Some of these devious blighters fooled me. Are they fooling you?
How much disguised comment spam is on YOUR blog?
I was moderating blog comments recently, deleting the usual annoying garbage, when I became suspicious about one comment which looked a bit too heavy on the flattery.
I'll happily accept praise, but the following comment was definitely out of place on one neglected little blog I own:
“It's a shame you don't have a donate button! I'd most
certainly donate to this excellent blog! I suppose for
now i'll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS
feed to my Google account.”
Excellent blog? You've got to be joking.
Out of curiosity, I did a search in Google (with quotation marks) and was surprised to discover the same over-the-top bit of flattery appears on a staggering 755,000 web pages.
That made be wonder just how many spam comments – churned out by blog commenting services and blog spamming scripts – are fooling bloggers, and are also being automatically accepted on unmoderated blogs.
So for about a month I've been collecting spam comments and checking the results in Google.
I discovered examples that appear on 3 million and 4 million web pages!
As far as I can see, Google's April 2012 Penguin algorithm update, which was apparently partly aimed at dodgy link building tactics, has slowed the flow of comment spam but hasn't stopped it.
[UPDATE April 2013: Some of these garbage comments now appear on 9 MILLION and even 11 MILLION web pages.]You're probably not fooled by dumb comments such as…
“Thanks for share!”
“What a great blog”
“good idea im gonna try it”
“cool story bro”
…or cunning questions like…
“whats your facebook profile?”
However, a LOT of blog owners apparently ARE being fooled by disguised spam comments.
Here are some multiple fake comments I discovered, with the number of search results in Google:
FLATTERY
4,190,000 results in Google
“I really appreciate this post. I've been looking all over for this! Thank goodness I found it on Bing.”
3,420,000
“I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.”
3,330,000
“I like the valuable information you provide in your articles.
I will bookmark your blog and check again here frequently.”
3,300,000 (slight variation)
“I like the valuable information you provide in your articles.
I will bookmark your weblog and check again here frequently.”
2,400,000
“This is really interesting, You are a very skilled blogger. I've joined your feed and look forward to seeking more of your magnificent post. Also, I have shared your website in my…”
480,000
“Hello! This post couldn't be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my good old room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this post…”
INNOCENT SOUNDING, GENERIC FLUFF
3,250,000
“I'm not sure where you're getting your info, but good topic. I needs to spend some time learning more or understanding more.“
2,600,000
“Hello there, just became aware of your blog through Google, and found that it's truly informative. I am going to watch out for brussels.”
PLAUSIBLE QUESTIONS
2,040,000
“…It's a very easy on the eyes which makes it much more pleasant for me to come here and visit more often. Did you hire out a developer to create your theme?”
1,610,000
“Wow, awesome blog layout! How long have you ever been blogging for? you made blogging look easy.”
1,350,000
“Hi there! Do you know if they make any plugins to help with SEO? I'm trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I'm not seeing…”
570,000
“Do you mind if I quote a few of your articles as long as I provide credit and sources back to your webpage? My website is in the
exact same niche as…”
539,000
“Howdy, i read your blog occasionally and i own a similar one and i was just wondering if you get a lot of spam remarks? If so how do you protect against…”
505,000
“Neat blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere? A theme like yours with a few simple adjustements would really make my blog shine.”
344,000
“Good post however I was wanting to know if you could write a litte more on this subject? I'd be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit more. Kudos!”
332,000
“Have you ever considered writing an e-book or guest authoring on other websites? I have a blog based on the same subjects you discuss and would love to have you share some…”
322,000
“My partner and I absolutely love your blog and find nearly all of your post's to be precisely what I'm looking for. Do you offer guest writers to write content for…”
295,000
“Would you make a list of the complete urls of all your social community sites like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin profile?”
188,000
“Hey, really like the blog, wordpress?”
134,000
“…I loved that bit. Will there be a part 2?”
FAKE PROBLEMS
592,000
“I'm not sure exactly why but this blog is loading extremely slow for me. Is anyone else having this problem or is it a problem on my end? I'll…”
382,000
“Oh my goodness! a tremendous article dude. Thanks Nonetheless I am experiencing problem with ur rss . Don't know why Unable to subscribe to it.”
575,000
“I'll immediately snatch your rss as I can not find your e-mail subscription hyperlink or e-newsletter service. Do you have any?”
519,000
“Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The text in your article seem to be running off the screen in Ie”
NEGATIVE
1,030,000
“Hello, you used to write great, but the last several posts have been kinda boring. I miss your tremendous writings. Past several posts are just a little out of track!” (Ouch! That one hurt.)
PLAUSIBLE LIES
1,430,000
“I have recently started a website, the information you provide on this web site has helped me tremendously. Thanks for all of your time & work.”
1,310,000
“I was recommended this website by my cousin. I'm not sure whether this post is written by him as no one else know such detailed about my…”
627,000
“Greetings! This is my first visit to your blog! We are a group of volunteers and starting a new initiative in a community in the same niche. Your blog provided us…”
192,000
“What's up, how's it going? Just shared this post with a colleague, we had a good laugh.”
8,920
“My daughter gave me the link to this site and she is totally right keep up all the terrific work”
MORE FLATTERY
392,000 (with hyphen in book-marking)
“Hey! Someone in my Myspace group shared this site with us so I came to take a look.
I'm definitely enjoying the information. I'm book-marking…”
396,000 (without hyphen)
“Hey! Someone in my Myspace group shared this site with us so I came to take a look.
I'm definitely enjoying the information. I'm bookmarking…”
411,000
“I really like your writing style, wonderful information, regards for posting : D.”
276,000 (slight variation)
“I really like your writing style, fantastic information, thankyou for posting : D.”
271,000
“I like your article so that I read all of your articles in a day. Please continue and keep on writing excellent posts.”
765,000
“Just wish to say your article is as amazing. The clarity in your post is simply cool and i could assume you are an expert on this subject.”
EVEN MORE FLATTERY
817,000
“You could certainly see your skills within the work you write. The arena hopes for even more passionate writers such as you who are not afraid…”
182,000
“You must take part in a contest for top-of-the-line blogs on the web. I'll suggest this web site!”
173,000
“Good post, well put together. Thanks. I will be back soon to check out for updates. Cheers”
49,500
“Very good article! We will be linking to this great content on our site. Keep up the good writing.”
29,000
“Nice post. This is a great blog and I have to congratulate you on the content.”
SPINNABLE COMMENTS
You've probably heard of “spun” articles. Now we have “spinnable” comments…
539,000 (plus variations!)
“I'm looking ahead for your next submit”
“I'm looking ahead for your next submit, I'll attempt to get the cling of it!”
“I'm looking ahead for your next submit, I'll try to get the hang of it!”
“I'm looking ahead for your next submit, I will try to get the cling of it!”
“I'm looking ahead for your next submit, I will attempt to get the hold of it!”
“I'm looking ahead for your next submit, I'll try to get the grasp of it!”
(I've just re-checked all these blog spam examples in Google and updated the search results numbers. Several have decreased slightly since I began this research, but most have increased significantly and several have increased by 100,000 or even 200,000 in about a month. The deluge continues.)
Cookie-cutter comments
Chances are, a few of the examples on my list above were made by genuine, nice people. Perhaps YOU even made one or two of them?
If so, remember that if you visit a blog you like and make a quick, facile comment, such as, “Informative article, totally what I needed,” don't be surprised if the blog owner decides it's a cookie-cutter comment and deletes it. These days, you really do need to clearly indicate that you have read an article before placing a comment.
One blog commenting service is selling 500 supposedly “logically relevant” comments for about 16 cents each. To compete with the blog spammers and automated blog commenting software, before you make a comment, you need to contribute in a way that adds value to the discussion.
In the past, I've allowed a few dumb comments to slip through. Now I've toughened up. I expect an indication that commenters have read what I wrote and thought about it. If you just say, “Nice post,” I assume you're a robot.
The “steal and change” trick
You've probably seen comments copied from another blog and re-posted on yours. Here's a variation of this trick. The spammer pinches a genuine comment from a related-topic blog and inserts a TYPING MISTAKE. If you fix the typing mistake and do a search in Google, sometimes you'll find the comment on thousands of blogs.
DON'T leave comments unmoderated
Heaps of idiotic comment spam piles up on unmoderated blogs. If you don't have time to moderate comments, please switch off the darn comments! All those garbage auto-generated comments aren't helping to make your new blog “busy”. They're scaring away your visitors because they make your blog look abandoned.
Is allowing spam comments on your site bad for search engine rankings? Of course it is!
Google says that turning on comment moderation “can really help to improve the user experience for your visitors”. However, Google doesn't merely give you a gentle clue. It provides a whole page of advice on how to combat spammy user-generated content. Why would Google bother to help you like that if comment spam wasn't important?
WordPress, too, has a page on how to combat comment spam.
As well as using anti-spam plugins such as…
- Akismet
- Defensio Anti-Spam
- Bad Behavior
- NoSpamNX
- GASP
- AntispamBee
- Disqus
- reCAPTCHA (from Google)
…WordPress users can also use the Comment Blacklist to block various words, such as Vi@gra, other pharmaceuticals, casino games, mortgage, etc.
Some bloggers go another step and block all URLs in comments. I don't do that, because some links in comments are useful. If you want to block URLs in WordPress, here's how:
Go to Settings >> Discussion >> Comment Blacklist.
(It says: “When a comment contains any of
these words in its content, name, URL, e-mail,
or IP, it will be held in the moderation queue.
One word or IP per line. It will match inside
words, so ‘press' will match ‘WordPress'.”)
In the field, type “www” in the first line and “http” in the second line. Click “Save”.
Security expert Regina Smola recommends you make sure you check the box that says: “Comment author must fill out name and email”.
What's next?
Some bloggers say the only way to defeat the comment spammers is to disallow ALL comments. What! Let the auto-generating blighters win? I'm not doing that. I like including you in the conversation. I like seeing your feedback, and I appreciate helpful comments when you add them.
Whatever anti-spam steps you take, nothing beats human moderation.
Have you been fooled by the spammers? Even if you do moderate blog comments manually, how much plausible junk and auto-generated, “spinnable” garbage is sitting on YOUR blog?
I'd be very interested in your comments. Real ones, that is.
