Many of the incoming comments that make it through my spam filter into the pending queue are genuine and for that I am ever grateful to both my regular readers as well as the casual visitor who might be just passing through.
However, there is a breed of spammer who flies just below the radar and posts comments that appear at first to be intelligent and relevant to the post. On closer inspection though the comment doesn’t quite make sense or, although it appears relevant, it could be relevant to almost any post you put it up against.
To give you and example, I recently read this comment …
Intriguing web site. My co-workers and I have been just discussing this the other evening. Also your page appears superb on my aged sidekick. Now thats uncommon. Nice perform.
Now at first you might be tempted to give the benefit of the doubt and say that the comment author probably uses English as a second language and you go ahead and publish it.
Take a moment to search Google for the six word phrase “My co-workers and I have been just”, including the quotes. You will find over 41,000 hits and many will be almost word-for-word identical to the whole paragraph above.
On closer inspection you will see that a number of the phrases in this spam comment are generated with an article spinner or word substitution algorithm. To illustrate this, read the comment again, but this time, with a few tweaks to “unspin” the words.
A thought-provoking web site. My friends and I were just discussing this the other day. Also your page looks great my old friend. It’s truly remarkable. Good work.
There are probably a dozen different ways you could “unspin” this comment to get what approaches a reasonable comment that is grammatically correct and makes sense. This is just one example.
What I think happened here is someone has put together a plugin or software tool that skims portions of real comments, or is fed them by a low-paid outsourced worker then it shuffles it up a bit. The spinner software works its magic (or not) by substituting words and phrases, but not as cleverly as a real person might, and then it hunts down blogs and spams comments in the hope of getting a back-link. The whole thing might even be done by a team of outsourced workers from non-English speaking countries.
The most concerning thing here is that it is working for these spammers and I have probably let one or two of these “spun” paragraphs through in my time. With over 41,000 hits on Google for this comment alone, someone is laughing, or a few someones, with all those back-links.
So, what to do? Keep a close eye on those pending comments and if they sound like broken English, next check for the gravatar. Most spammers will not bother with a gravatar. If it is broken English and no gravatar I have been simply hitting the spam button. Some of the more elite spammers will set up a gravatar in which case I will then extract a phrase of around 5 to 10 likely looking words and Google it. Any more than a couple of complete matches and it is on its way to the spam bin.
If you can spare the time, spend an extra few moments with these dodgy looking comments and make sure these spammers are not getting free links they do not deserve. Their comments will not add value to your site. In fact, with Google punishing sites that contain duplicate content there is an outside chance that by letting these types of comments through you’ll be doing more harm than good to your own page rankings in the search engines.
If you get a moment, drop by Sally Neill’s blog to check out her great tips on blog commenting.
Do you have an elite anti-spam strategy that works for you? Share it below.
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Michael, I have this problem on a daily basis. Like you, I sometimes Google the phrase to see if it’s been used elsewhere.
Usually though, I’ll hit the spam button if it is very obviously spam. If I’m not entirely certain, I just hit the trash button.
John Soares @ Information Products´s last post..Selling Information Products Weekend Reading 2010-06-18
Hi John, a lot of what I do on this blog has come from a few years of experience. This trend that I have recently noticed is reasonably new to me, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been around a while.
Much of the spam is fairly obvious but lately it seems like the spammers have enlisted some novel, although often lame, techniques.
I also use a spam busting plugin called “Block Top Spammers”. With a few clicks I can add the IP address of spammers to the .htaccess file of my site. They can still navigate the site and read posts but they are blocked from creating comments.
Maybe in a few months time it would be of some value to share the IP address collection that I am putting together by using this plugin. There are a couple of dozen IPs in there at the moment.
Michael, sounds like you’re on top of it. I don’t have enough problems with spam (yet) that I’m ready to take measures beyond just using Akismet.
I do scan the spam folder in WordPress every couple of days. Actually found a legit comment in there and e-mailed the person and told her Akismet had blocked her.
John Soares @ Information Products´s last post..Selling Information Products Weekend Reading 2010-06-18
When I had a legit comment end up in spam I clicked the “not spam” link hoping that it would flag the comment author’s email as a legit source. I guess someone who knows Akismet a little more could confirm this.
Spam is not a big issue for me but someone once said that when you start out you should try to put in place a number of key systems that will allow you to cope with an expected increase in traffic, sales, inquiries, etc.
Part of my strategy for success involves projecting future dynamics of the business and gearing up for it while not being overwhelmed by it.
This is a pretty annoying problem because I’ve had quite a few comments like these too.
They do come across as an actual comment but then if you read the example, you’re wondering ‘age sidekick’? That right there tells me that they may have something to do with selling and want to slip in their keyword.
I usually check the name, gravatar, website and try to read into the comment before approving.
Murlu´s last post..How To Over-Deliver With Every Blog Post
“Aged sidekick” makes me think of a batman and robin style duo who have come out of retirement. It is not a common phrase and was certainly the trigger for me on this one.
Twitter: Alexwhalley23
says:
I personally just look at the name and the eventual backlink that will be obtained. As a general rule though I agree that broken english ambiguous comments are always spam but especially when the name is ‘cheap car insurance’ or forextrader or something, but once I got a comment that could have been spam or maybe not but the name and link included was “Hello5???????” and I thought, if they want to rank on page 1 for THAT phrase, then all the power to them ,so I approved it
Also Michael, my coworkers and I were discussing this last night and the old guy likes the look of the site.
More power to aged patriarchs
Thanks Michael. I’m just new to the whole blogging scene and interesting to hear about the exploiters.
CommentLuv is a great plugin, but I guess it attracts spam for the link reward.
I’ve only seen a few, but John mentioned it’s a daily problem for him.
Do you think this problem will get even worse?
How good is Akismet at blocking them?
Joe, you will be pleased to know Akismet is so good it had put both your comments into the spam queue
. I always skim through it just in case it happens, but it has a very good hit rate and only rarely gets it wrong. Maybe the person who programmed Akismet doesn’t like dentists 
. Now that you ask, today I was hit with 30+ spam comments but all seemingly from the same source as the format was almost identical. It only takes a minute to go through the queue each day so it is not a big chore.
Twitter: barry_wells
says:
Hi Michael, I use Akismet for the spam control. I still have to sort through them and most are deleted. I normally check the websites and if there are many posts on different subjects, in english, i allow their comment on my blog.
I never thought of checking their gravatar, but will be from now on. With regard to the names being left, I allow some that call themselves Costumes (for example) once i’ve been to the website and seen that they sell costumes.
I’m still very unsure of what to allow and what not to allow, but like you say, applying a few rules does help block the rubbish, and we all know that to much rubbish attracts the rats.
As ever Michael, a very educating post.
Thanks mate, take care, Barry
I like that: rubbish = rats. That is why I dish up good tucker. Glad you liked it. Akismet has been great for me so far although it does pick up the occasional bit of ham and place it in spam. There are some seemingly genuine people without gravatars but mostly those who have been around for a bit, especially if they have a blog, will get their own gravatar. Thanks for your contribution.
I hate spam. I get about 5 spam comments every hour or two. It is really insane. I have well over 600 spam comments just in the last 3-4 months. It’s just a waste of space!
That’s a lot Joe. You must have done a great job on your keywords to be attracting that much spam
…but what’s so wrong about keeping a comment on your blog if there’s no profanity, no flame attacks, no impersonation?
… and no value in the comment? I don’t mind approving a comment if it adds value, continues a conversation, debates a point. But when there is no point to a comment or it is gibberish, it gets the flick (or click). Welcome Ari. You have an intriguing blog with great content. I have taken a little look around but will be back for more.
Twitter: alljessilicious
says:
Hi Michael!
Ahh, the spam comment topic! I find it interesting to see the kind of spam comments that come through my Akismet filter. I’ve seen ones where they actually copied other legit comments that had been left on another post word for word, or copied a line from the post itself.
It’s all just pretty lame in my books. So far I haven’t had too much difficulty telling if the comments are spam or not – I always check the email address and domain name they give, and they are usually spammy-looking to match the funny language.
Jess Webb´s last post..5 Signs You May Need a Website Makeover
Hi Jess, thanks for visiting and sharing your thoughts. You’re right, spam can be easy to spot but those ones that copy sections of real comments or the post itself can seem real to begin with and difficult to identify.
By the way, I watched your dinosaur video, if I can call it that. It’s something I really have to do (a video that is). Well done.
Take care, Michael.
Twitter: alljessilicious
says:
Thanks, Michael!
Hi Michael, Thanks for commenting on my blog, hence the reason I am here. The other little trick I have found that these spammers use is copying previous comments made by an approved commenter. I mistakenly approved comments of this type twice, before realising what was going on, I knew I had read the comment before so had to trail through my blog. I’ve also had the comments you mentioned above, what puzzles me is how they think their comments will be approved in the first place and what exactly do they gain from returning time and time again even though they will never be approved. The worst spammers are from Russia, I had a few IP’s traced but it didn’t really do much good. More of a pain in the ass than anything else.
Maria´s last post..The HPV vaccine fraud as Gardasil reaches Irish schools
Welcome Maria. The Block Top Spammers plugin I use is collecting a great list of spam IPs. My only concern is that spammers are faking the IP so that I might be blocking legit IPs
The plugin includes a notice page that the visitor sees saying why they are blocked from commenting and if it happened by mistake (or faking) they can request it be unblocked.
Well… english is not my native language, and I must admit that reading stuff in english is far easier to me than writing, but I can not see any reason to put my effort in spam bin only beacuse I have some bad grammar or spelling and I dont have gravatar (I first heard of something like that here).
I`m not offenden or anything, but well.. don’t get to paranoid. The only thing that should matter to You as blog writer, is if comment is relevant to post above, and add something to discussion. If it is, even if written by spamer – it is NOT spam. If it is not – well, its spam, even if it is written not by spamer.
Rolety,
The difference is, to a native English speaker, your comment looks like it was written by a human and not a software program. There is a big difference.
I want to encourage you to continue contributing as your English is very acceptable and I certainly will not be spamming it
Welcome to the blog.
I have commented on a blog post in a wordpress site about SEO tips and when I hit the “post” button, some of the words I’ve typed in suddenly changed! I didn’t know how this happened..instead of me saying to the blogger that his post about SEO tips are really very helpful, it turned out that I said that his post about SEO tips are really very “caring”! I can’t delete my comment on that post nor can I edit it..
Felicia @ No deposit poker´s last post..World Cup Mob Betting – Final Weekly Leaderboard- 4 Matches Left
Phantom of the Opera is a classic and is one of the best plays ever.`~
I experienced this many times,I have to admit I really hate people or computer users who shares to many out bound links that is not useful, they don’t realize that they are destroying one sites reputation,someone told me that there are plug-ins we can use to avoid spammer, but I don’t know how, can you please share some idea that can be considered very effective.
Kate Brown Wilson´s last post..יועצת שינה
I suggest you try the “Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin” plugin. It detects spam very well. Find it at http://www.growmap.com/growmap-anti-spambot-plugin/