Both Darren of Problogger and Anna of “Geek Mom’s Net Journey” explained how companies like “Buy Blog Comments” are hiring human beings to enter spam that often flies past spam filters.
Because this is human entered spam, we dofollow blogs will likely see dozens a week rather than hundreds or thousands. In fact, I think we have all been seeing this spam. So I was wondering how others diagnose the human spam. Naturally, I’ll also tell you how I detect it!
How I identify human spam
When I receive a comment, if I recognize the person commenting or the url of the blog listed in the link, I know it’s not spam. So, the comment and link stays in.
After that, I ask myself a series of questions.
- Is the “name” given by the commenter an obvious SEO term like “Cashmere Dog Sweater” or “Search Engine Optimization”. If yes, it’s spam. I either strip the link or delete the comment. I might report it as spam. If the “name” is not an SEO term, I go to the next question.
- Does the link take me to an English language blog with original content and an identifiable author. Not spam: the link stays in.
- Does the link go to a blog that matches my niche in any language. If yes, it’s not spam: the link stays in.
- Does the link go directly to a merchant who sell something other than advertising? Got a shopping cart on your site? If yes, it’s spam: I strip the link.
- Is the site obviously a splog? Spam! Strip link.
- Is the link to a site in a language I do not understand? If I got to this question and it’s in a language I don’t understand, it’s 95% certain to be spam: I strip the link.
Questions 1-6 generally cover nearly all comments. However, as a tie breaker, and I ask myself two more questions:
“Is the comment specific and meaningful, and well suited to the conversational thread? ” If it is, I know the comment still might be spam, but it’s probably not; the comment and link stay in.
But if the comment is vague, I check the referring IP address for the comment. If it resolves to a country with very low wages, I strip the link. Otherwise, I flip a coin.
Are there any symptoms I’ve missed?
That’s a lot of steps, I just look if the comment is relevant to the post. If its a generic “great blog” then I delete… if its on topic I allow it.
I also allow people to anchor their name most of the time…
I notice a lot more spam getting through akismet these days too….
Haha, yes I think that may be the case here
I’ve used a akismet, and see the IP address that often do a spam comment into blog, I added into my block IP address…