My blog comment spam is getting interesting?
This morning I noticed, for the 4th time this week, that I had the following comment listed 12 times.
The comments all come from the same domain but with different personal names:
“I just want to mention I am just very new to blogging and definitely enjoyed this blog site. More than likely I’m planning to bookmark your site . You actually have superb posts. Many thanks for revealing your website.”
Each comment varied slightly in the wording but they all basically said the same thing.
Don’t be one of these commenters. Be smart about your comments.
Don’t be led astray by people pushing spammy methods for making blog comments. Comments like these aren’t likely to get posted, instead try these blog comment posting tips. These are the things that will get your comments posted and keep them out of spam:
Tip #1 Create an Avatar. An avatar or Gravatar is the picture that appears along side your name when you comment. Having your own gravatar gives you a more legitimate appearance and bloggers like to see commenters that use them.
Gravatars are easy to create and it just takes a few minutes.
Need help? Here’s how to easily create a comments Avatar.
Tip #2 Actually read the post you are commenting on. You can’t make an intelligent, related comment without reading what you are commenting on first.
Tip #3 Contribute Something. It’s OK to say ‘Nice Post’ or ‘Thanks for the great post’ but don’t make that all you say. As you read a post and ideas pop into your head, use those ideas to make thoughtful comments.
Comments are meant to invite you into an interaction, so interact with ideas, points of interest and additional insight.
Tip # 4 Be Respectful. I don’t get many disrespectful bloggers, thank goodness, but I’ve seen bloggers be be cruel and rude to others. There’s simply no room for calling people names and being disrespectful.
Tip#5 Use Good Grammar. This is a pet peeve of mine. A comment that has poor grammar or lots of misspellings, gets deleted. Take the time to write comments that make sense and proofread them before hitting the send button.
Tip #6 Address your comment to the name of the blogger and end your comment with your name. This gives a personal feel to your comment and blog owners appreciate that.
Tip #7 Avoid Using SPAM words. On occasion a valued commenter of mine will get posted to my Akismet SPAM because they are using words that are considered spammy. I always check my spam box so I will catch them but not all bloggers do that.
Spammy words are a bit of a gray area and it’s not always obvious that a word might be considered as spam, but if you’re finding that your comments aren’t being posted, take a look at the words in this link that get flagged and try to avoid them.
http://codex.wordpress.org/Spam_Words
Tip #8 Use your home page in the URL. Using your home page link is safe for most blogs. However, if your strategy is building backlinks to a specific page other than your home page, be sure you copy your comment to your clipboard before submitting it. That way if your comment is not added you can adjust your link and re-submit it.
Tip: Blogs that use comment Luv however do accept links to specific related pages.
Keep in mind that even though blog commenting is one of the many link building strategies, it’s also a strategy for building relationships, authority and trust, so create a commenting strategy that focuses on that.
Tip #9 Don’t add links to your comment. Doing this almost always sends your comment to the comment spam every time.
Tip# 10 Use your real name. You’re always safe with your real name, however sometimes you are able to put a keyword phrase in the ‘Name’ box. As mentioned in #8, this is something you can test with each blog.
My blog for example, will allow you to type your name followed by @ and your keyword phrase. For example, I would use:
- Sally @ email marketing tips
- Sally from email marketing tips
In Summary…
If you’re taking the time to comment on blogs, make it worth your while. Keep your comments out of the spam bucket by contributing thoughtful ideas and comments without spammy tricks, poor grammar and bad manners 
More Good Stuff...
{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks Ms Liz for the dose of common sense!
Great tips along with your “rant”. Zooming through my
…
email on a Saturday morning and your video stopped
me in my tracks
All the best,
Jon
Hey Jon, I thought if I’m gonna rant I better make it a little fun too
Thanks for your feedback
Twitter: canoot59
February 20, 2011 at 12:39 pm
Hi Liz,
Thanks for good blog commenting advice.
Lots of people are teaching those spammy ways of commenting. They are selling “smart strategies” to building backlinks and/or creating traffic to online newbies who don’t know much about these things. The sellers make a lot of money by this ruthless marketing, knowing perfectly well that the methods they teach (and sell) won’t work in most cases. Think about it, many online marketers make good money by selling stuff they know won’t work to ignorant people who spend their money hoping to build their business or earn some money on the web. So, in many cases the teachers of spammy tactics are more to blame than the spammers themselves.
Regards,
Kanute
Hi Kanute, absolutely! The spammers themselves are victims, they obviously don’t know these strategies are a waste of time or they wouldn’t do them. It’s these unscrupulous internet marketers that are to blame.
Twitter: janettestoll
February 20, 2011 at 6:11 pm
Hi Liz,
Terrific list! I didn’t know about the spam detection if you leave a link in your comment. I usually don’t but it’s good to know. As for the spammers, ugh, is all I have to say. Commenting is definitely one of the best ways to build backlinks but I think more importantly, it’s a great way to find other valuable blogs, and make new contacts.
Thank you for sharing!
Janette Stoll
Hi Janette, yes, making new and lasting contact and friends is also a big benefit. Thanks for your feedback
Twitter: canoot59
February 21, 2011 at 2:20 pm
Hi,
I’m back again to see if my comment was approved
This time I watched the video – I enjoyed it very much even though I didn’t catch every word (English is not my first language), it’s high quality and very entertaining.
What I came to think is that a video of that quality will make many folks stay for a while on this page; if they are like me, thay can’t stop until they have seen all of it if they first click the play button.
And, as far as I have understood, search engines take notice of how much time visitors spend on a web page (and site). If they stay for a while the page must have good content, they think. Therefore, having a high quality, entertaining video on your page might improve your SEO because people will spend more time on the page. Or have I got this wrong?
Kanute
Hi Kanute, welcome back!
It is theorized that Google does count time spent on websites along with visitors that return to a website for helping determine the value of a resource, however this is just one metric of many that is used. Thanks for your feedback
Twitter: luckyoliver70
February 22, 2011 at 6:00 am
Hi Liz,
thanks for this great post. I also wonder that some people seem to expect that I publish their spam comments. Its a complete waste of everybody’s time.
Writing appropriate comments is simply good business and it reflects the author’s personality, good and bad.
I also pay attention to the CommentLuv links. I don’t want to link to sites I don’t comfortable with, for whatever reason, so occasionally I remove the Luv.
I agree that “spam words” are a grey area. It’s the context that makes them spammy or not. That’s why I don’t like automated spam filters very much.
Awesome that you point out that blog commenting is a relationshio building tool. I would say, relationship building first, backlinks second.
Take care
Oliver
Twitter: GrowOnlineBiz
February 22, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Hey Liz,
Great tips you’re sharing here. It amazes me how people think their spam comments would be published.
Blog commenting is about adding value to the discussion and building relationship with the blog owner as well as branding yourself. So, intelligent and meaningful comments will help to achieve these factors.
Thanks for sharing your insights.
All the best,
Mavis
Hi Mavis, I know! These kinds of comments don’t make sense to me.
I find it really sad that marketers are leading people astray like this
Twitter: tnsblog
February 23, 2011 at 1:01 am
Hey Liz,
Awesome post. Blog commenting is something that I’m trying to improve.
In the earlier days of my blogging i never did commenting in proper way. I did it just to get more traffic and backlinks but now i do commenting to build relationship with the blog owner.
I think commenting is best way to build relationship with author of a blog.
Anyways, Thanks for sharing this great post. Retweeted.
~Dev
Hi Dev, Just curious, how much of difference have you seen in your business since changing your commenting strategy?
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Through blog commenting, you can build a network and learn a lot of things. Not only do you build a reputation for yourself but you’ll also get the chance to be involved in adding value to your community.
I have the same type of questions rolling around in my head too Ms. Liz. “Who is teaching people this stuff and how do they think this is good marketing?” You gave some great tips for these spammers to follow, and I’m glad you are taking your time to teach people who just don’t get it how to properly comment on someone’s blog.
I think your best tip was number two, just read the post you are commenting on and make an intelligent comment that is on topic. It really is that simple, I don’t know why some people make it more complicated than it is.
I think the biggest reason for this is because some people are lazy and don’t want to take a little time and effort to make a genuine comment. Thanks for sharing your tips and experience on this topic.
Hi John, I think you’re right, people are lazy and want a fast way to do things with little effort.
I’m lazy too but people have to be smarter than that
Maybe we’ve been online too long, but it just makes sense that spamming in any way or form isn’t going to help you achieve success online.
Thanks John for your feedback
Twitter: stephensheather
February 25, 2011 at 8:33 am
Hi Liz,
Great post and one that is so needed! I find many great comments lost in spam because people aren’t using my name, their name, an avatar, or they’re not following the basic grammar rules.
I can tell when someone’s just posting a comment to get a link vs leaving a thoughtful comment showing me that they actually read it.
Thanks for the info!
Heather
Hi Heather, it’s easy to spot the spammers and there are certainly lots of them out there.
Twitter: marcus_baker
February 26, 2011 at 9:40 am
Hi Liz,
Hopefully the spammers that are spamming your blog with useless comments will read your post and learn something but I doubt it since spammers don’t read posts, quite obviously. Great tips if somehow one of them did manage to read this though…
~Marcus
Twitter: MrIanBelanger
March 9, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Hey Liz,
Great post, I agree spam comments are a pain in the backside. I didn’t really like how Akismet rated comments on my blog. Like you said, they would put some good comments in the spam folder, just because of a few words.
I have switched to the Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin and I love it. It puts a little checkbox under the comments box asking the commenter to confirm that they are not a spammer. All I can say is goodbye spam and no more mistaken identity because of a few words.
Hope this helps Liz and have a great day!
PS Another good plugin is Simple Trackback Validation. Helps get rid of bad trackback links.
Ian
Twitter: MicroSourcing
July 20, 2011 at 10:23 pm
It’s crazy how I see a lot of spammy comments get approved in some blogs. Even when comments aren’t automated, marketers hire link builders to do the job. The problem is, if you’re tasked to comment on blogs all day and you have a quota to meet, link builders opt to skip the actual blog post and try to sweet-talk their way through the spam filters with “great post!”.
Ms Liz,
I just love all the wonderful things that you share. You can always tell when someone is a true giver. The people that you attract are like minded and there is a whole lot of appreciation going around. I have been putting off a few of these tips but I do have my Gravatar set up now and the other tips I will use as advised. Oh and by the way the Yo comments are wacked is a good touch…. LOL
Hey Thanks a Bunch!
Rod
Hey Rod, Thanks so much for your kind words. I’m glad you got your avatar set up and are commenting. I think you’ll find it rewarding
i just like your post and want to say thanks for such informative and helpful share. especially avatar setup..
Most of the time it happens that you are doing comment but it results in spam. These tips are really helpful to avoid this and do a quality work. Nice post !
Good work. These tips are really helpful to avoid spamming and enable you to do quality work.
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