Spam is hardly a new phenonemon on the world wide web but it is despised by most of those who are affected by it.
Spam arrives via many different means these days and some, such as the example below, actually make me chuckle at their stupidity.
Those behind the spam have many motives for their actions.
Typically, it all boils down to money – spam is a very lucrative business after all.
For others, it is an opportunity to get noticed, or a chance to acquire links to their own website or blog that cannot flourish through more ethical means.
Blog comment spam is an annoyance but is easily dealt with.
If you have a blog running on WordPress then plugins, such as Akismet, are extremely adept at filtering spammy comments out of your line of sight.
That said, spam filters do sometimes miss comments that you wouldn’t want your visitors to be reading.
So, how do you know if a comment that appears on your blog is spam?
The answer to that is not as simple as you might think – after all, spam is in the eye of the beholder.
It may be that comments such as ‘nice post’ massage your ego, or motivate you to continue to write and that’s ok if it’s what you are looking for.
Otherwise, I believe comment spam can be identified as anything that fails to add value to the discussion.
In other words, it is -
S – Short
P – Pointless
A – Annoying
M – Meaningless
Therefore, a comment such as ‘Nice post’ is spam, but if the writer elaborates by saying why he thought that then it probably isn’t because it took some thought and added value.
Do you agree with my interpretation of spam comments or do you have other ideas?
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice post
LMAO
Only YOU are gonna get away with that!