Are Your Top Commentators “Used Tires” and “Mortgage Loans”?

by Ishan on October 14, 2009 · 11 comments

Take a look at a “Top Commentators” widget I recently stumbled upon:

Top Commenters

All it takes is a look at this list to see how much the owner cares about his blog. Clearly, the top commentators are just trying to get links to their sites from a well-ranked blog.

Now, do you get comments from people with names like these?

In this post, I will discuss some common spam comments that you will get and, of course, how to avoid them!

Here are some common spam comments:

Thanks for this post.
Great Post. I learned a lot!
Hi, I liked your blog a lot and want to subscribe. But I can not find how to get RSS feeds. Please help.
I have been reading your blog for a while and it is great. Keep up good work.
I am sure this will help me a lot. Thanks!

If you get comments like these, you should mark them as spam without any second thoughts!

How To Avoid Spam

Here are four simple tips on avoiding spam comments:

Use Common Sense. If comments are not related to the post, it is spam. For example, here’s a comment I got on a post about Page Rank from “Free Credit Report”: “rankings are very important. Google is ranked #2 and Yahoo is ranked #1 on Alexa.” Now, that was not totally irrelevant. So, I followed the link in the URL field and found a site that was anything but a blog. This brings me to the second point:
Follow Back. Many times, spammers leave related comments but leave links to undesirable websites. If you find a comment suspicious, follow the link. Before you do, however, make sure you have good anti-virus and anti-phishing software installed!
Have a Good Anti-Spam Solution in Place. Apart from Akismet, you can also try other good solutions, such as the next suggestion:
Filter Words/IPs. Go to your WordPress Dashboard and follow Settings –> Discussion. In the comment blacklist, enter the IPs/words you frequently get in spam comments. You can also enter email addresses you want to block.
Block IPs with care and only when you are sure that this is a spammer’s IP. Leaving good people out of your blog is not an intelligent option!

How do you avoid spam? Do tell us through comments!

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About Author

Hi, I am a young Blogger from India. I am very passionate about blogging and also co-founder of Blogging With Success. I write about general blogging tips and WordPress. You can read other posts by me here.If you need help, feel free to contact anytime!

{ 10 comments }

Curious Little Perso November 19, 2009: Top commentator, do follow , comment luv are all targets for the kind of spam you mentioned in this post…. I've your having these on your blog.. make sure you administer your posts..

Cheers

Sandeep
Dan Puroclean October 28, 2009: For stopping bots I always recomend a CAPTCHA to prevent SPAM, but ensure that it's a strong one, like http://www.captcha.net/.

Don't bother blacklisting IP addresses or using third party blacklists, that will just generate false positives. Almost all bots use the same IP addresses as (some) legitimate users.
Rhys October 21, 2009: Hi Mr. I!

I totally agree with some of your comments. A few commenters take the mick (they're not even commenters!), so by keeping the comments in check can help you loads.

One other thing I look for is comments that copy & paste from either the post or another commenter. Just have an idea on what's been going on your blog, use common sense, and you'll be fine
timethief October 18, 2009: When I find "questionable" comments rather than putting my anti-virus and anti-phishing software to the test I frequently use the bad neighborhood link checker. It's an awesome free tool that I recommend very highly. Bad Neighborhood Link Checker
Eugene October 18, 2009: I get a lot of spam on my site as well. I just delete it. I will have to filter them as you say, was not aware you could do that. They are always the same, some movie star nude. I set blogging guidelines in my top commenter, do follow, page. So people know if they do the "great site" thing it is going to be deleted. Thanks for the information, I will be back.

Eugene
David Shaw October 16, 2009: Common sense is the best way to block these spam comments!

I prefer people on my blog to use their real name, but I do not enforce it!

I am tempted to set out some blogging guidelines. that way I can advise people why their comments are not making onto the site!
Gordie Rogers October 15, 2009: Hi Mr. I.

I don't seem to have this problem. 99% of my commenters use personal names or a personal name and website. I don't mind personally if people add their website next to their name.

Maybe I'm just lucky. I use Akismet and WP-Spam Free. Together they seem to do wonders.
Creative Junkie October 15, 2009: I get these kinds of comments all the time – the associated email addresses are always weird ones – luckily, Akismet gets them every single time.
Kushagra October 15, 2009: I normally add spammer's IP addresses to the comment blacklist.

From past few days, I was receiving some comments in Russian language, I thought that the commentator wanted a help, so I accepted all the comments and went to Google translator. When I translated those comments, I found that they were useless and very irrelevant.

These type of comments looks legit but they are not always because people try to fool you by first giving some good comments and when they are out of the spammers list, they post spam which is posted without passing through filters.!

So, take care….
Richard Cummings October 15, 2009: Ah, how true. People seek out "Top Commentator" websites. My policy is this. If the comment is an insightful one, I'll let it pass even if it was written by "golf clubs" If it is a "Great Post" comment, that "great comment" is headed directly for the spam queue!