With all the marvelous things that technology now does for us, why is it that we still get spam? For a long time I didn't understand when fellow bloggers complained about spam, then someone in Pakistan or India or Russia discovered my blog and put me on the spam mailing list. Everyday I am bombarded by ridiculous comments with links to commercial sites.
Because of participating in the A to Z Challenge there have been quite a few new visitors to my blog, but the spammers seem to have found the listing also. Has everyone else received their messages?
Sometimes the spammer comments are funny. For "H" I wrote a little piece about a woman who killed her husband with a hammer "for all the little things." The spammer wrote "Plenty of useful information here. I am passing it on to a friend. Please also see my website..." What, exactly, was "useful" about whacking a spouse over the head with a hammer? Perhaps his friend also had an annoying spouse?
The A to Z Challenge post for "O" was about my home state, Oregon, and focused on my backyard. The spammer said "I'm not sure where you get your information, but very interesting. Please see my webite..." Ummm, it's my backyard idiot! I look out the patio doors; that's where I get all my interesting information. Do they really think that we will fall for these canned comments?
Fortunately the spamming seems to hit my old posts rather than the most recent postings and my old posts require comment moderation. Some old posts are hit harder than others. For some reason Five Reasons Why I Voted For Obama seems to be a target for links for premature ejaculation treatments and penis enhancements...what's up with that? My post Nana Tells the Truth About Nose Hair gets a lot of links to beauty treatments...well, maybe that one is appropriate, but I still don't believe it when they say "Everyone should read this post." Yeah, everyone needs to read about my unsightly nose hair?
I've resisted moving to comment moderation, but I'd sure like some hints on how to stop the spammers. Does it really do any good to identify those comments as spam?
Update: I accidently published this a day early. It was up less than 10 minutes before I had my first comment...a !#$%^ spammer!!!
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That's the main reason I've always moderated my comments, although I recently changed to no anonymous comments and it seems to not be a problem anymore. Fingers crossed it stays that way!
ReplyDeleteI grew a big bushy mustache.
ReplyDeleteNow nobody notices my nose hair. ;-)
I also don't allow annonymous comments and that stops the spam, thoug it also stops coments from some friends whoonly can comment as annonymous.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what the spamers expect from all that crap.
If you need some sites for cheap Viagra I have several, but then you probably have them too.
Just recently I decided these comments were too invasive, and I too switched to comments moderation.
ReplyDeleteMan. That is really terrible. I have comment moderation for that very reason. I get few spammers, but I get them. I just don't publish them. It is too bad we have to deal with that.
ReplyDeleteI find them very annoying, and my delete button is getting used much more lately. I wonder why they bother since I can't imagine anyone going to their website.
ReplyDeleteI got rid of all my annoying spam comments by removing the ability for Anonymous posts. It's actually rather amazing. I also use comment moderation for anything more than two weeks old. I really laughed at the spammer who learned about hammering a spouse! :-)
ReplyDeleteI've taken away anonymous comments and that has worked best for me. I rarely got any that were not spam so it wasn't a big deal for me.
ReplyDeleteI just treated myself to the entirety of your A to Z posts so far. Boy, do I love your stories (even if you don't tell jokes). I especially appreciated the hammer post, and will have that in mind the next time there's a moment in my marriage.
ReplyDeleteAs for the spam, I've noticed a significant increase in my spammed comments and have been wondering what to do without resorting to comment moderation, which I hate on other people's blogs. I'm reluctant to remove the ability for Anonymous commenters because I have friends who occasionally comment anonymously. So I guess for now I continue to delete, but feel better knowing I'm not alone. Something all of your posts seem to offer me.
Yes, I've been bothered by these annoying spammers as well. I found it really cut down on the spam when I changed the setting to require commenters to identify the number/letter combination before posting a comment. I tried taking that off one day when a friend complained that it was so hard to see the figures and the next day I had a bunch of spam comments with links, so I deleted them and put the setting back the way it was. Hope this helps!
ReplyDeleteWe all get them. I feel invaded or something like that. I changed a blogger setting to comment moderation on posts older than 5 days and that has helped a great deal.
ReplyDeleteSo my question is this, does anyone ever click on one of those anonymous spam links?
I had the same spammer. I think it's a worm because no human would post that often and on that many blogs. I got rid of it by doing away with anonymous comments. I was afraid that making people connect through Google or some other method would hurt comments, but it hasn't. As for comment moderation, I have that due to a crazy who had made ugly comments on my FB. Now that I'm used to comment moderation, I like it. What I really hate; however, is word verification. It would get rid of the spammer and your legitimate comments too.
ReplyDeletehttp://joycelansky.blogspot.com
I didn't have a problem with spammers until recently. I've since turned on comment moderation which has taken care of it.
ReplyDeleteMany of the most talented computer folks use their power for evil...
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how many anonymous "comments" I get. I also moderate, so it's not really a problem.
I think if you're posting more frequently & gaining traction in google searches you're bound to get more spam. I don't really think marking as spam is helpful at all (based solely on personal experience). They're basically bots that crawl blogs & post on every comment form they can find so they can get their link out. Not sure there's any way to stop them. But if you find out let us know!
ReplyDelete