What to Do About Your Blog’s Comment Spam; Can You Recognize It?
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
How Can Comment Spam Hurt Your Blog?
You might think you’re getting some good comments on your blog, but did you know that comment spam can not only be hiding among your comments and could actually be hurting your traffic and rankings?
A lot of comment spam is the work of auto-bots sent out to include sometimes massive numbers of undesirable, and even sometimes hidden links.
Because of the open source code that WordPress is based on, WordPress blogs are prone to a variety of bot attacks, most commonly for comment spam.
Links within comment spam can hurt your Google Page Rank or even your reputation! If the Google Bots find these links, your blog’s Page Rank could be permanently compromised.
I’ve even seen links buried behind a smiley face at the end of a seemingly polite compliment. (You have to click ‘edit comment’ to see it).
But once you learn to recognize comment spam, it begins to stand out like a sore thumb.
How You Can Identify Comment Spam
Some comment spam is, eh hem… obvious. Such as this one from my current spam bin in my WordPress dashboard:
“Viagra….
Viagra samples. Online viagra. Viagra effects. Free sample of viagra. Viagra….”
Really? This is a relevant comment?!?
No, but it is the most blatant keyword placement (and it’s left by a product name rather than a person’s name).
While there are no additional links embedded in this comment (only with the commentator’s “name”), it’s an obvious pitch for a product I don’t care to advertise on my blog!
But then there are others that are a bit less obvious.
What the person behind the bot does is attempt to perfects a completely flattering blog comment, very generic so that it can apply to any blog, any topic, and seem ok, for example,
“Thank your for sharing this.It makes me aware.”
“Really interesting. That was a resourceful post. I’ll take a look on it. Thanks for posting it.”
“Hello there just quality post! (blatant spam link was here!) ,i’d a great read.thank you for your article,My problem continues to be resolved….”
While not outright harmful in the text itself (just a bit off), these comments are obviously generic for a auto-bot to produce comment spam on any blog for any topic, along with a link and commentator’s name as that of a product.
Other comments attempt their way into your graces by seeming helpful or to warn you of an issue with your blog, like these:
“I think you should use more pictures on your website, but besides that, it is great. Regards….”
Really? I thought I used LOTS of pictures on my site LOL (he obviously wasn’t really here 
The use of the product or service name rather than a real person’s name is a major clue. Doing this boosts the spammer’s SEO in getting a ‘higher quality’ backlink from my site, from keywords related to their product in the name and then often in the comment body:
| “white bedroom furniture sets (link containing the same keyword)” |
“white bedroom furniture…
I was curious if you ever thought of changing the structure of your blog? Its very well written; I love what youve got to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of tex…” |
| “registry cleaners (… link…) |
“registry cleaners… Hey, I think your website might be having browser compatibility issues. When I look at your blog in Safari, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up! Other then that, amazi…” |
Of course I have never noticed any issues for my site with Explorer ……
Comment Spam Protection Techniques
Various methods exist for protecting your blog from comment spam. And as these bots are continuing to evolve, so must your defenses.
The first thing you should do is go to the Discussion settings in your dashboard and have comments held for moderation if they contain one or more links in the comment body.
Then the most widely used solution for automatic comment spam protection is the Akismet plugin.
Although it will ask you for an API key to avoid paying for the service, you can obtain this key from your free WordPress.com account (this is all that I use my wordpress.com account for, as I don’t recommend the free WordPress.com for any real marketing site).
Another very popular protective plugin is the Grow Map AntiSpambot plugin (G.A.S.P), which asks your commentator to click a check box before they are allowed to submit their comment.
Anti-Captcha avoids end-user interaction while preventing automated attacks (by bots) that would post comments, authenticate or register for a new account.
Conditional CAPTCHA for WordPress detects whether the comment source is suspicious, and asks for a captcha code only under certain conditions. This makes it easier for your potential commentators, while keeping your Spam folder from filling up with hundreds of spam caught by Akismet or Anti-Captcha, saving you from checking for the occasional false positives.
There are several other comment spam protection plugins that I have not tried, such as Spam Free WordPress, Ajax Fancy Captcha Jquery, and Math Comment Spam Protection.
Bad Behavior is another that I haven’t tried, but reportedly prevents bots from ever even reaching your site.
And finally, when I find repeated attempts, I may even block the IP address of the commentator using the WP-Ban plugin. I’ve blocked the IP of several users who left dozens of links to unsavory websites in just one comment! Imagine the damage that could have done to my site!
While blocking every single piece of comment spam is downright impossible (some people just aren’t respectful enough not to post their offer in your comment area!)
But with the plugins above you should be able to prevent most of comment spam and protect your blog.