February 23, 2013

I Don't Like Spam

Recently my blog has been overcome with spam messages and I can't stand it!

In the past 2 weeks I've had over 20,000 spam comments sent to my blog. Most of them were caught by the spam blockers but a few have managed to get published. What's worse is that in order to delete this mass bulk of spam, I had to get rid of some legitimate comments from readers. 

So I've enabled word verification as much as I didn't want to. I very much dislike word verification because it is  difficult for people with reading or hearing impairments. I also think it's silly to make people jump through hoops to leave a comment. I'm not going to just block all comments that contain links because I like to see what my readers are up to and I'm sure other readers do too. Spam is just so frustrating.   

On many popular blogs, spammers will be met with comments from other readers asking questions like "Do you really think people are going to click on your advertisement?" It's nice that readers defend their favorite blogs but few people understand how spam works.

Spam comments aren't like junk mail, where the point is to get a name out to as many people as possible. The point of spam comments is to get a link to the spammer's website on as many other websites as possible because search engines show websites that have a lot of links out in the Internet first in search results.



I just wanted to let everyone know what was going on and why there have been changes and some comments have been removed. Unfortunately, this problem isn't just affecting my blog. Bloggers on blogspot and wordpress have been reporting a surge in spam this month.

7 comments:

  1. I've had a lot more spam in the past three months, too. Having comment moderation activated stops them from ever being posted, but even so, it has surprised me how much I would have received if I had it off!

    I've noticed that it's not just Blogger and Wordpress that are having the spam problems: most articles I read online are littered with spam comments in the threads. :(

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    1. Google claims that it punishes websites that spam but I have no clue how they would and if they do it seems that spamming would have stopped already.

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  2. Oh, Stephanie, how frustrating! I'd like to say I sympathize, but 20,000? I can't even wrap my head around that.

    You're right about the word verification hurdle being a hassle, but since you mentioned what you are up against, it is totally understandable. By the way, I sometimes have vision problems, myself, but I've found if a reader clicks the little circular arrow next to the entry box, the service will continue offering up other phrases to copy. I jut click until I can actually see what the numbers are.

    I really enjoy your blog and hope you won't let that discourage you from continuing!

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    1. Thanks Jacqi! I'm glad the spam blockers caught all of that but it was really getting ridiculous. I really didn't want people to think I was removing actual reader comments though. Thanks for the encouragement!

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  3. That's an unreal number! I wish there was some other way to stop them all. Do you ever wonder how successful they are in getting people to click their links?

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    1. They are trying to raise their page ranking in google searches. It's still pointless as many "spam" pages still look like spam pages and people won't click them.

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  4. it is totally understandable. By the how do you stop spam way, I sometimes have vision problems, myself,

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