Comment Spam Not an SEO Shortcut

April 7th, 2008 · 22 Comments

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Comment Spam Here’s the deal Neal, if your name is Neal I’ll apologize up front.

Moderation is turned on for all first time comments at the blog lab.

Once you have achieved a level of trust your comments will post as soon as you submit them. Unless they have more than two active links in them, that puts them back in moderation.

The Do Follow plugin is active and the Lab is on a list of blogs that have the do follow plugin in place.

Unfortunately, there are some sniffing out the do follow and thinking these are good sites to salt a few comments around to get some link juice back to their site.

Not at the Lab.

“Nice Post”,
“Great Information”,
“Cool Stuff”,
“This is a really great post and I know many agents are too busy to write their own post so why not visit my site at #$^&(^(*&().com and we can do that for you”

Which some of you might notice was the one that gave birth to the “Don’t Be A Blog John” post.

None of these comments will every see the light of the Lab. There will always be those wanting to take the quick road. But here it will lead you to a statistic in Askimet.

SEO the Link Text fine but not here

Yeah someone came up with the bright idea to put keywords in the link text. There are lots of places I do this as well. BUT NOT IN THE COMMENT NAME FIELD.

Any comments I find with this going on get the name changed. I’ll do my best to find the name of the commenter and replace it. Sometimes they still slip though, but if I find them I will change them. Please use your own name or handle.

WHY?

Its my blog : ) Just wanted to throw that one in.
I want to comment back to a person, not “Peoria Real Estate” (as an example)
I’m already giving a link back with Do Follow (DON’T GET GREEDY)

None of us like greedy seller, or greedy buyers. Some times we hate working in Real Estate (LIKE MOST DAYS ANYMORE).

Then why turn around and want more more more. I won’t turn Do Follow off. But I will seriously consider canning the whole comment if I don’t see a name in the name field and the comment adds nothing to the discussion.

When I see a comment with an SEO Real Estate name it makes me wonder if the comment is genuine or just an attempt at an SEO Shortcut.

Newbies get more of a break. I was one once, and I got plenty of breaks when I did something out of ignorance and not design. And yes, we know who you are : )

Finally, sometimes you will see a comment like those I’ve mentioned above. Either I haven’t found it yet, or the commenter was in such a hurry to leave the comment and write another they didn’t put in a valid URL to their site.

Sometimes I leave those. Hey, we take our humor where we can get it.

22 responses so far ↓

1 Comment Spam Not an SEO Shortcut | The Long List of Odysseus Medal Nominees | Realtors and real estate, mortgages, lending, investments // Apr 7, 2008 at 8:43 pm

[...] Comment Spam Not an SEO Shortcut, by Dave Smith. [...]
2 Jake Vertion // Apr 7, 2008 at 10:13 pm

Hi Dave,

I use to have the Do Follow plugin installed on one of my other blogs and you wouldn’t believe the amount of comment spam I received. Within probably two weeks, I went from no comments, to 10+ a day and most of them were just like you said, something meaningful like “Great Blog” or “Cool”, not. Eventually I removed the plugin and went back to regular old no follow because I just got so tired of the garbage.

Hopefully it will work out better for you, I wish you the best of luck, it really is a nice feature and I respect the bloggers that use it. Oh and by the way, Cool Post!
3 Dave Smith // Apr 7, 2008 at 10:22 pm

Jake,

I would recommend you putting your comments on moderation activate Askimet if you haven’t and give it another try.

Because I have found as the Lab ages some of the comments are as valuable to the discussion of RE blogging as the posts themselves. As such I want to encourage these posters and provide juice back to them from the lab.

Yeah, I weed out the spammers, but in the process I get some really great bloggers dropping by and adding value to the Lab.

It seems only fitting I return the favor with a modicum of juice.
4 Paul Lamach // Apr 8, 2008 at 5:30 am

Dave,

Just changed mine. Don’t want to even take a chance at being a SPAMMER. Appreciate all your help. There I said it without expecting any return! Ha Ha!
5 Steven // Apr 8, 2008 at 6:45 am

Hi Dave.

“Nice Post”. LOL. Just kidding. I don’t get very many comments on my blog. I have the askimet plugin installed and moderation enabled. Do you think I will get more constructive comments if I put the “Do follow” on and how do I put the “Do follow” on.

Thanks

Steven
6 Dave Smith // Apr 8, 2008 at 7:23 am

Paul,

I should clarify this a bit. The using of Keywords for your name is not comment spam.

Comment spam is when you comment on someones blog trying to get links back to your services and are commenting just to get juice and people to click on your link.

Often they have not even read the post.

Putting the keywords in the Comment Name while good SEO will depersonalize you and your comment.
7 Dave Smith // Apr 8, 2008 at 7:26 am

Steven,

There are several Wordpress plugins that will turn do follow on for comments. There are links to several on the post.

A Fable Do Follow and Comments

No Do Follow won’t lead to more constructive comments.

Getting people to comment is a challenge for many RE bloggers. Here are a couple of suggestions.

1. Leave comments on other blog posts you find of interest.
2. Pose questions in your posts. (Make a reason for someone to comment)
3. Find a post that provides more information on your topic and put a link to that post in yours.

Trackbacks will notify the other author of a link back to his post. We are all curious and will click those links to see who has linked to us. This will often lead to comments.

Time, it takes time to build readers and traffic to your blog. Keep it interesting and the sharing of more than just facts and figures. Believe it or not there is more than just Listings that readers are looking for.
8 Jay Thompson // Apr 8, 2008 at 11:09 am

Nice post with great information and cool stuff.

Seriously though, a-freaking-men. I get a lot of the SEO text for names stuff. I just don’t have time to police it all (it’s daunting enough to go through the 400ish posts a day Askimet flags as spam to make sure there were no “false positives”).

I think people just need to exercise common courtesy.

I had the problem before I added do-follow, and it seems about the same since I added it. I don’t advertise my do-follow at all, so I don’t know if that makes a difference or not.
9 An Ecommerce Learner // Apr 8, 2008 at 12:07 pm

Great post! I agree that spam comments are bad, but I have two questions.
1. You said that people should only us their real names in their comments. I do not use my real name for security reasons. If I were to use my real name people could get my private infomation. Do you think that that is a valid reason?
2. Do you think that non-spam comments help one promote his blog?

Thanks!
10 Sidney Gold // Apr 8, 2008 at 1:58 pm

Yea Dave lay down the law. Comment Spam gets a little crazy. People get greedy wanting to put down Florida Real Estate or XBOX 360 as their name. The link sometimes just isn’t good enough. We appreciate you using the DO Follow.

Jay your right people should just exercising some common courtesy and respect for the blogger. Dave we got your back. I’ll try and comment with some ramblings every now and then.
11 Dave Smith // Apr 8, 2008 at 4:20 pm

AEL,

Your Two Questions:

First, I did not say people should use their real name. I said they should use their name or handle. You know “Dave”, “Bill”, “Fred”, “Dana” those are names. And if a name is a security issue then I have to assume you would never want to put a URL in a comment.

Because someone might click on that and find your contact information or run a who is on the domain name and see who has the domain registered.

For most in real estate the issue is getting your name and contact information out there, not security.

Second, if a comment is insightful and adds to the information or discussion it most certainly will generate traffic to that commenter. I click on the names of many when I find I don’t recognize them and I want to see what else they have to say of interest or if this was the only original thought they have ever had and they left it on my blog.
12 Karen Goodman // Apr 8, 2008 at 11:10 pm

I’m glad to hear that you are giving newbies a break. I’m still pretty new at the blogging world, reading my first blogs and starting my own last November. Everything I read at the beginning about SEO said to spend tons of time leaving comments on other blogs.

I wish I had time, but lately I’m so busy with business that I barely have time to post to my own blog.

But, I do know that I made some of the spammy errors at the beginning out of ignorance. I finally stumbed on a comment that Ardell made on one of Dustin’s Rain City posts that gave me a visual that drove the point home. She explained that leaving a live link or commenting just to get link love on someone else’s blog was like sitting on the front porch of someone else’s open house handing out your business cards. Simply bad manners.

I appreciate the Do Follow…but you’ll never find a ‘cool post’ by me. Of course, given my lack of comments on my own blog, I think I would even be happy for some link spam
13 Dave Smith // Apr 9, 2008 at 6:51 am

Karen,

That is a great example by Ardell.

LOL In the beginning I felt the same way. I kept reading blogs about how much spam they were getting and would see all the comments and I had none.

But time will change that. Keep writing good content and people will find you.

I’ve also found that quite a few read but don’t comment. So it isn’t like no one is reading what you write if you don’t get a comment.

It took almost a year before I started getting comments. Now, I like comments but it doesn’t bother me if I don’t get any. I know this is my passion and I keep doing it.
14 Jay Thompson // Apr 9, 2008 at 7:12 am

Dave makes a good comment about comments. The fact is, the vast majority of blog readers don’t comment, and it can take a long time to get traction before comments (or readership) develops) — it’s really much like any otehr form of prospecting.

It’s even possible you have readers you don’t know about. I read your blog on a regular basis Karen through a feed reader. Since I don’t “hard click” into your blog, your stats will never show me there.
15 Dave Smith // Apr 9, 2008 at 7:20 am

Jay,

You make a good point and bring up an interesting subject. The more we read through feed readers the less likely we are to comment.

It also mean we leave no footprint of ever having been to the blog.

Therefore, “hard clicks” are even more valuable than in the past.

BTW Jay was one of those cutting this newbie breaks when I got started blogging.
16 Karen Goodman // Apr 9, 2008 at 7:54 am

Jay - I’m honored to be among the blogs in your feed reader. I’ve gotten so much good advice from you, and know that you probably have hundreds of blogs to choose from to focus on. Thanks!

I’m actually ok with my readership not being huge. Blogging for me is fun and a tension reliever, but the primary reason for it is to build my business. I know that I’ll never be huge all over the internet. That’s ok with me. I’m focusing on local stuff and providing a place where my new clients (or on the fence clients thinking about using me) can go to get educated on a number of real estate issues. It also gives me some great presentation materials for my initial meetings with new clients…simply print some of the classic posts and hopefully they’ll look up the blog and find even more info.

I can live without comments if I’m getting clients out of it.
17 Alex Bowden // Apr 10, 2008 at 10:56 pm

Hi Dave,

I have to agree with you. If you are going to make a serious comment then you should leave you name. I especially disagree with people that use obsene comment names to promote adult websites.
18 Jay Carter // Apr 14, 2008 at 2:42 pm

I’ve started getting this same stuff on my real estate blog (I just use a Blogger account), and thought your only choice was to delete, delete, delete everything yourself. Obviously I have much more to learn, as I’m new at this.
19 Dave Smith // Apr 14, 2008 at 3:17 pm

Jay,

If you can use askimet. I know you will have to set up a wordpress.com account to get an askimet activation number.

If not then check blogger for something you can turn on to block spam.

It will only get worse.
20 Karl // Apr 17, 2008 at 1:18 pm

Thanks Dave. This is a great post, especially for newbies to blogging. In my blog training, I was taught to comment a lot on any blog I could find. I was also taught to use my keywords in my name. It seemed to make sense, but as I gained more experience, I saw more people frowning on this behavior. If I had read posts like this early on, I would have known better. I appreciate you keeping the follow tag. I have it on my site and don’t get that much SPAM. Maybe I’m just not popular enough yet.
21 Faina Sechzer // Apr 20, 2008 at 7:19 pm

Dave,
I learned early on on Active Rain that placing links in the comments was not good manners. I still see it occasionally on my blog there. I was very surprised recently when someone left the same comment on 5 of my different posts. I was thinking that he might have used some kind of spam program to place this comment on everyone’s blog.
My new blog is still a baby, so I have no spam there what so ever:)
BTW, I read your blog mostly in the reader.
22 Rich Rogala // May 9, 2008 at 4:58 am

An interesting point, Jay and Dave, about the feed readers. As many people use feed readers for their favorite blogs, it seems to me that more and more spammers are having their comments read by other spammers. Seems silly. But kudos to you for keeping it on to provide a little “love” for those adding to the discussion.