually try to look legit.
If I would ever be about to copy someone’s comment heh, I would at least change something, add a few synonyms or something. However, I still prefer to have 5-10 approved and original comments instead of blasting 2-3 thousand spam comments with only a handful of them getting approved.
I think it’s worth the time to show that you are a genuine visitor with an honest intentions.
This type of spamming is clever, but not enough if you keep track of all the comments.
.-= Davor Gasparevic @ Internet marketing ebooks´s last blog ..The Internet Marketing Dictionary =-.
@Davor,
In my point of view, rarely commentator will leave a comment as long as 700-800 words unless they are really good and have a lot of experienced on the subject, otherwise most of them are spam. Usually they’ll include a link in the comment as well. Normally they don’t success to get me approved the comment as I’m strict in moderating comment, especially comment with outgoing link. ;)
Anyway, it’s a good practice to read and moderate every comments.
In your practice yes, but I just said what happened to me. I was so stunned that I even checked how many words it had with MS Word. I don’t remember exactly now, but it was well over 1000. It took me 6 or 7 times to make a full scroll with my mouse wheel to come to an end of comment.
And not only it had one outgoing link, it had dozens.
I know it sounds unrealistic and odd, but it just happened to me, I am not lying ;).
Now I even regret rejecting it, I should probably approve it and show how far some people can go.
Hell, now when I look at that, I could make a whole post about it. It would certainly be something amusing and interesting.
.-= Davor Gasparevic @ Internet marketing ebooks´s last blog ..The Internet Marketing Dictionary =-.
Very Enlightening Lee.
I’m sure there is a plugin to prevent duplicate comment. I’d check the WP plugins database.
Meanwhile, it might be overwhelming to read every comment posted especially if you have a large readership and more than 1 blog. So how do you do it?
I know you meet both criteria. Are you a full time blogger now?
Got your email ;)
.-= Olusegun´s last blog ..Blogging 2010 =-.
@Olusegun,
I’m not sure whether there is a plugin to prevent duplicate comment, but I used to read and moderate every comments left on this blog. I do have few blogs, but only this blog have a large readership and comment, so I’m still able to do that.
No, I’m a part time blogger. :)
i agree. i got too many comment in one day. Not only at one blog. But at all my blog network..huh..
.-= titan´s last blog ..New Target: Damak =-.
I think, it’s more like a human based spam rather than bot based spam that can be done with any spamming software(like xrumer).
It’s all being done all because you have made the blog dofollow recently. So, some lazy commentators are just copying some/full part of some previously made comments on that post and publishing it again. They are doing so because there is a probability that most of the admin will count it as genuine comment.
By they way, it’s great you brought that hting out. Now those commentators who previously using this spam tactic will be more aware and will try some new trick ;0
(One of the future trick I am seeing that they can use is that, they will copy multiple comments rather than a single comment and will paste it as one commment with their website link for backlink)
.-= Typhoon´s last blog ..Why Should You Blog Regularly? =-.
@Typhoon,
That’s not impossible to see spammers copy multiple comments in one comment, but if you read and moderate every comments posted on your blog, I’m sure you’ll know the spammer copies from your previous comments. It takes you more time, but no cure we have to face it. That’s on of the disadvantages of making our blog a dofollow blog, but I don’t care, I’ll do the work and spammers’ comments won’t be successfully appeared in my blog.