After a year of running my website, I’ve learned a few tricks, and I’d like to share one with you today. When you have a website where you get comments from the public, there is always spam comments. While some of these are easy to spot, I’ve almost been fooled by a few. So, let me share what I have learned.
First off, you should always set up your comments to not post until you approve them. Your website is your responsibility. If someone gets scammed, hacked, or insulted on your website, you will have major problems. So, take the time and read every comment before it’s posted.
3 Types Of Spam
The first kind of spam is when they want to sell you something. A service to help your website or an item that is completely unrelated. These may be legitimate sellers, but I wouldn’t advise clicking the links they attached to their messages.
The second type of spam is phishing messages meant to hack your system when you click on a link. For instance, I have one girl who keeps sending me, “As promised, I’m sending you my intimate photos.” There is always a link attached that would no doubt lead to a virus. For more than one reason, I always delete those messages immediately.
The last spam type is comments meant to boost their own websites. If you have numerous websites linked back to your own, it will boost your SEO (search engine optimization). This means that websites like Google and Bing will list your website higher in search results because it’s a well referenced website. The people who make spam comments with links back to their websites are trying to cheat the algorithms and make their own website list higher in search results.
Spam Comments Hurt Your Website
Speaking of SEO, it is said that the more comments you have on your website, the more relavent sites like Google rank it. This means that your website will rank higher in searches. Some people think that by approving all the spam comments, they are helping boost their own website. That’s false. Google was smart enough to make their algorithms recognize spam comments. If their system detects a ton of spam on your website, it will rank it as untrustworthy and sink your position on their results list. Therefore, do your due diligence before you approve any comments. Better to have no comments than harmful ones.
Identifying Spam Comments
There are script generators that spammers use to compose their generic messages. Alex King was nice enough to post a copy of a script generator he received through a spam comment, and I wanted to include a picture of part of it. As you receive spam, you’ll see the patterns yourself in word choice and sentence structure, but this is a good introduction to what you’ll be seeing.
Besides just watching for generic messages that could apply to any topic, here is a list of things to look for that may mean your comment is spam.
- Mentions any length of time (Surfing 3 hours, reading blog for 4 months…)
- Offers a service
- Includes website links
- Comments on an old post that doesn’t have much traffic
- Doesn’t relate to the post’s topic
- Asks a question that is specifically answered in the post already
- Uses incorrect grammar
- Writes a lengthy comment on topic that might be plagiarized (Google it to make sure the exact wording doesn’t come up on another source)
- Submitter doesn’t use a valid email address (use Email-checker.net to confirm it’s valid)
- Submitter’s name looks fake or doesn’t match the email address
Now, some of these things can be found in legitimate comments as well. You will have to use your common sense to differentiate between a real use of them and spam. However, if more than one of these are in the same message, the comment is probably spam.
Final Thoughts
Personally, when I’m in doubt, I deny the comment. I’d rather have a reliable and trustworthy site than worry about offending people by not posting their comments. That said, if you have posted a comment and don’t see it go live, feel free to send me a message through my contact page, and we can figure out how to get it posted. For your website, you’ll have to make your own decision on how you handle the borderline comments. Just remember, you’re responsible for everything on your website.
Thanks for reading!
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