Identifying real spam comments is getting tougher day by day. I mean seriously, from last few days, I have received only spam comments and the real pain is that I can’t decide whether to approve them, delete them or mark them as spam because the commentors are humans not bots and maybe somewhere down the future they may even make a genuine comment.
Imagine that I have released a wordpress theme based on Indian Independence day and some americans complimenting on its color scheme. Plain case of spamming my blog with their real estate website urls just for heck of traffic.
Comment Update Implemented: I have stopped making comment links dofollow and I have removed Top Commentors list permanently. I will never put them back, if you want to comment, then do otherwise stay out if you only have to say Wow or wonderful.
I will release comment policy soon in a day or two. Just a reminder to spammy commentors.
I think you guys are not quite understanding. Askimet is a great help for spam created by bots, which is usually the type that contains links to websites. But the issue here is that he was running a plugin that removes the “No Follow” that wordpress automatically ads to comments. Getting links without the “No Follow” is a major way to get better rankings in search engines. The idea of this plugin is to give “Link Love” to your commenters, but the result for him was people coming in and making a one or two word comment such as “Wow” in order to get the link. Most of these people probably never read the post and also likely never returned.
I hate spam, but I can sort out most of it!
Peter,
You make a great point! I’m a regular commenter at many blogs, and find that those with Akisnet have the least problem with spam comments. Whatever Akisnet does, it works! Once you pass over the “hurdle” with the blogmaster – as an acceptable commenter – it works like a charm!
I have a huge problem with spam comments but I find Akisnet sort out most the problems. My comments are do follow and I don’t find it adds much more spam.
Each comment should be thoughtful and removing spam is getting harder each day as stated in your blog but there are plugins that will help with this. You should keep your Do Follow for people with thoughtful comments. Delete the people who write “Nice Post” and/or “Wow”. I have a few plugins what may help you.
One of the best plugins I have found for comments is the De-link author which eliminates a the spammy link while keeping the thoughtful comment. There are others that do a hash check to make sure it comes from a person instead of a bot. I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to find something that will work for you.
I did discover your blog in the first place from a listing on a “Do Follow” list; but it probably took some time before I commented the first time as I do not appreciate a “Nice post” link on my blog either if someone is doing it simply for the link back. I feel I shouldn’t comment on any blog unless I can contribute, though if it’s someone I know and comment on regularly, then a particularly good post might get “Nice post”.
Perhaps you might want to do what I do. I too wanted to avoid getting the spammy, useless comments; but did want to give link love to proper commentors. I therefore run the LinkLove plugin, and do not advertise this fact. LinkLove make the commenter’s link Do Follow only after they have commented a set number of times that you get to choose. Since I don’t advertise it, I do not get people just looking for a link back, and regular commentors get a link back without even realizing it.
I can understand not wanting the “nice post” comments but if the person is really adding something unique or insightful to the blogger/commenter dynamic, does it really matter if they slip their link in there, it’s a win/win for both of you. I’ll check back in a few days, I do think it would be a shame though to go no-follow.
>”the real pain is that I can’t decide whether to approve them, delete them or mark them as spam because the commentors are humans not bots”
It’s too bad that so many blog commenters can only come up with “Wow”, or “Nice post”, or something like that. I’ve always believed that if I cannot add to the basic theme of the post, or cannot offer some sort of constructive criticism of the post, then it’s not worth my time to comment.
I hope you are able to develop a consistent blog commenting acceptance policy.
I’m reminded of the basic premise of the judicial law in America. It is better that a guily person go free than an innocent person be imprisoned. Something to think about….