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Is this a legit blog comment, or comment spam?

I'm a bit baffled, to be honest. I'm getting comments left on my weblog that kinda/sorta seem like they're relevant, but don't entirely make sense and aren't relevant to the actual discussion, though they're more or less on topic. Is it the work of some semi-incoherent blogosphere denizen, or is it actually some sort of subtle comment spam?


Dave's Answer:

Most likely, it's comment spam.

As it turns out, I have a splendid example of just this sort of thing that was left here on my Weblog last night. The discussion is about You can sell Ad space on your Web site and one of the different methods of selling ads that I mention in the article is Google's AdSense program.

The article was posted to the blog quite a while ago, and it ends with the comment:

"So if you have a nice Web site, have good pagerank, and would like to explore the possibility of selling your own ad space without having to fuss with finding buyers, LinkAdage could be an excellent solution for you. I recommend it."

The comment left last night was:

Ad space has become the most common online product with Google Adsense, many people who had hard time with selling their own online products, succeeded to accomplish profits they were looking for by selling spaces on their websites for advertisement, mostly by Google Adsense program.

It kind of makes sense, but it also kind of doesn't make sense. And why would this article that doesn't see particularly a lot of traffic suddenly garner this semi-incoherent message?

The solution can be found by looking at what the person put in the "name" field:

MT Blog: Comment Spam

As you can see from this snapshot of the administrative backend area, the user specified a "webmaster" email address, but instead of an actual name, they used Builder as their name and included a link to their site, serioussoft.com as the URL.

Their thinking is that my weblog will then have an unobtrusive link to their site that has the word "Builder" as its hypertext, reinforcing and helping their site rank higher for people who search for "builder" on Google or similar.

This won't work, however, because like most weblogs, Ask Dave Taylor is configured to use the rel=nofollow option on links in comments, which tells search engines to ignore that link and not give it any credit. So it's basically wasted effort on their part.

And, yes, if you're seeing comments of a similar nature, it's probably also comment spam and I'd suggest you delete it, or, if you're a bit mischievous, simply delete the URL from the comment so that it doesn't point anywhere, but still exists.

Me? I'm going to leave this comment so you can flip over to that page and see it intact, but you and I now both know that it won't help this person one iota with their search engine rankings.


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Categorized: Blogs and Blogging   (Article 5999, Written by )
Tagged: blogging, comment spam, weblog comment spam
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Reader Comments To Date: 4

Builder said, on March 2, 2006 3:46 AM:

Mr. Dave,
This is my comment you're talking about, using it as an example for possible comment spam based on your theory. Just let me clear something here, "Builder" is my commonly used nickname on the internet through weblogs, chat channels, and everywhere else. It's not intended at all to function as a keyword that may enhance ranking for webpage it refers to. If you followed the link and took a look at the website it refers to you would figure out that yourself, as the word "Builder" is not located at any part of the page at all including tags, and the whole website is not about anything related to building anything, absolutely this nickname can not be keyword for that website, all what I was interested in after finding your article about Google Adsense is to express my experience about selling your website's Ad space, and I ended up as a case of spamming being analyzed!!

Dave Taylor said, on March 2, 2006 9:21 AM:

Well, "Builder", I apologize if I've labeled your earlier comment inappropriately as blog spam, but I have found in years of being involved with the blog world that it's a common convention - and courtesy - to sign comments with your name not a 'handle', at least on the weblogs I frequent.

In the big picture, this shows yet again the frustration of how spammers and people looking for shortcuts can corrupt a space: while your specific comment apparently isn't blog spam, I do receive comments on my blog that don't make sense and at first glance are quasi-on topic but prove to be signed by someone named "online poker" or "best porn" or similar. It's a much more sophisticated approach to scamming inbound links to your site.

Again, my apologies if I painted your comment with the wrong brush. It's nonetheless informative to see how hard it can be to differentiate the legitimate from the spammer...

john beck said, on August 21, 2006 12:54 AM:

It’s hard to believe spammers go to such lengths, reminds me of the virus that have battles with each other through their viruses. :S

Builder said, on September 3, 2006 3:56 AM:

Yeah, right! And you are a very good example for that!

Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!











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