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“Comment spam” can ruin your site. Comment spam, aka blog spam, abuses the reader’s ability to leave a “comment” on a blog. Unlike a usual comment, “comment spam,” however, has no meaningful content and has no value for you or your readers. Spam contains meaningless no-value text, gibberish and hyperlinks back to the author’s page… all to generate traffic to their site.
Spam Can Decrease Your Web Page SEO
If too much spam hits your site, the web crawlers can’t sift out the real, meaningful content. Your SEO drops and your site loses relevance.
Don’t Distract Your Readers
Your readers are looking for answers. They are looking for answers quickly. If they have to sort through meaningless comments/spam. They’ll get bored and distracted. They came looking for your content and if they can’t find it…they’ll leave.
Ever read a thread on a blog? Imagine you’ve found someone asking for help for the exact problem you have…but you can’t find the answer because it’s buried in a pile of useless comments.
Using Your Blog as a Portal for Spam
Spammers hope to publish their spam using your blog as a portal to the Internet. If lucky, they can get a comment “approved” on a blog that doesn’t use a spam blocker or has a webmaster that scrutinizes new comments.
Once published, repeat comments from an identical IP address usually get published immediately, bypassing scrutiny of the software and webmaster.
Spammers now have a portal in which they can publish at will.
Comment Spam Blockers
I use Akismet. It is free for personal use and is very cheap for a business site. Check their site for specifics. Akismet is very crafty in filtering about 99% of the garbage directed at my sites. I never see it, and thus, there is no chance for the stuff to be published.
I have more time to dedicate to writing and responding to my legitimate readers.
Occasionally, well constructed spam does sneak through, but it is usually easily recognized by yours truly. I have some tips on how to recognize spam.
Spam can be a huge distraction from your work and your blog. Don’t waste your time or your readers!