All Entries in the "Blog Spam" Category
Can Spam Comments Hurt Your Blog’s Rankings?
SEO Gadget wrote a blog post about comment spam affecting his rankings. Of course, the grand conclusion is that spam comments hurt his rankings. I can understand where that conclusion came from. I also agree. It can, and does, happen.
Search Engine Optimization Journal’s conclusion is that those comments were harmful because they were porn-related content. That’s possible too, but doubtful. One of the issues regarding spam comments, as pointed out by Scotland SEO, is that they are supposed to be nofollow.
It doesn’t matter is blog comments are dofollow or nofollow, the search engines will treat them the way they want to and you can’t afford to let the bad links hurt your site’s reputation. That’s why comment moderation is so important. It’s also why you need to keep a close eye on which types of comments get through on your blog. We at BCP automatically delete the following types of comments when we spot them:
- Porn links
- Obvious keyword-spam with several links in the body of the comment
- Comments where the commenter used an obvious incorrect website URL
- Comments with dead or broken links, particularly in the website URL field of the comment form
- “Feel good” comments that add no value to the discussion
Some comments are helpful; some are not. We try to get rid of the bad ones and keep the good ones. Otherwise, your blog can suffer in the search engines. If you aren’t sure which comments have value and which ones don’t then you might be better off letting someone else manage that aspect of your blog. That’s what blog managers do.
How To Kick A Blog Spammer In The N*ts
If you’re like me you hate blog spam. But occasionally I find a spam job so funny I have to publish it. Well, funny isn’t exactly the best word; it’s more like amusing. But anyway. I want to approve the comment for entertainment value (and because it contains important keywords in the comment, which help me with my SEO), but I don’t want to pass any link love on to the spammer. Why help them out?
So here’s what I do:
- Click on the comment to edit it (WordPress allows this very easily)
- Delete the URL in the website address box
- Create an editor’s note at the bottom of the comment saying why you deleted the URL so that other would-be spammers can see it and so that your regular readers can get a laugh
- Publish the comment
Real simple recipe. Martha Stewart would be proud. Now for the example. Click the link below and you can see how I kicked one blog spammer in the gonads by approving his comment but not giving him any link love.
When Do You Approve Comments
After managing nearly 100 blogs in the last couple of years I’ve narrowed down blob comments to three types:
- Spam
- Legitimate Comments
- Well-meaning people with little to contribute
Almost all comments fall into one of these three categories. I always approve legitimate comments from real people. There’s no reason not to. I don’t always delete spam, but I usually do. I approve it only when the comment actually contributes to the thread and when I’m confident that my blog readers won’t be taken to a site that might harm them. They may be annoyed the sales message, but they won’t be harmed.
With well-meaning people, it’s difficult to know just when to approve the comments. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes a comment is just so off-the-mark that I treat it like spam.
Approving comments is something that comes from experience. The worst mistake a new blogger can make is to approve everything. Some comments are just plain harmful and they could lead to a diminished benefit to your users. Exercise some critical thinking here.
Should You Splog Or Blog?
There is a huge prejudice against commercial blogs in the blogosphere. And there’s even a racial epithet equivalent that seems to shut down conversations quicker than a Republican press conference. It’s called a splog. This blog may even be one.
According to Wikipedia, master of all knowledge (note the sarcasm), a splog’s main purpose is to increase the PageRank or backlinks of related blogs. In actuality, those benefits only go so far.
Another defining characteristic of a splog is that it is made up of “fake blog posts.” I’m not sure what a “fake blog post” looks like. I do know that this blog post is very real.
I think sometimes a legitimate blog is characterized as a splog because the person making the declaration doesn’t really understand the purpose of the blog in question. What if a blog is written by a real human being who writes original content yet uses keywords, links, and other SEO tactics typically associated with sploggers and their spammy creations? Is that blogger a splogger or a bona fide blogger?
Distinctions can sometimes be hairy. Or harrowing.
The problem with Wikipedia’s definition of splog is that it doesn’t allow for some middle way. Many professional bloggers with custom designed blogs and unique, original content in every post are fine bloggers and human beings. They are good business people who understand their business model and try their best to provide a good user experience. But they aren’t making any money. It isn’t because they aren’t writing good material. It isn’t because they aren’t targeting the right market. Primarily, it’s because they aren’t selling. And this is where it gets hairy.
Thanks to the uprise in social media and the inherent dislike of blatant marketing messages online, which are understandable by the way, it has come to be expected that blogs will not be used as direct marketing pieces. The problem with this thinking is you are running a business. You want to see a return on your investment, don’t you?
Whether you spend $10 or $2,000 on building your blog, you want it to earn you some income. And that’s the bottom line. The difference between a splog and a blog could be your ROI. If you are writing a blog the way that many professional bloggers tell you to write it and you aren’t seeing a return on your investment – counting your dollars and your time in your expense calculation – then you probably need to change what you are doing. I’m not saying you should become a spammer, but you might want to employ some stronger closing lines and use sales and lead generation tactics to get people to contact you for business. You might even employ a ghostwriter. But whatever you do, you want your blog to make you some money.
