You Like Me. You Like Me.

 66 Comments on You Like Me. You Like Me. 0 6201

For the new blogger, receiving a comment can be a memorable experience. We feel validated. We’re excited our blog got found.

Unfortunately, some of those comments which make us so happy, can be spam.

In the past, spam comments were easy to spot. They were usually comments filled with links to pharmaceutical drugs or sexual topics, or comments which didn’t apply to our blog topic.

Over the years the spammers must have realized that technique wasn’t working so they’re now playing on our ego; leaving positive comments that look authentic, however the words they choose could apply to any blog or blogger; copied and pasted throughout the blogosphere.

Their hope is to build their sites by receiving more backlinks and rank higher with the search engines and as far as our blog is concerned, they’re only using it as a vehicle to benefit themselves.

Bloggers who treasure comments can have a hard time differentiating between what is a real comment and what’s not.

Today’s Lesson

Since this blog gets thousands of spam comments, I thought I’d share a wide sampling of spam comments which have landed and stayed in my spam folder. (Feel free to skim through the spam comments. 🙂 )

The words are nice, but the sites they link to are spam.

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I love reading such articles. They are very interesting and give me big portion of information.

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So there you have it, comments which look real. but are instead, spam.

Today’s Assignment

Are you seeing a difference in the types of spam comments you’re receiving?

Are you tempted to approve these “positive” comments?

Care to share?

~Barbara

66 thoughts on “You Like Me. You Like Me.”

  1. Hi Barbara,

    What a great idea to post these samples! Spammers can be so incredibly tricky at times and often I find myself reading the junk twice before making a decision. I’ve even run into scenarios where they use other people’s gravatar images or links to reputable sites in order to make their comments seem legitimate. Those are the ones that usually frustrate me the most. Great post!

    1. Thank you Chris,

      Yes. Spammers are getting more creative and can easily trick us. With positive statements and links which don’t look spammy, it’d be easy for us to approve these comments only to learn later it was spam.

  2. Hi Barbara,

    I used to wholesale delete spam that my filter catches but then I noticed a regular commenter got caught in it. So now I have to dig through tons of spam a day to make sure someone else doesn’t get caught. I think I’ve only found 3 or 4 that were caught accidentally in the last 4 or 5 months.

    Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of trackback spam. I never let anything through because I read somewhere that if you approve one, you’ll get tons more.

    I don’t mind SEO’ers who actually read my blog and post comments for the commentluv but not if I find their site offensive. I’ll either remove their commentluv or delete their comment altogether. I try not to judge how people make their living but I have zero tolerance for vulgar sites.

    1. Hi Maddie,

      I know what you’re saying – it’s easy for real comments to end up in our spam filter. I think that’s where we need to decide how much time we’re willing to spend going through the spam folder to fish these out. Granted, some real comments slip through, so we might feel guilty if we don’t catch them, but on the other hand, we also need to evaluate how much time we’re willing to invest to save a comment or two.

      What I’ve done is add a paragraph to my comment policy advising those who comment and don’t see their comment approved within two days, to use my contact form to email me.

  4. Hi Barbara,

    I am always amazed at how smart and sophisticated some of these spammers are. Some of them are really good at writing generic comments that so many bloggers actually think they are genuine comments and not spam.

    I have to say, since I changed from Akismet to GASP (from Gail over at GrowMap), things have been much easier. GASP does a way better job at catching actual spams.

    1. Hi Satrap,

      I’ve heard GASP is a great spam blocker. I’ve thought of using it on this blog, but have been hesitant since it adds one more step to the commenting process (ticking another box verifying we’re not a spammer).

      That said, I plan to test it on some of my other blogs.

  5. Great information! I’ve never seen a post so insightful and good job on your site. You provide such insight and it’s good to see all the hard work put into it! This is very interesting stuff!

    Okay, I kid. Most of the time, if there is any suspicion, it’s probably spam. Usually I click over to the site to see what’s there. They are often obviously those make-money-online sites that feature one type of product. These websites are easy to identify. There aren’t too many posts and the posts are written very close in time. Each of them just have praises for the products, and a quick inspection would tell you that they are affiliate links.

    And then it depends on my mood. Sometimes I simply mark them as spam. Sometimes I would keep the comment and just remove the link. Well, thank you for the positive comment… “April”.

    1. LOL Kelvin,

      That’s true. If we click over to the post, we see if it’s spammy or not.

      Like you, my mood has a lot to do with approving spam type comments, or not . Some days I even let the spammer have a backlink – provided they’ve added value to the post.

  6. The latest thing I’ve noticed in comment spam is spammers copying and pasting other comments on the same post. One time I approved a relevant, thoughtful comment on an old, but popular, post that had about a hundred comments. The next day I had new comments on 15 different posts from the same person, all of which bypassed moderation because I had approved the first comment. Some of the comments sounded familiar so I went back to review the posts and previous comments. Every one was a copy of a real comment left earlier by another commenter. I hadn’t recognized the first one because there were so many comments on the post over a long period of time. But I did recognize more recent comments on posts that didn’t have so many other comments. I marked all the comments as spam and blacklisted the spammer. Since then I’ve seen this happen a number of times. I guess one way to reduce this would be to turn comments off on old posts, but I still get relevant comments on some of my most popular posts, so I turn off comments only selectively. And sometimes it happens on new posts. I’ve even had spammers copy and paste a few sentences from the post itself! So not only do we have to watch for flattery, but we also have to watch for copied comments.

    1. Hi Lillie,

      I feel you pain. When a spammer copies and pastes a real comment, at first glance it sounds good, and like you said, it’s hard to remember every comment, so we approve it.

      I’ve turned comments off on posts older than 90 days. Although it closes the door to real comments, it helps to keep spam down to a manageable level.

  7. Hi Barb – I’ve had my share of comments with links, and I used to click on the link just to see what it was – shocking! Keeps one busy filtering and deleting and such a shame isn’t it? I’d rather have NO comments than phony ones.

    The other thing I get from time to time is an email from someone wanting to “guest post” on my blog. Learned my lesson on that one in my newbie days. I would be happy to have a guest blog on my site, and have several times, but it’s always someone I “know” thru blogging.
    Hugs
    Suzen

    1. Hi Suzen,

      Yes. It can be time consuming sifting through spam comments.

      Re: Requests for guest posts. That can be a touchy subject. Although guest posts do give us a break from blogging, and can help a the blogger (guest poster) gain greater recognition, we also need to consider how well we know the blogger and if they’re supporting us or just using our blog for selfish reasons.

  8. Hi Barbara .. Good post again .. I don’t let spammers onto my blog – and always check the link from gmail – my email – as I don’t trust going from my blog (just common sense, I think).

    They’re pains and where they have the time I fail to understand .. it must be quite time consuming … even if copying and pasting ..

    Cheers – good to know the tips of spamming tricks .. thanks – Hilary

    1. Thank you Hilary,

      What I think happens is spammers are either doing it for the backlinks or to *hopefully* get someone click through to their sales page and buy. I’m guessing they’re playing the odds.

  9. I actually get very few comments on my blog although I do have regular readers and when they comment, I usually know who they are. I love it when someone does comment and always make sure to reply.

  10. My spams come from rental and jewelery sites, so it’s easy to spot them. No matter how good they sound, spam messages, are still spam, and they really can’t bring any value to you.

  11. Interesting examples!

    I just closed comments on my blogs. Don’t have the time to deal with any of this!

  12. Hi Barbara .. I have a ‘techie’ question .. I’ve just had two comments that appear totally sensible and logical about one of my Royal Wedding posts in May 2011 – BUT in the gmail confirmation sent thru to me – there is no link (Rear-View Camera and 2nd one Rug Cleaning Los Angeles). So I can’t do what I normally do – check from gmail.

    The comments got through and I’ve now put them through to spam – not yet deleted them .. just simply do not trust them.

    I can link through from my post – but won’t.

    I think they’re spam .. but they’re not dumb comments! Just very strange to have two on the same post – without a name or some form of personalisation.

    Thanks – any ideas anyone? Cheers Hilary

    http://www.positiveletters.com

    1. Hi Hilary,

      What you could do is put the URL in your search bar and check them out that way – chances are they may be sales sites, but may also have a blog attached.

      If they add value to your post, you can keep them, but if that makes you uncomfortable, just delete them or leave them in spam and see if they comment again.

  13. I am still not getting too much spam, but I have found that they are suddenly very positive – especially provocative on the Biking Architect blog…

    And not matter how I work my junk filter…those Gentlemen’s Max ads just keep coming — 32 today

    I have gotten a couple of wanting to post guest spots on my site, which have panned out to great college students sharing good material, but most are just junk….

    I always wonder why someone has to come along and ruin something for others.
    Even in political arena this is becoming the norm…we have citizen’s initiatives and we now have a clever guy, who if his bogus inititative is voted in tomorrow – about 100,000 people will loose their jobs by Dec. 1 of this year….but he is winning because he speaks the jargon and has great spam!

    1. Hi Patricia,

      If you continue to get a lot of spam comments from the same IP, you can block that IP address. WordPress has a place to block IPs on the Dashboard >Settings > Discussion. (scroll down to the middle of the page)

      I’m guessing spammers are trying to get a piece of the blogging action and are using it as way to make money or to improve their page rank and blogs are an easy target.

  14. I tend to approve only comments that have a direct bearing on the post. The problem with anonymous spam is that you cannot even filter them in any way, and there is no way that you can report them. I see comments as a dialog between me and my readers and spammy stuff doesnt help in any way. I also tend to skip comments that are not spam but just a “gr8” or a “nice post” comment. I also tend to write in my posts that nonrelevant comments will not be approved, so I dont feel too bad about doing that.

    1. Hi Subhorup,

      That’s a good idea – to approve comments only when they pertain to a post and to notify readers of your comment (approval) policy. That way there’s no surprises.

  15. I only started blogging about 7 months ago and I remember so well my first comments and they were spam, it was so disheartening and I really wanted them to be genuine but it was obvious they were not. Luckily I do get occasional real comments now so hopefully that means some real people are reading my blog now…

    1. Hi Matt,

      It is disheartening, isn’t it?

      I’m happy to hear you’re not getting real comments. Like you said, it shows real people are reading, plus comments help to keep us motivated to continue on.

  16. I have dealt with my fair share of spam comments and yes, it can be a task in itself deciding whether to publish a comment or not. A friend of mine had a pretty nice PR increase on the page rank update the other day and since has been getting 10x more of them! But wait… I’m confused… What happened to closing comments? (https://bloggingwithoutablog.com/why-im-closing-comments/) Or was that temporary to try to expand our horizons so to say? 🙂 ~David Walker

    1. Hi David,

      That’s true – determining if we should publish what might be a spam comment, or not.

      Haha! The “closed comments” post was exactly as you said – a way to help my readers expand their horizons, visit new (to them) blogs and comment on them instead of here.

      Did you do the assignment? 🙂

  17. I noticed those types of comments too and my instinct told me that the words are just too sugary. And then they all compiled on my spam folder and I then concluded that they are all automated spam comments. Those people who tried to trick bloggers to approve these senseless comments definitely failed.

    1. Hi Mel,

      That is a good clue, isn’t it? – when the words are TOO sugary. It’s one thing to compliment a blog author, but going overboard starts to sound like spam.

  18. I’m never tempted to post the spam comment…..unless they’re hilarious. And then, I cut/paste and comment myself. Makes for a really entertaining blog post.

  19. I think because the spammers use automated software, they have to keep their comments generic which is great because I can spot a spam comment from a mile away.

    Bad grammar, keyword in the url, spelling mistakes and being extremely nice and generous with the compliments are dead giveaways.

    The ones that make me laugh are the ones where they say they shared my posts and bookmarked them. Yeah right.

    1. Hi Jay,

      Good point! When spam comments are automated, not only are they easy to spot, but we end up getting tons of the same ones.

      As for keywords in the URL, I don’t mind those as long as what they share adds value to the discussion.

  20. LOL! With Akismet not working all that well, these days I am getting more of these comments in the valid moderation queue. To be frank, I have started looking at those ‘positive’ looking comments very suspiciously.

    Some of these positive looking and praising comments tend to be generous on adjectives that the sentences are very long. I tend to delete them right away. There’s this other type that tries to pinpoint a technical problem with the site on a particular browser and operating system.

    In general, I am indifferent to these types of comments!

    1. Hi Ajith,

      I get those, too – the technical ones. When I first saw one, I thought it might be someone who was genuinely concerned and wanted to help me, but as you mentioned, when we look closer, we realize they, too, are spam.

  21. My blog is relatively new, and I have a few genuine comments, but I do get spam as well. Akismet does block some, and the rest are held in moderation for me to check manually. At the moment it is only a small handfull a day, so not a great problem.

    What does concern me is, one spam comment I had was from a gay porn site. Now, each to his own, but I don’t want it on my site and it was deleted. When checking my Awstats later, I found a backlink from that same site. Not being an expert on these things, I assume that Google will see that and mark me down accordingly.

    Oh, well, such is life, two steps forward and one back. 🙂

    1. Hi Barry,

      I’m glad you brought that up as it has been a concern of mine, as well. In fact, a few years back I was getting quite a few visits because a porn site had a link to a post of mine on their site. I’m hoping Google won’t put a lot of weight on links like those when they’re to a blog which is completely irrelevant to the X-rated site.

  22. My comment may seem like a huge plug for my platform, but it is the only experience I can give.

    It seems that Word Press is very good at sifting out spammers. They leave then in the spam bin for us to review and I’ve noticed the addresses are consistently unlike a blog or typical email address. So after a year and a half, I’ve not disagreed with any that Word Press sorted out.

    The messages are very tricky, aren’t they. They’ll come up with something else soon!

    1. Hi Amy,

      Like you, I love WordPress. Since Akismet comes “preloaded” and is easy to activate, I value that WordPress recommends it.

      What you said is true about the email addresses – they’re different. My newest challenge is deciphering email addresses from some foreign countries, especially if they’re in a different language.

      Another thing I’ve noticed is spammers usually don’t use an avatar. All the more reason for bloggers to find “something” to use so their comments don’t get marked as spam.

  23. Barbara,

    Great post! We have been experiencing the same problem on our blog. Some comments don’t even make sense like they ran through some type of spinner program. Thanks for sharing your spam comments!

  24. Haha Wow, Now i dont feel quite so stupid…Early in my blog days i got a ton of those comments all of a sudden in one day and i was sooo excited…Once i got thru reading like 6 or 7 i realized they were spam and it really depressed me

    1. Hi Khleo,

      Yes. it can be discouraging when we realize these comments are really spam. I’ve also noticed I often get many of the same comment but from different IP addresses. Aurghhh!

  25. Hello Barbara, some of the spam I get on my blog is really insulting. Misspelled, poor grammar, like someone who doesn’t speak English wrote it. Funny thing is I don’t mind them back-linking to their site so long as they ad value to my blog by joining in the discussion.

    I’d like to have a talk with someone who runs those campaigns. The motive really interests me. Thank you for the post.

    1. You’re welcome Calvin,

      Like you, I would also like to speak to someone who runs these spamming campaigns. In some ways it seems like such a waste of time, but I’m guessing there’s a benefit we’re not aware of, otherwise they’d stop.

  26. I always keep comments that leave some value to my post. I don’t really look at their site. I look at the name and the comment. I don’t allow thank you comment. There are lots of thank you junks everyday and as my blog is new, most of them are these. But if it seems that the commenter has read my blog truly and commented new insights about my post, I always appreciate it.

  27. Good points there! But it’s true, I myself cannot determine if the comments are from spammers or not. But eventually, in the end you will detect it. You know.. spammers are bloggers too. So now, what i am doing is to delete comments which are not reliable for me.

  28. Hey Barbara,

    What a fun blog! This is my first time stopping by. I did have one question though, is blogging without a blog kind of like riding a horse without the horse? 🙂

    I think the easiest way to spot spam comments is to look for “generalized” comments that don’t discuss anything specific from the post. Things like:

    “Great blog. You’re a terrific writer.”
    “This blog is awesome. Thanks for the post.”

    Since spammers want to hit as many blogs as possible with automated tools, they have to use generic comments. These are a dead giveaway for spam.

    1. LOL Derek,

      I don’t think “blogging without a blog “is the same as riding a horse without a horse. 🙂

      What you said is true. Seeing generalized comments is the first sign they’re spam. If they don’t add value, it’s best to just hit “delete”.

  31. Barbara, you said you were only thinking about using GASP (Growmap plugin) but looks like you have it – part of Comment Luv Premium? In my experience it has blocked 100% of automated spam but still need Akismet to filter the human stuff (blocking pingbacks and trackbacks and closing old comments helps)

    I too remember the early days when ‘nice’ comments just made my day – so disappointed when I realized they were all spam. Nowadays I’m actually happy if a commenter really disagrees with me as I know it’s genuine! Can’t resist – nice site 😉

  32. Hey Barbara, This is a great article that deserves to be read by everyone, particularly those who are new to blogging. Its so hard to differentiate spam and the real thing. Perhaps, captcha box will do the trick. Anyway, thanks a lot for sharing this interesting post.

  33. Thank you Roy,

    Yes. I have installed the GASP plugin (not CommentLuv premium) and really like it. I have Akismet activated, too. Dealing with spam is SO much easier now.

    I like the part of your comment where you said you even enjoy when a commenter disagrees with you because you know it’s not spam. 🙂

  34. The spam on my blog has increased so much lately it is incredible. I am literally getting thousands of spam comments daily. There must be some new automated tool they are using now.

  35. Your post helped me a lot!

    I received loads of comments on my blog recently and most of them have links in their bodies of comments. The way they were written made it really hard for me to decide whether or not to approve them. Fortunately, I stumbled upon this post of yours and things are a bit clear now. Thanks! 🙂

  36. Like you, I would also like to speak to someone who runs these spamming campaigns. In some ways it seems like such a waste of time, but I’m guessing there’s a benefit we’re not aware of, otherwise they’d stop.

  37. Barbara,

    I’m way too impatient to plow through comments marked as ‘spam’ to determine if they might actually be authentic. My contribution to preventing these invasions is to keep circulating advice on how to secure oneself, so I’ll be posting a link to this blog entry from mine. I commend you on the entertainment value of your idea to actually post some of the spam comments – it’s easy to see how genuine interest could ‘fail the grade’ and be shunted off to the ‘spam’ folder.

    Belinda.

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