All Entries in the "Blog Spam" Category
Why I Delete Blog Comments
I love blog comments. Legitimate ones. Ones that make me think or provide useful information for my other readers. Disagreement even can spark great debate. I love it. But sometimes I just have to say no. When I do, I kill the comment on the spot.
I did that just a few minutes ago. The commenter had a great opportunity to be brilliant. Instead, he just wrote, “Hey, those are great facts.” And he had a legitimate website, albeit one that has nothing to do with my niche. Still, he’s a reader and probably reads this blog on a regular basis. But I dumped his comment in the trash can. Why?
Because it contributed nothing. It didn’t enlighten, it offered no new information, it didn’t ask any pertinent questions, and there was no insight that could have been helpful to anyone at all. He simply threw some words into a comment box so he could get a free link back to his blog. It was rather obvious that’s what he was doing because he put no thought into his comment. And that’s the cardinal sin of blog commenting.
If you want to leave a blog comment, that’s good. I encourage it. But follow these guidelines when you leave comments on any blog in any niche online:
- Say something intelligent about the blog post on which you are commenting
- Be sure to provide the URL to your own website or blog
- Make sure that the URL is an actual URL (avoid typos and don’t use a fake URL)
- Don’t use affiliate codes in your URLs
- If you aren’t making a comment on the content of the blog post then ask a question about the topic (bottom line: make it relevant)
- Don’t include links inside your comment unless you are linking to a relevant article or blog post that will contribute to the ongoing discussion
- If you do include a link in your comment, don’t include more than two (three at the very most)
- Don’t engage in blatant self promotion
- Provide valuable insight that will help others
Blog commenting is a great way to build links back to your own website. But do it tastefully. Don’t just try to skate by on thin ice.
When Should You NOT Approve A Trackback Comment?
The secret is out: Trackbacks make great links. And it’s a really simple thing. Someone writes a blog post that you like and you respond on your own blog. If you use WordPress, you can copy the permalink of the blog post that you are responding to in the trackback field below the Write Post field. Your blog post will appear as a comment on the other blogger’s software Admin panel. They can approve or reject it. If they approve your trackback then your blog post will appear as a comment on their blog post, giving you a reciprocal link. If they reject your comment then you will be providing their blog with a one-way link and no reciprocal link love. Should you ever do that?
You bet. Keep in mind that one-way links are more valuable than reciprocal links, especially from relevant sites. It is considered tacky to reject trackbacks just because you want that highly coveted one-way back link. The content that appears in your comments is important too, for several reasons. But that doesn’t mean you should approve every trackback. There are times when you’d want to say “No” to that trackback. When are they?
You might reject a trackback for the following reasons:
- The comment is from a known spam site – If you know that a particular site is a known spam site, even if their trackback seems legitimate, then you might not want to approve their trackback comment.
- The trackback itself appears to be a form of spam and not really a true comment – Sometimes legitimate bloggers are guilty of spam too. It might be inadvertent or blatant. Either way, you have readers to protect.
- You are being linked to from a site whose mission and purpose you don’t agree with entirely – You have to be careful with this one. Just because you don’t agree with what they are doing doesn’t mean that everyone will disagree or that their business model is a bad one. But if it is obvious that what the blogger is doing is unethical or illegal then you shouldn’t promote it.
- The site is a non-relevant site and you don’t want to lose your blog readers to a non-relevant site – Sometimes you’ll get a link from a non-relevant site and you just don’t want to lose your visitors to that site.
- The blogger linking to you links to you too often – Some bloggers just overdo a good thing.
- The trackback is inconsistent with your comment policy – If you have a comment policy and a trackback blatantly is in violation, don’t make an exception just because it’s a trackback.
- The trackback is from a site that exists primarily for advertising – If the only content on a blog or website linking to you is advertising, other than content that you created, then don’t link back to them; this is just like spam.
- The site is a malware or warez site – Don’t send your readers anywhere you wouldn’t want to go.
These may not be the only reasons you’d want to reject a trackback comment, but these are good reasons not to keep those trackback comments alive on your site. You have readers to protect, so protect them. And protect your own reputation as well.
One Sure Way To Stop Scrapers From Earning Off Your Blog
Thanks to Lance Winslow for asking the question. What about those people who steal the content created by others, put them on a blog and earn AdSense money from them?
In the old days, people did that with articles. They still do. But there is another form of this type of content theft that people are using along with WordPress, which is the blogging platform that we at Blog Content Provider recommend. It’s called scraping.
Here’s what they do: They subscribe to your RSS feed and use a software program to search for specific keywords in your content. When they find the keywords they are looking for they scrape that content and add it to their blog, a process that takes just a few seconds because it is done automatically by the software program. The slap an AdSense ad next to the content they just stole from you and “trackback” to your blog, which creates a link to you, but also a link from you to their blog – that is, if you approve their comment.
Now, wait a minute, Allen. Haven’t you encouraged people in the past to trackback to other blogs for traffic? What’s wrong with that?
Yes, I have encouraged trackbacks and I still do. But what’s wrong with scraping is a little bit more nuanced than merely marketing original content. The proper way to trackback to another person’s blog is to write original content on your blog that references the content on the other. Then you can tell WordPress to trackback, which effectively makes you and the other blogger partners in an ongoing conversation. Using content created by someone else without adding your own flavor of original content alongside it is unethical. It is a form of stealing.
What these scrapers are banking on is that you will approve their comment and your website visitors will click through the link in that comment to their blog and click on the ad so that they’ll earn revenue from your content. They know that their blog will not rank for any keywords. It’s duplicate content so the search engines will ignore it. They likely aren’t doing any article marketing to promote that blog either because that takes time. These scrapers are lazy and want the easy way out. That’s why are stealing your content and offering a “trackback” in an attempt to appear legitimate. They are taking a legitimate practice and mirroring it so as to appear legitimate themselves. Crafty, isn’t it?
Well, all you have to do to stop them in their tracks is not approve their comments. When you notice a comment in WordPress, follow the link to the owner’s blog and read what they’ve written. If it looks like someone wrote the post and linked back to you then approve the comment. If it looks like a part of a post that you wrote with a link back that says something like “Read the rest of the article here” then don’t approve it. They won’t gain access to your blog’s readers and they won’t make a dime off of your content.
Blocking Spam on WordPress – This Should Do the Trick Quick
One of the biggest problems any blogger faces, new, experienced or otherwise, is the exhausting and never ending battle with blog comments you just don’t want, need or have the time to deal with. Blocking spam on WordPress is a huge piece of heavy lifting if you don’t know what you are doing, and I firmly believe, one of the primary reasons many people ultimately give up on their big buck blogging plans! A few days of having to remove Viagra ads, triple XXX website links and long strings of keyword spam can literally break the spirit of even the most audaciously hopeful upstart blogger. Let’s take a quick look at a VERY simple and easy solution to turn off the spammers, all whilst encouraging good and positive comments from your REAL site community!
We’ve talked a good deal about WordPress plugins in the past, and how to selectively choose just the ones that are going to be most functional for your blog, rather than simply adding every unnecessary bell and whistle available. Well the ASKIMET spam protector plugin is one that you ABSOLUTELY need to have activated if you are worried about, or getting spam. Simply stated, all you need to do is go into your plugin administration area, activate the plugin (it should come default with your WP software) and then, enter your WordPress API key when requested….and BAM! No more SPAM!
Note – you will have to go and set up your account with WordPress.Com to get your personal key, which is required for Askimet to be activated. It is free, and takes less time than it would to heat up a cup of water in the microwave, so don’t skip this step. You can use the same API key in ALL of your subsequent WordPress installs, and if you have been following my work for any length of time, I recommend you put up as many WP sites as you can handle, simply to add to your virtual asset base as we’ve covered before.
Have fun, and remember, you will occasionally have a slice or two get through the Askimet filter, but not often – and I promise – this is the one plugin all WordPress bloggers need to be using, and now! Happy Blogging.
Want to see how we make money Blogging?
FREE Blog Marketing Strategies revealed so much fun & effortlessly easy, it almost feels like stealing!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ian_Hollander
