Do you remember the 2000 U. S. presidential election? In Florida, many ballots were punched incorrectly resulting in what was deemed as “hanging chads”. It was quite controversial as a huge number of votes weren’t being counted. Several recounts were performed and the situation ended with many disgruntled people.

As I was reviewing the A.S.K. – Liz Strauss – How Do You Inspire Your Readers To Join Your Community article, a comment written by Theresa Zagnoli said, in part:

I would however find it insulting if a writer responded individually to others, but not to myself.

This reminded me of a problem that occasionally happens in a blog’s comment section. Your comment doesn’t get answered.

Your comment gets left “hanging”.

Today’s Lesson

I see a few scenarios as to why this happens,

1) You’re “late for the party”. Late for the party meaning you’re one of the last ones to comment on a post, and the blog authors misses your comment.

2) Your comment ended up in your spam folder. Even though it gets fished out, the author gets busy and forgets to answer the despammed comment.

3) The author gets so many comments, they accidentally miss yours in the group.

4) You comment on an old post, and again, the author overlooks your reply.

As blog authors, we want our commenters to know their words are important to us. Missing those random comments could result in lost readers.

As much as I try to catch every comment, I know I’ve probably missed a few. For those commenters whose comments I’ve missed answering, I truly apologize.

Today’s Assignment

How do you ensure that you catch every comment?

What do you do when you miss one? Do you answer it, or leave it hanging?

Have you ever left a comment on another blog, not to have it answered?

If so, how did it make you feel?

Several comments to my last post, “Comment Luv – Linky Love – NoNoFollow” inspired me to dig deeper into the subject of blog spam (also referred to as comment spam). I wanted to know why blogs get spammed, and what we can do to prevent it.

Today’s Lesson

Wikipedia, states spammers are on a mission to elevate their websites in the search engine rankings. By linking to blogs they obtain more links pointing to their sites. Apparently this method is working. Spammers are gaining sales/income via clicks from visitors. Spammers hit the “jackpot” with the creation of blogs.

According to Wikipedia,

In 2003, spammers began to take advantage of the open nature of comments in the blogging software like Movable Type by repeatedly placing comments to various blog posts that provided nothing more than a link to the spammer’s commercial web site

Several of the solutions listed by Wikipedia to block comment spam, include

1) Keyword blocking – blocking words such as viagra (spammers know of this practice and will intentionally misspell words)
2) Using the “rel=”nofollow” code. Wikipedia states the argument against this is:

Some weblog authors object to the use of rel=”nofollow”, arguing, for example, that

* Link spammers will continue to spam everyone to reach the sites that do not use rel=”nofollow”
* Link spammers will continue to place links for clicking (by surfers), even if those links are ignored by search engines.
* Google is advocating the use of rel=”nofollow” in order to reduce the effect of heavy inter-blog linking on page ranking.
* Google is advocating the use of rel=”nofollow” only to minimize its own filtering efforts, and to deflect that this actually had better been called rel=”nopagerank”.
* Nofollow may reduce the value of legitimate comments

3) Validation, or the use of a potential commenter to provide an “answer’, such as “is fire hot or cold”, “2+2″ or to retype a series of numbers and letters (CAPTCHA)
4) Disallowing links in post comments
5) Using a spam blocker such as Akismet
6) Turning comments off.

Short of turning comments off, it appears blog spam (comment spam) is here to stay.

Today’s Assignment

How do you deal with blog spam?

Do you use a spam blocker or hand moderate each comment?

Do you have any other ideas of how spam can be eliminated?

Receiving a comment, validates that you are being heard. Comments can give you motivation to keep blogging. Comments can also develop into cyberspace friendships. Comments are also very important to fellow bloggers, so don’t forget to leave comments on other blogs.

My first comment on my OM blog, came within just days after I started blogging. It was a thrill. To make matters even more exciting, the comment came a girl, by the name of Jomay in the UK. I have no idea how she found my blog, but that was actually irrelevant.

Unfortunately, a lot of people may be reading your blog, but they won’t comment.

During all of my years of researching, I would often encounter, what I now know are blogs, but I would never comment. I would read the comments, but I never “joined in”. I was a typical “surfer”, who was usually “on a mission”, and would just move from one site to another. To me, time was of the essence.

Now that I blog, I realize the importance of comments.

During a recent email conversation with Ian, I became inspired to write this lesson.

Why don’t some people comment?

Today’s Lesson

12 Reasons why most people don’t comment:

Your reader….

1) May be shy
2) Doesn’t want to leave their real name. (And as we know, they don’t have to).
3) Doesn’t want to leave their email address, thinking they may get spammed, or have their email address sold (Get a free email address through MSN, Yahoo, or another service)
4) May feel their opinion doesn’t matter (maybe, due to low self esteem)
5) Has nothing to say on the subject…..just browsing
6) Has poor grammar or spelling, and is afraid of making a mistake
7) Feels you are competition, and is trying to learn “secrets” from your blog.
8.) May disagree with your opinion, but doesn’t want to be controversial
9.) Does not understand the topic you are discussing
10) Is on your site for research or educational information only, and has no time to write a comment
11) Does not want to be the first one to comment
12) Doesn’t understand the concept of a blog, and don’t know they can leave a comment.

Oftentimes, one comment will germinate into a slew of comments.

So, what can you do to get that first comment?

Today’s Assignment

1) Leave a comment on your own blog (use a different name, but don’t use your URL) This technique is kind of lame, but it may help to generate more comments on a post.
2) Ask a friend or colleague to comment on your blog
3) At the end of a post, encourage your readers to participate, by commenting
4) Visit other blogs and leave meaningful, traffic building, comments, and hope that generates traffic back to you, and those new readers will leave a comment
5) Write a controversial post that will hopefully initiate an exchange of opinions

Try these techniques, then come back to my blog, Leave me a comment, and let me know if they worked

BTW: Check out the other great comments on previous posts. Feel free to “have your say”.