Recognizing and Ridding Your Site of Blog Spam Comments
February 22nd, 2013
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Author: Hi everyone! Wanted to update my tutorial on how to know when someone is spamming your blog and how to get rid of it. Not everyone knows what’s spam and what’s not – and sneaky spammers have a way of stroking or ego or getting you all riled up so that you don’t realize you’re allowing spam onto your blog.
Watch the video tutorial on this here:
Hope that helps!
Tiff 
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Hi Tiff
This is Not Spam LOL
Just wanted to say it is nice to know someone still uses Microsoft Paint.
LOL! I love paint
~
Askimet is still free and actually comes already installed on new blogs (along with that silly Hello Dolly plugin-don’t know why they have that). You still need the API key to activate it but of course, that’s free too.
I wonder why I thought it was paid? LOL
Akismet told me I had to PAY for commercial use of the product, which is why I don’t use it.
Instead, I use the spam software built into commentluv premium.
I don’t get spam at all, since installing the paid commentluv.
As for the Akismet, it was free at the time I received my API key… but 2 years ago, when I reinstalled a blog and went to use the key, it told me I had to PAY to use it for commercial use.
Might want to go there again and check it. I should find the link and go see…
Ah that clears it up – thanks Bonnie!
That’s so weird Bonnie. I have loads of sites using my API key and just started a new blog and used the same key and there wasn’t anything about commercial use. It worked like always.
So I wonder why they thought your site was for commercial use? They never even questioned mine even though they definitely are used to make money.
Okay, Tiffany… I went inside the login for Akismet, where you get the API key. There’s 4 steps and they give me 3 plans to choose from:
1. Enterprise
$50/month
Multiple site access / low traffic sites.
2. Pro
$5/month
Single site access.
For small, non-personal sites or blogs.
3. Personal
$0-$120/year
Personal blogs. For non-business personal sites or blogs.
There you are – straight from the Akismet / API key page.
Aha! Thanks Bonnie
Spammers are such a massive pain with their comments and forms, they can drive you absolutely spare at times.
I did not have the captcha box activated on one site and suddenly the auto profile/link software got the email address and added it to its data bank – and I swear, there were hundreds of emails getting through to me!
I sorted the captcha for the forms and it stopped immediately.
I know you don’t like it, but it does stop the auto software programs, as well as the humans.
Oh no! That would be a nightmare.
I get a bunch of spam that says it is commenting on one of my pictures (usually the same picture).
Very weird.
Mary Kathan
That is odd!
That usually means that one of the backlinging software databanks has listed the url for its members to use… they are auto generated then everytime they do a link ‘run’ to all the sites in the databank.
I think one of them is called SEONuke … it must drive forum owners absolutely crazy, as HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of these ‘profile’ links get posted to their sites every day.
I have heard of people like ONE MEMBER of this software having 1,000 computers just banging out those backlinks all day every day to all their websites/blogs.
If it is annoying enough to you to clear them all the time, would add captcha to your comments submission form, or if it is not an important page, that does not get a lot of organic traffic otherwise, I would definitely consider changing the filename extension or similar.
Wow how scummy!! How value-less!
Thanks so much for doing this. You are the BEST.
Finished the design for my site & set up a FB page with matching cover photo. Now I need to set up the plugins for the blog and my autoresponder.
Making progress
Pat
You’re welcome! Nice progress Pat!
Hey Tiff,
This comment was recently left in Jennifer’s One Week Marketing community on G+
I have a newbie quiery. I have just recieved a comment on a lense and have approved it but am not sure if I should have. Any advise?
It was
“really stylish jwellery boxes…………want to have all…… thanx for share www.*******.com ”
I shared a link to this post. How’s that for serendipitous timing?
Thanks for all that you share.
Nope that’s spam! They’re just wanting their link. I’d remove it.
When scrolling through my spam comments to pick out ones that are legit I watch for gravitars and Comment Luv links. Since my main blog is an online marketing blog almost everyone commenting is going to have a website in the URL field so if there is no Comment Luv link it’s a spam comment.
Generally the URL/Name is the biggest giveaway otherwise.
I’ve seen spammers with commentluv links though so that wouldn’t work for me. I think there are ways now that they search for commentluv blogs. Ugh spammy spammers!
Thanks for the refresher, Tiffany. I make spam comments work for me. The ones that have a person’s name, I strip out the URL, rewrite their comment, and answer it. I will do this on posts I have a lesser amount of comments on.
Akismet (pronounced: a-kiz-met), is still free unless you want to make a donation to them. I use the same key on all my sites, whether or not I have something to sell.
Take care!
LOLHow funny Cindi! And why do I always say ask-i-met? I caught myself on that before!
I used to say “ask” myself, Tiffany. I think it’s just the way our minds tend to see it. We’re not used to seeing the letters arranged the way they are. Kismet means destiny or fate. How they get there, I don’t know-lol!
What I noticed at one time were a lot of “this website great, but problem with viewing XYZ, please remove problem” kind of comments, with a lot of bad grammar and foreign words mixed in that their translation program seemed to miss out on.
Someone on a forum I visited at that time had approved hundreds of those, thinking they were legit concerns about their website – it had them looking for bugs that didn’t exist for days.
If your website gets added to one of the “ready to spam” lists, just tank those comments – it’ll be off the lists after a while.
Oh, and keep the best spam comments for a “Top 10″, they make hilarious blog posts.
LOL So true Lisa!
Lisa, what a great idea!!
That actually would make fun reading, as well as showing your readers what to look out for – I’m taking that idea and using it for sure – THANKS!
Awesome, I look forward to reading that!
I noticed some people posting funny spam comments they get on Facebook, too. They get a lot of comments and get shared, so this can improve Edgerank as well as make people laugh. At least that way spam is good for something. LOL!
Some good information about Spam comments. I have been getting more and more of these lately. No sure why. Take Care, Sam
Maybe your blog’s getting ranked higher?
That would be great. Thanks and Take Care, Sam
I like the ideas given for ways to out-fox the spammers by editing their spam comments and using them to your advantage!
I usually check out the name and URL and find certain keywords that immediately gives it away, even when they try to tailor a very generic, legitimate-looking comment. They’re not hard to detect.
But getting those spam comments sure does burst your bubble when you have a new blog and you’re excited to see that someone has discovered it and commented … only to find that it’s SPAM!
I agree Iris!
Hi Tiff,
My problem with spam has been spammers taking a sentence or two from what another commenter has already said and posting that as their comment.
Now if I only have one or two comments for that post, it’s not hard to spot these. But when there are several comments already, it gets a lot harder.
This annoys the heck out of me! And yes, I use Akismet.
Yes I hate that trick Peggy!
Hi Tiff,
Good tutorial, span can get tricky. Some people have some good general comments that can have you guessing especially if you’re just starting out.
I use Akismet too, but I’m looking for alternates at the moment for that and their Stats plugin(which, in the future, you will need to install Jetpack if you want Stats). I’d like to get rid of everything that uses the WordPress API.
It put rules for commenting right above the comment box. If you don’t follow the rules I consider it spam and it gets deleted. They say –
Comment Policy Guidelines: Please, No Keywords or Company Names in the Name Field. Your Name only! Please, No inappropriate or offensive comments. Please, No links to inappropriate or offensive sites. All SPAM will be deleted. Thank You!
I have been getting a lot of spam comment that are using CommentLuv so thanks Andy B. Where might they be getting a list of CommentLuv blogs. None other than – http://www.commentluv.com/buy-commentluv-premium/commentluv-global-search-engine/
But you can’t blame it all on Andy a.k.a. fiddy lol. You could use an online search tool like http://dropmylink.com/ to find CommentLuv and KeywordLuv blogs by selecting from the Find drop menu. Plus you could use Google’s advanced search operators which is probably what tools like this use behind the scenes. Ohoh! 2 links in a comment, that’s may end me up in spam jail, next thing you know my Gravatar pic will be on a wanted poster
I saw jetpack on Lance’s video in podcast crusher and wondered what it did. I’ll check it out.
LOL Gravatar jail!
Hi Tiff
I’ve had a couple of spam comments, but what I’ve had more recently is users registering for my site (www.inspirationalresults.com) – and the username and email addresses don’t look legit to me. I go in and delete them, but I have no idea where or how they are registering on my site! Any ideas?
Thanks
I don’t even bother deleting them. Should I? LOL