My blog is hosted by, as you can probably tell by the URL, WordPress.
It’s an excellent service…and it’s completely free. If you’re considering writing a blog, I recommend using WordPress.
Among they’re many features is an excellent Spam filter.
Every once in awhile I check my “spam folder” and delete the comments in there from some unscrupulous companies trying to add links to their sites onto my blog.
These spam comments are obviously generated by a computer program that attempts to incorporate words and phrases related to my blog hoping to get past the spam filter.
I’d estimate that ninety-nine percent of their efforts fail.
But, I wonder, if their efforts are successful and they manage to get one of their ridiculous comments onto a blog, does it pay-off? Does anyone actually click on one of the links for “Viagara”, diet supplements or whatever else they attempt to traffic?
As an example, here are a few spam comments that were in my spam folder today. I deleted all of the links but left the “username” as they wrote it and I didn’t change any of the wording in the body of the comments.
They attempted to posts these comments on my blog’s “About Me” page.
Here they are (in red) with my reply to them (in black):
● From: loseweight
Wow!! Nice post!
Really? My “About Me” page?
● From: consolidateyourloan
What I dont recognize is how youre not even a lot more well-liked than you’re now. Youre just so intelligent. You know so considerably about this subject, made me think about it from so many diverse angles. Its like people arent interested unless it has something to do with Lady Gaga! Your stuffs great. Keep it up!
Well, thank you Mr. consolidateyourloan! Very nice of you to consider me “so intelligent”…but what makes you assume that I’m not as “well-liked” as I should be?
>You know so considerably about this subject
I’d hope so. Considering the “subject” of my “About Me” page.
● From: celebrity Magazine
Between me and my husband we’ve owned more MP3 players over the years than I can count, including Sansas, iRivers, iPods (classic & touch), the Ibiza Rhapsody, etc. But, the last few years I’ve settled down to one line of players. Why? Because I was happy to discover how well-designed and fun to use the underappreciated (and widely mocked) Zunes are.
Mrs. celebrity Magazine, if you had used a more “conventional” username and hadn’t added links to obvious spam sites (which I’ve deleted), you could’ve added this comment to my post that I wrote about the popularity of the Walk-man in Japan (They’re popularity has been declining since I wrote that post, though. The I-pod is much more popular now.) or my post comparing the original Walk-man to the modern one instead of my “About Me” page and I would’ve assumed it was a legitimate comment.
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Do you have a blog? Do you get a lot of spam?
Do you get e-mail spam often? My current e-mail spam filters are as good as my blog’s…so, thankfully, I don’t get much email spam anymore.
You made some good points there. I checked on the net for more info about the issue and found most people will go along with your views on this site.
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How ironic that you would put your spam comment on this, of all posts!
I normally delete spam … but I’ll leave yours here – – maybe others will appreciate the ridiculousness of it being on this post.
Of course, I removed the URL links you had in it.
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Actually, Blogspot has been catching quite a bit of Spam for me. I had to laugh at your Spam can because it’s such a huge favorite in Hawaii.
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Yeah, I’ve heard that Spam (the canned meat) is popular in Hawaii, Guam and Okinawa.
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Mostly, like your good self I find the spam I receive pretty hilarious, and thankfully WordPress does a great job of keeping a lid on it most of the time.
In terms of it working, when you’re using bots to distribute it, your cost goes way down and you only need a conversion rate of 1 in a million or something like that.
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Yes, spam is obviously quite an inexpensive method to send links to your site to a large number of people.
But, I don’t think it makes good business sense since spam irritates everyone who receives it.
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It doesn’t work. The only people making any money on this practice are the ones selling the system to the novice internet marketers which buy into the belief that they can win buy using the law of numbers and all it takes is volume to overcome poor execution.
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>It doesn’t work.
Yeah, it doesn’t seem like it would. If I want to buy something, I’ll go to the store to buy it…not click on a link from an unsolicited email or blog comment.
Another type of spam I see often is the type that claims I’ll receive a fortune from an exiled king of a small African country…if I reply to the email with my personal details.
Does anyone actually fall for that?
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I also get these: The majority get flagged by Aksimet, and any that slip through are in the moderation queue. When I have time I may check the link(s), and if it is has some positive value (occasionally) for my readers, then it may get approved.
I guess the war against spam will never cease. The e-mail that gets through gets added to my blocked lists, or excluded on the mail server.
Your excerpt “celebrity Magazine” on your About Me page is a common feature of these spams.
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>Your excerpt “celebrity Magazine” on your About Me page is a common feature of these spams.
Really? Most of the spam I get in written in much worse English than that one.
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the spam on my blog is mostly relevant, in that it’s about SEO, web development etc – just so badly written it’s comical (as in my recent post). Most of the spam I get to my email address is trying to sell me something completely irrelevant like Viagra, which I don’t really feel I need, being female!
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>the spam on my blog is mostly relevant
Mine never is. Sometimes the insane comment will be vaguely related to a subject that I have written a post about…but not usually.
>just so badly written it’s comical
Yeah, I think they have a computer program that generates the bizarre comments with keywords they hope will allow it to get past the spam filter. Seldom works, though.
>trying to sell me something completely irrelevant like Viagra, which I don’t really feel I need, being female!
Well, I’m male but I don’t need Viagara either. And even if I did, I wouldn’t purchase it through a link in a spam comment!
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Yeah, I get the usual level of spam, mostly like the ones you showed. The usually level is around 5-10 a day, but the most I got was 200 in one day (for two days running) and never again. Sometimes, though, I get these really bizarre spam messages that are actually well-written, some even thought-provoking, and they confuse me as to whether they were written by an actual human being. I got piles of screenshots of those bizarre spam – maybe I’ll find some time to post them.
Personally, I don’t mind the spam – it’s the leaky fluid from the busted plumbing of the Internet. The really mind-boggling thing is that I get quite a number of comments for my posts that are emailed directly to me (as opposed to what I do now: commenting on the post itself). Those comments are from real people, by the way. I just can’t figure out these commenters. I tell them to comment on the posts themselves – and they tell me they “don’t want to be disturbed.” Honestly, they kinda sound disturbed to me.
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>The usually level is around 5-10 a day
Yeah, I usually get about a dozen everyday.
>the most I got was 200 in one day
I’ve never had that many. I’m happy to say. 😉
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