Or Words to that Effect…
I get some of my biggest laughs while doing comment moderation on this blog.
Today for example, I found:
I have just visited and thoroughly reviewed all your site and resource area, and found that your site is a great resource for my site’s visitors (or words to that effect).
graphic design [linked]
“Or words to that effect”, indeed.
My guess is that the comment was posted by someone who just copied and pasted the suggested verbiage from a course in social media marketing and without actually reading it.
Duh.
The second comment of note was:
Rising Searches for “Twitter Affiliate Marketing” are at 450% and have been for over two weeks. I don’t know anybody who couldn’t benefit from throwing a nice “Twitter Tool” on their homepage.
That caught my attention for 2 reasons – “Rising Searches for Twitter Affiliate Marketing” seemed interesting and then “are at 450%” made no sense at all.
Clicking the commenter’s link took me to a “how I make money blogging” page. Within the article on that page was the line:
I want to be a guy who researches what he says, what he does and sells, so that I can truly offer quality, coupled with genuine service, this is all that really matters.
Hmmm…
Then I did a Google search for “Rising Searches for “Twitter Affiliate Marketing” are at 450%” and came up with 76 results. Our little ‘genuine service’ blog comment spammer has been busy!!
What really got me was how many so-called professional bloggers let this spam comment get posted to their blogs, either through failure to setup proper blog comment moderation OR failure to actually read the comment prior to approval.
Although I appreciate the laughs and resent the time these a-holes steal from me, I’d still rather do that than give them a link back to their site.
Thoughts? How tough are you on blog comment moderation? Get any funny spam comments lately? Please share — and remember, your comments will be moderated. 
Related Posts
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- Akismet: Catching 1500 Spam Comments per Day
- Book Review: Turn Words into Traffic
Posted / Revised on February 19, 2010 under Get Traffic  |
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Rosalind Gardner is a Super Affiliate blogger, author, speaker, and Internet marketing consultant. For more info, subscribe to her No-Hype, No-BS, No Spam NPT newsletter and join Affiliate Blogger PRO to get answers to all your affiliate marketing questions. Thanks for visiting!
I do comment moderation as a service and it’s hilarious reading some of the comments that come through. There are tons so I really have to make it through them quickly but some just stop me in my tracks and I burst out laughing just shaking my head ha ha These people waste their time or maybe they have auto submitters but either way what a waste. I can’t believe some bloggers don’t moderate their comments and let this junk through.
As for my own personal blog, I run the same way. I can smell a spammer a mile away and watch carefully what I let through.
Having moved four of my blogs from Blogger to WordPress, I’m now getting a lot of spam comments. It’s come to the point where I activated Akismet this week – I hope it works. It really is a waste of time to have to go through and then delete all these spam comments. I can’t believe that some of these spammers actually think they could get away with it, even if they don’t add a link on their comment.
Copy/paste makes up a dismally large percentage of bandwidth-glutting text cluttering the shoulders and median strips along the Information Superhighway. Too bad we can’t sentence data thieves and spammers to go out with bright orange vests and trash bags to clean it all up.
Sounds like the same garbage I get from link exchangers who, if they have REALLY just visited any of my sites and thoroughly reviewed my “very valuable resource for our customers,” would have seen the big red h2 titles that state that we do not participate in link exchanges.
I’ve been getting variations of this one on a couple of my sites:
Like the example you gave, I can see it and similar comments on many other blogs when I do a search. Quite the tactic, trying to get the webmaster to check out an imagined problem. Akismet caught it quite nicely for me and I can’t imagine not having at least that basic level of protection from spam on a blog.
That’s funny. I think it is sad that so many people waste their posting comments like this. I started to stop reading my spam filter because they were so many of the same posts.
My blog is about internet marketing, but I had this comment in my spam the other day: “Gooey Ducks grow to about two pounds in four or five years.” Hmm. How does that relate? LOL
Some of them I have a hard time deciding though. The ones where they say “this is a really great site, I’m going to bookmark it and share it with my friends … ” To me I think it’s spam, because they don’t mention anything about the post itself. Is that what you would do?
Thanks – Heidi
Are you finding many blog comments that add to the value of what you are sharing or is most of it moderated out? Even with comments disabled my publications attract enough overly self serving comments pushed by scripts. Enable or disable is an ongoing debate with staff, what’s your opinion as far as affiliate marketing is concerned?
Sincerely,
Justin
Rosalind
Thanks for giving everyone a good laugh, but the serious side of this issue is how much time we have to waste in carrying out the moderation.
While I get annoyed at the comments that have clearly been outsourced to someone who does not have English as their first language, they are occasionally very funny. My number one pet hate are comments where keywords, like “debt consolidation” or “foreclosure” are stuffed throughout an entirely unrelated paragraph on wine-tasting for example.
I admire your zero tolerance policy.
Phil
“Although I appreciate the laughs and resent the time these a-holes steal from me, I’d still rather do that than give them a link back to their site.” – Ha ha this post made me laugh. Thanks.
The Prestigious Spam Award 2010 goes to “Words To That Effect…” for their ingenious(?)spam efforts and statistical analysis of current trends. ;0)
This is hilarious. I just did a whole post on this type of thing. In the beginning, when I was a new blogger I thought people were serious, and they really loved my blog.
Now I know that’s just auto generated spam. 
Although I do have plenty of people who love my blog and they actually add to the conversation, not just tell me how much they love me. I have my blog set to the first comment has to be moderated, and some actually get by me, but I go back and delete them. Thank heaven for Akismet!!
@Clint,
Askimet works a treat. Its the first plugin I install on my wordpress sites. I go and delete spam about once a month. I just checked my spam box and how’s this for a beauty.
Substantially, the article is really the greatest on this deserving topic. I fit in with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your upcoming updates. Just saying thanks will not just be sufficient, for the wonderful lucidity in your writing. I will directly grab your rss feed to stay abreast of any updates. Good work and much success in your business dealings!
“Substantially, the article is really the greatest on this deserving topic. I fit in with your conclusions and will thirstily look forward to your upcoming updates. Just saying thanks will not just be sufficient, for the wonderful lucidity in your writing. I will directly grab your rss feed to stay abreast of any updates. Good work and much success in your business dealings!”
wow, if this wasn’t so much cr*p I’d be flattered! Lynda.
Haha! This is really funny. I think that some spammers forgot how powerful the search engine is. Copying and pasting the same comments?! Haha. Com’on, are they for real?
Ros,
I got this on my site last week. I ended up letting it through but the site they pointed to: thedrunkreport.com seemed a little suspect.
Here is the comment:
“Hello, Drink Guy,
Love the site! Think the recipes are absolutely fabulous! I was wondering if I could post one of your recipes on my blog with a link to you? At The Drunk Report, we have recipes we post in the evenings so our Bar Flies can relax with a cocktail as they catch up on the news of the day. Wednesdays are Whiskey Wednesdays and your recipes are yummy!
Stay drunk,
Cat Martini”
Thanks for your posts. I will try and pay more attention to what is there. I have not really got any spammy comments yet, but now I know what to look for.
Thanks,
Rob
PS. I was just interviewed on Affiliate ABC’s by Deborah Carney and I gave you credit for inspiring me to start the drink guy.