Our SAS blogs are getting hit hard with what I can only describe as contextual spam, or maybe intelligent spam. I've heard several other people mention it lately, including Chris Brogan in a post called "Thoughtful Blog Spammers Welcome."
Basically, the comments are relevant to the content of the post and are mostly pretty well written (although many contain spelling or grammatical errors and appear to have been written in a hurry, but that's nothing new to blog comments). The only reason I think of them as spammy is because they always link back to a site that's selling something that has nothing to do with the context of the post, social media in general or enterprise social media in particular.
I've got plenty of mindshifts going on right now. I don't feel like shifting my definition of spam, but I really don't know what to do about this.
Maybe these are people who are trying to promote their own blogs and are doing it in one of the ways I try to promote this blog: by leaving relevant comments on other people's blogs and linking back to this one. How can I complain about that?
But I have a sneaking suspicion, having once worked for a company that employed telemarketers, that there are rooms full of people somewhere being paid by the comment to do this.
So that's why I'm asking the question in the title of this post. If any of you folks who have left comments on this blog in the last week and who are trying to get us to go visit your site that talks about handbags or how to cook fish are reading this, leave me a comment here. I suspect none of you will ever come back, but maybe I'm wrong.
131 Comments
Hi David,
I didn't leave a comment in the past week, but I'll give you an answer. This is all about backlinks and pagerank. This website (http://blog.sas.com) has a high Google page rank, so if I leave a comment on it with a link back to my own website (as I've done here), some of that page rank is passed to my site and my overall rankings at Google improve. The search engines will basically say - if the SAS site has a link to site x, then site x must be quite important, so the ranking for site x is improved slightly.
So it's not about getting people to visit my site via this comment, it's about what this link means to the search engines. One way to stop this type of spam in its tracks is to make sure that the "nofollow" tag is added to links inside comments, which will make these links worthless (from the search engine point of view).
I hope that clears things up a bit.
Chris
I, too, did not leave comment(s) last week. But I have experienced the same with my blogs. Though I can always turn-off my "comment" section, I would rather let it stay open as long as the comments are not really spammy nor do they leave offensive comments. Anyway, who would know the real intention of the readers?
Cheers,
Josh
Hey, Chris. Thanks for the detailed and helpful explanation. I've always been a bit sketchy on the details of the whole "nofollow" thing, but luckily there are people here who know more about it than I do. I guess I'm surprised (and obviously happy) to hear that blogs.sas.com has moved up in page rank enough that we're worth paying attention to.
And Josh, maybe Chris' advice will be helpful to you.
Dave
Well, I'm not that techie enough to know how to do the "nofollow" tag, and I can still tolerate the comments from my readers as long as they do not flood the comment box with for-sale-items. LOL.
Thanks Dave (and Chris!).
Hi David,
I forgot to mention that the sudden increase in comments was probably due your site being mentioned as a high PR site that doesn't have nofollow in one or more SEO forums. Fortunately this results in more traffic and baclinks for the the SAS site as well.
I agree with the other comments here, in the end it's supposed to be a win/win situation where I add some value to your post in exchange for some "link love". Unfortunately many people abuse this concept, but luckily most of this can be stopped with manual approval of comments.
Have a good day.
Chris
Hey guys; these days i see a lot such complaint about promoting a website behind comments. many bloggers are getting such sites in packages they pay for. is there any way against who actually include your sites into their monthly packages to reduce spamming?
Yes You are right Chris.
I'll reiterate what everyone else has pretty much said. No, I wasn't someone who posted a comment in the last week, but I bet your suspicions are correct in that they won't be back.
For my personal blog, I really wouldn't mind people leaving thoughtful comments even if they were trying to promote a website via a link. More comments allows that particular post to appear more popular, and therefore attract more readers. Win/win, like others have said.
We have 3 blogs including one with significant Google page rank.. We do search for other blogs and websites to increase our page rank as wels as to research content for one for our blogs and websites. About 41 percent of all our blog visitors never return and most do leave a backlink. We feel that this has been a benefit each of out sites and blogs.
I would not call anyone who visits your site and leaves a thoughtful comment a spammer since all of us do the same thing on someone else's site or blog
We have 3 blogs including one with significant Google page rank.. We do search for other blogs and websites to increase our page rank as well as to research content for one for our blogs and websites. About 41 percent of all our blog visitors never return and most do leave a backlink. We feel that this has been a benefit each of out sites and blogs.
I would not call anyone who visits your site and leaves a thoughtful comment a spammer since all of us do the same thing on someone else's site or blog
It could be many things. It indeed could be for backlinks, it could be for visibility, or it could simply be spamming. However, IMHO, if the comments are relevant, why not? I think it does both the site owner and the reader good. The site gets a lot of attention, and the reader gets to leave his mark as well. Regardless of the reason, if it promotes discussion and interaction, comments should be readily welcomed.
Hi,
I just read your articel about spamming this blog. I just came here in the hope to get backlinkjuice. There are some sites which recommend to comment on such blogs as yours. If you don´t want that any more, just make the links "nofollow".
Greets
Toni
No I did not.
To respond on your comment, I understand your frustration over all these sudden influx of comments from us so-called "blog spammers", or "blog marketers". We are all here to kindly ask for link juice in return of our constructional comments inrespond of this comment.
However, it is purely up to SAS to cancel all of these comments and bring a nofollow link status to this blog.
However, this is a win-win situation for both blog owners and "blog marketers". With us commenting, you site will earn more ranking points over the search engine. We blog marketers, in return of the comments, receive a tiny portion of SAS link juice.
I truly appreciate the thoughtful and informative comments you all have left. It really has caused me to rethink my definition of spam, as I said in the post. It's an odd situation. Without looking back and counting, I'm pretty sure this post has generated more comments than anything I've written. That being said, you nice folks all came here because you read somewhere that our blogs didn't have nofollow in the comments. So basically you're not my target audience. But you came and left relevant, topical comments, and it seems to be beneficial to all our blogs.
You're making my head hurt, in a good way. My arms are sore from embracing change.
Thanks and best of luck with all of your blogging efforts.
I think it's a win/win for blog owner and commenter as long as the comments are relevant to the post. I have several blog and I manually approve each comment. There are many comments left on my blog that are relevant to the topic but probably just commenters wanting to get linkback to their site. I really don't care because it helps both parties. People get so caught up in trying to stop the spammers and get frustrated when they see a link back to site that a commenter left automatically assuming its a spammer. I personally think its fairly easy to manage comments left. I use akismet and manually approve comments that get through.
I had a lot of people coming to my blogs and just putting comments like "nice post" etc..i dont mind accepting those kind of comments.Its the ones that try to promote their website or opportunity in the comments area that pee me off.So obviously I just delete.
Hey guys i am very glad to post my views here .
love to read this entry Thanks
This is my first comment as well. Isn't putting a valuable/related/intelligent comment to other blogs and leaving a link back to our own a common thing already? In my opinion, as long as the comment is relevant, I wouldn't regard it as "spam". Those who are leaving comments like, "i love your post," "nice post," and the likes are no doubt spams.
Also, I think you benefit on this also, right? I would agree that this is indeed a win-win situation here. So, good luck to all of us bloggers.
Hi,
As long as comments relate to your post you can know that your commenter spent the time to read your post. That is what you want in the first place, right?
Hi Dave,
You are absolutely spot on in your assumption "Maybe these are people who are trying to promote their own blogs and are doing it in one of the ways I try to promote this blog: by leaving relevant comments on other people's blogs and linking back to this one."
This has already been validated by many commentors above.
In many ways it is the greatest kind of flattery for an author or blogger to reach the point where completely unknown people (ie, me) are directed to your blog because of its credibility. Afterall, that is what gives your blog the fundamental core features that we, as 'intelligent spammers,' need to 'piggy-back' on the reputation of your blog in the hopes that our comments are insightful or thoughtful enough to generate a clickthrough to our own wares.
In my case, I'm sure I'll get a click through but you'll quickly find that my blog is not related to yours although I am very much interested in the concepts of social media marketing and this little discussion taking place right now, on your blog, is one of the freshest examples of the power of one aspect of social media marketing...frightening, really, isn't it? Embrace it or can it, but either way keep doing what you're doing because its your original, useful and relevant content that got us here in the first place!
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Well i dont think many of us are spamming the board, in my case i found this site very helpfull and we are only filling the respected fields to make a comment in your blog.
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Hello David you said:
"Maybe these are people who are trying to promote their own blogs and are doing it in one of the ways I try to promote this blog: by leaving relevant comments on other people's blogs and linking back to this one. How can I complain about that?"
Hello David that is exactly right and spam is rubbish that you can moderate against by making people wait to be "approved" before posting their content.
In all fairness, if it is valuable original content being added to your SAS site then more power to you- that is exactly why you have climbed in the rankings.
It works both ways and it does not matter whether a site is selling something or not- it is the original content that is posted by the visitor which is valuable?
Sorry Chris- but every site needs back-links even the blogs that do not sell- they still need page views and rankings and traffic- yours included.
For the record SPAM is unsolicited emails? and why have comment boxes? or ask people to make comments? Because they are doing exactly what you are asking them to do? As long as it is a win win situation I would not be complaining about it?
Also I am an Author looking for things to write about which is also good for the profile and rankings of the sites I visit
Something to consider... cheers Phil
I think many of the comments have hit the nail on the head. The spam type comments can add to the conversation on a site.
I've also come across numerous sites that I've never heard of and now I subscribe to their RSS feeds and read their blogs on a regular basis. It's almost a form of free advertising to have one's site included in one of the link packets.
Hello, i also did not come to your site last week even i find it on google when i was searcing about blog commenting and spam. I even did not read all the comment but few once. and i have my own thoughts about it.
as your have already mentioned that you also use the same technique to rank your blog and may be others are doing this. and may be the reason you are seeing increase in traffic on your site may be because your site start ranking for some keywords like blog commenting in any search engine. or something related to that.
And if i you, i would really appreciate it as long as people are writing relevant comments. your visitors would love it and even search engine found new content on your site and it will only help to increase you rank. as you will always have new content for search engine.
That's exactly it - it's a win win. Leaving my link is like leaving my business card - letting you know who I am. And the fact that my website may not have anything to do with the theme of your blog only means that my interests and desire to contribute to the Internet conversation extends far beyond my professional area of expertise.
It's all about unique, relevant content. If I leave a relevant, thoughtful comment, your site benefits, if you keep my fink do follow, my site benefits and chances are I will be back.
Hi David,
Thanks for a great post. It is certainly refreshing to run across something this interesting as I blog surf. In fact I've stayed at this site much longer than I anticipated because it is so interesting. I even subscribed to this thread! It really does seem like a win-win. Is it spam? I guess it really does depend on how you define spam. I do know one thing: if it weren't for the backlink provided by your page's high PR I would not have visited, spent so much time at, and become acquainted with your company.
Anyway, thanks for a great and thought-provoking post.
What a fun and interesting post to read. The conversation generated has been great. Good idea on writing this short article to spawn this long discussion chain of comments.
Well, this is nothing new, there will always be people commenting on blogs just to get a link. I have this issue on my blog to, but I figure as long as the comment is legitimately thoughtful, I don't mind.
Hi David,
Just so you don't think you are paranoid, I will come out and agree with most of the previous comments, yes, there are a lot of comments that are left purely because of the high Google rank of your site. I didn't leave a comment on this site last week, but that was only because I was on vacation last week.
On the plus side, it's great exposure for your blog, I've found several great blogs through backlinking, and started following teh bogs based on the content and not the Google rank.
Hi David,
Just so you don't think you are paranoid, I will come out and agree with most of the previous comments, yes, there are a lot of comments that are left purely because of the high Google rank of your site. I didn't leave a comment on this site last week, but that was only because I was on vacation last week.
On the plus side, it's great exposure for your blog, I've found several great blogs through backlinking, and started following the bogs based on the content and not the Google rank.
Hello Dave,
Well things are pretty clear from all these comments. I came here for the same reason most people did this week, but I found some of your other articles very interesting and well written. I'm still learning about social media so will return for sure.
I do like to get a feel for the forums before leaving a comment. By the way I really do like the 'In reply to" option in the comment. It's a easy way of keeping track of the discussion. Cheers.
Great article. I agree sometimes its useful just to leave a link. It doesn't hurt anyone, and helps others.
Bob, it is Valuable Content that you leave not just a link- like you just did! It is people like you who stuff things up for all of us by not leaving valuable content . You just get your link on here and leave as quick as you can...
And- we all get penalized because idiots like you do not contribute valuable content- and- your 'link' does hurt- all of us, You and all your cronies who just jump on the 'band waggon' help no one and contribute to nothing but your own selfish needs and agendas
Phil
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Hi Dave,
I am also learning about social media and your articles are really great help for me. I do like what I read on your articles and will be glad to return. I really enjoyed reading your articles.
Thanks!
What you have created here with your blog post is a community of people contributing to your conversation, which is what the internet is all about. Most of us may not be your target audience, but we are all interested in this particular post. I would not therefore define the comments you have received as spam.
Like almost everyone else here, I want to leave a link to my blog that is "do follow" and what you get in return for allowing a "do follow" link is a little bit of original content which will help to grow the authority of your blog in Google's eyes. The more authority you gain, (which is expressed as page rank), the more visitors you will get, the more Google will visit and the more authority you will get, and so it goes on and on.
And, of course, the more authority you have, the easier it will be for your target audience to find you because you will feature high in Google's search results.
You gain, we gain and Google gains, because now you have a group of people discussing and contributing quality content to the internet.
Yes, this would be the result of this website having a great pagerank. I am guilty of this, but I am going to be honest, I have bookmarked the SAS site because there are some great articles on here.
Win/win!
David,
I understand your concern about people spamming your comments, but the internet is a vast community of people with various interests. It is not unusual for people to have interests in multiple categories, for example sports, cooking, movies and music are some of my interests. I think that variety is what makes the internet so entertaining and more importantly keeps it entertaining.
Hi David,
Its certainly right what you have said in your post. however, all I can say is that you need to be blamed for it since your article are quite interesting and makes us always come back to you..
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Indeed great articles on your site.
I must confess that I too initially came to this site because of its excellent page rank, but since that I've actually found some of the articles very interesting and well written so therefore have bookmarked it to visit again.
Mark.
Wow awesome post. I didnt realized that Bob may allowed putting this link to be used by other bookmarkers to create back links. Great stuff.
I believe it benefits all as long as comments pertain to topic. It provides unique content to the blog and the person commenting. What I consider spammers are people who leave comment which does not relate at all to the blog post. Fortunately there are several automated ways to blog most spam commenters
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i believe that as long as the comments really seem to be relevant or leave something that can be take into consideration well... it doesn't really hurt your page, it actually gives it new visitors and increases your rank.
I don't know... I work in this for a long time, I'm being sincere leaving my link here but also wanted to give a comment on this as respectful as possible... I'm leaving my real email in case you will like a response or think what I'm doing is not really correct.
Thanks for your post either way on this.
I must admit and confess that me too came here to this site because of your excellent page rank, but since that I've actually found some of the articles very interesting and well written so therefore have bookmarked it to visit again.
I also must admit that i came here because of your excellent page rank although i have used SAS software in a previous job. While on the site i have read a number of the articles to refamiliarise myself with your product offering and to see what has changed since i uses SAS almost 10 years ago. Your blogs are good and i will definitely come back to read some more .....and maybe add a comment or two .....
I hate spam comment, I think the comments which are relevant to the content of the post and are mostly pretty well written are valuable.
Guess your being flamed with a lot of SPAM comments. Well, I loved this post, since I'm one of those "spammers" you consider. But you know what? I'll be back soon. Yes, I loved the way you talked about this subject and I think you're a very respectful person.
So, see you next week.
I have 4 sports websites and I belong to a number of forums that have nothing to do with sports. I must admit if there's an opportunity for me to let someone know about one of my websites, I take it. If the internet is anything, it's a vehicle to get your message out.
By the looks of it having 40+ comments this is a nice way to incite some extra commentary and riots on any blog. It's funny though that you bring it up because many of the best business are not built on spamming. Don't believe me ask James Goodnight when he was on CNBC in 2009 he talked about good business practices and why your parent company has been able to grow into what it is today. I do have an idea about why you have gotten such a rush of visitors and a way to stop it. But like my site when i get annoying comments I think about that fact that most of these people (not all) have actually taken the time to read my(your) post and to try to make a relevant comment that helps bring up readership and maybe even expand ad dollars on certain blogs. Granted this blog does not have ad space so I see that as an irrelevant last point but you get what I am saying.
Quote
"David B. Thomas shares SAS' experiences as a technology company integrating Web 2.0 and social media into the marketing mix. Dave is Social Media Manager at SAS and a member of the company's Marketing 2.0 Council, the steering committee and think tank for social media at SAS."
I just wanted to make a comment about this statement and David's role at SAS with web 2.0. Every Marketer online is interested in web 2.0 most people online are way into Social networking so SAS and its web 2.0 "marketing mix" has everything in common with millions of Internet users, tecnological aspects aside- I will see you on Facebook and Twitter David and some of the social bookmarking sites perhaps
Phil
Boy, when I came here looking to post an intelligent, relevant comment, in order to a)contribute to the conversation and of course, b)by doing so, get some link juice to my site, I didn't expect to engage in a meta conversation about the practice of blog commenting in order to get link juice. I've enjoyed reading all the comments (well, okay, almost all of them) and am very glad to see that most people seem to look on this practice favorably, as long as the commenters are contributing to the conversation.
Most responsible online marketers I know of are very clear that if you use blog commenting to build backlinks, you need to actually contribute to the conversation. I agree wholeheartedly.
And if anyone wants to come comment on my blog, I welcome you!
This is actually really funny because I'm doing research on SEO right now. I stumbled across this blog because of this.
But yes, it is essentially like leaving a business card as an above poster said. I always try to leave relevant posts, and I assume it would only help the blog grow... although I guess we may look at things differently.
I agree, there is nothing wrong with linking to your business (as I am now) so long as the comment is still valid and to the point. To be deleting posts purely off the link they provide seems a little silly to me.
For me I learn from every marketing article I read. And getting a backlink from such an informative site is a bonus, but everyone who has worked the backlink game knows that there is not guarantee that the search engines will even see my or your pathetic blog link.
No, for me it is the marketing information and what is leading edge.
When the social media marketing hit, the only way to learn about it was to sign up for newsletters and read blogs that were embracing it. Social media is a double edged sword - one day your site is great and the next day there is a group of comments putting it down (competitors). So backlinks are great but staying informed with companies that are early adopters is better. I have experienced in the last 3 years outright fraud and this is not fraudulent.
Personally commenting and hopefully adding value to other sites is hard work and not that rewarding for the hours spent doing it. Thanks for listening.
oohhh! I like the image. Anyway, blog comment spamming has been discussed many many times in a lot of different blogs. A few years back, google combat spam on blogs by adding the "nofollow" tag.
When bloggers became suspicious about spams on his blog, spammers are getting wiser by leaving intelligent comment to his blog posts.
I did not
One of the best ways to combat spams in blog comments is to turn on moderation. It's definitely frustrating trying to see which comments are genuine and which are not since spammers are creating more intelligent comments.
Hey David, I believe that the there are always two reasons, why people actualy visit a Bloq, especialy if it hase a very high page rank, like you'res. The first reason is: they are interested in the topic and they want to learn more about the subject from an expert authorithy guy. The second reason is, that they just want to promote there bloq and increase there google ranking. But you have to remember that the world is not black and white, i don't want to tell you how to moderate you're bloq, i just want to let you know that a lot of Online Bloggers and marketers leave a comment on you're bloq, but stil try to add some value to it and some content. And that is exactly what I am doing and i see nothing wrong with that infact i would love people to come to my bloq no matter what there intensions are because people are traffic and maybe some people get stuck and take a stand to read the value that i have to provide. That is advertising.
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It doesn't mean that a person who left a comment and do not make posts that often be called a "spammer." There are lurkers or who just plainly read blogs and comments.
Hi David,
Chris is right.
David: "Maybe these are people who are trying to promote their own blogs and are doing it in one of the ways I try to promote this blog: by leaving relevant comments on other people's blogs and linking back to this one. How can I complain about that?"
As others here have stated, you basically got it right in your comment above. It's somewhat frustrating to those of us here that people jump to the conclusion that they are being spammed and label it as such when if they would just look at what is happening, no spamming is going on. For most people, spam is unsolicited advertising, blatant and straightforward on another person's website. Spammers don't add relevant content to the site, just advertise their links. That's not what is going on in the case of those coming here to comment.
What legitimate marketers are doing is not spam. It's trading a thoughtful, relevant post for a link back to whatever website they are promoting. In most cases, they are aware that very few people will click in the link. All they want is the link juice from Google as a backlink. As others have stated, it's a win-win situation for all concerned. As well, it creates promotion for the website to people (the Backlinkers) who may not have found it before.
And as you say, "How can anyone complain about that?"
Another thought is many people in other niches may be interested in social media to market their products...learning more about different avenues to gain followers and get the word out about what they offer.
Another perfect example related to some other comments about reading different types of blogs....I read many food blogs to offer healthy recipes for my readers and I got stuck for a minute just staring at the pic on top of this page trying to figure out what it was..then I realized..oh, cute..spam.
Congrats on moving your page up in PR, btw.
David,
Chirs is so right. Although I would say a high PR doesn't necessarily mean a thing today. As long as you are attracting the right kind of people in your blog, then it's okay.
I think webmasters/bloggers try to help out each other by allowing people to post relevant and thoughtful comments from websites that don't aren't topically relevant. As long as the comment adds to the conversation, then it's okay.
That attitude is way better than the paranoia that is sweeping the internet world at the moment. Nobody wants to link out to other sites because they are afraid their PR will leak out.
Anyhow, let me give you some points on how to tell if the comments are more than likely spam:
- if they use a keyword as their name. miami locksmith?
- if its just a 'nice post' or 'thanks for the post' kind of comment
- if there's a url inside their comment. Look above. Some have even tried inserting BBcode (code used in forums) to try and get a backlink.
- there are also automated comment spam that would get an excerpt from your post then rephrase it.
Well goodluck! Noise is still much a part of the web but I do hope it gets sorted out soon.
i love to read this one.
I haven't leave any comments before as this is the first time I stumbled upon your blog. Perhaps you could install the "nofollow" plugin to curb the problem. However, I would think that as long as the content of the comments is related to that of your post, it would be okay to provide the commentators a linkback as a token of appreciation.
Its so nice.I love this one.
Many comments there, because your blog was on the side of spam site.
I have not commented on this blog ever but I found this thread actually interesting. A friend mentioned that it contain some interesting content so I decided to visit and possibly contribute to a particular article.
One benefit is probably the increase in Alexa rankings.
well this is my first time to comment here.. i didn't leave a comment in the past days..in my opinion.. as long as the comments are related and not off the topic.. you should not discard it..
Very nice post as well as a blog.
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Hi David,
Nathan is right if the comments is related to the topic you should not discard it because all everyone have a right to post her opinion base on your topic.
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Great content on this blog, not really familiar with back linking however learned a bit today, will follow. Well written.
The best thing about this topic is that i learned a lot of new things about backlinks.
And indeed i do not see what the problem is if the comments are relevant and they don't bother anyone.
So David thank's for letting us use your blog for seo
PS. Your blog is great and i read it with delight
I agree with what the majority of commenters are saying here. I don't believe it to be spam if the commenter is writing on-topic, useful info. The problem is when (and I see this all the time), people will post nothing more than 10+ links and no comment content, and usually have garbage in the "name" box, like affsdhs. These people really annoy me because they disrespect someone elses website and only take rather than give something back in return.
The issue of links that are not to do with the topic of a post isn't a problem in my eyes. I have a site about beds and mattresses, but I'm interested in music, sports, technology and many other topics, and so comment on other blogs to do with my interests. Off-topic links is just something that can't be avoided in a lot of cases.
Justin
QuoteThey give examples of how to communicate effectively in different social media channels. They let SAS employees know we think it’s a good thing for them to be participating in social media as long as they’re smart about it and follow the standards of the online communities they visit."
Hello David I have been navigating your blog and I find you have everything in common apart from Social Networking with online users I am very interested in softwares all types and business.
I will be looking more closely at the kind of things SAS produces for business applications. I am setting up online and have 3 pieces of business software to speed up my processes and take all the angst out of complicated tasks.
I saw a comment where you said SAS software wasn't sexy so you guys are mainly operating under the radar. I guess sexy is in the "eye of the beholder" However that does not mean I do not find it interesting. I like the insight into how these applications and solutions were decided and how the softwares are developed and the problems they sole that benefits well... me
I also am surprised and delighted that you encourage your employees to actively participate in social media and social networks. That is very progressive web 2.0 is very sexy Face book has 400 million members so yes teach them nopt to "blow it " for you it would be disastrous to lose a social Media Market
They interact with all the other "millions" of SBers and you would be "blacklisted" on the entire Internet
Interesting Phil
This blog is interesting, I believe that the commenter is not a "spammer "as long the opinion of the commenter is related to your topics,
I do leave a link to my site just in case anyone is interested, specially if i'm commenting on a high ranking page but I only leave relevant comments on articles i'm interested in.
If next week's article is as interesting (provoking perhaps?) as this one, then most of us who commented on this would probably be back.
Hi David,
As has been mentioned in many replies, many people who have websites look to increase their ranking with Google by posting replies on high page ranked sites - I'm not going to go over old ground here as many have said the same thing.
The one thing I have noticed is that you have given people a real opportunity to leave their links on your site, by starting this thread off - they may have really difficulty in contributing to other posts on your site, but they can leave a comment on here
Oh well I guess we are all in the same boat and all want to market our sites no matter what niche they are in, so I guess my view is that if the comments are relevant to the posts then what harm can be done.
Ex
I second what alot of people commenting on this post are saying. Its basically a push to market there websites, like dropping leaflets on cars in a supermarket parking lot, or throwing your business card on billboards. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this, as long as the comment is useful in my opinoin.
I get people commenting on my blog all the time saying stuff like "I certainly enjoy reading your post, I will bookmar and come back for more later, you should applaud yourself for this post" It's almost comical, I like the editor, can picture a room full of people in like a southeast asia sweatshop in front of computers getting paid like $0.01 per post, or prob less.
I really think that the whole reason people are doing this is to help get their google search rankings up. As you said yourself David, you do it too.
It can be tough to get your new website up and running and leaving relevant comments can really help get you some extra help from google.
Like others have said I feel that if the comment is relevant then how can it hurt? You are just getting more content anyway.
Yes I'll accept most of the blogs were spammed and already discussed in many forums and blogs about this and how to to control. The main reason for blog spamming is automated software and bots. Atleast you must appreciate those whose visit your blog, go through the content and leave relevant comments, like me...................just kidding.
I have a couple of blogs that get just enough traffic to make it difficult to monitor all of the comments so I don't. Unless it is really bad and off topic I let it go. I figure most of them are just trying to boost their sites just like I do. Kind of like Joy said, at least I'm not a bot!
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This my first to comment here, how could you say if the comment is spammed or its the real opinion of the commenter?
I think a comment shouldn't be counted as spam as long as it's pertinent and respectful.
I've read most of the comments here and, although a few comments that I would consider to be spam have got through, most do contribute something to the subject of the blog post.
The internet is all about interaction and it is hugely popular as is evidenced by the popularity of social sites such as Facebook and Twitter and your post has created social interaction and community discussion. Therefore, IMHO, the majority of comments here are not spam.
Yes, it's right. Most comment in blogs with high pagerank are only for backlink pourposes. But, as I seen, some comments are relevant to topic and they are different from the "spam".
This one too is a comment for backilink... and I don't think my practice can be configurend in a system abusing.
The comments are "parts" of the blogs and they contribute to increase his SERPS value.
So, if comments not have "spam" into the message, I think this is not a relevant question. Maybe the comments can be a SERP opportunity for the blog.
I have been big hard with folks sending spammy comments to my blog. I am tempted to turn off comments altogether. It does suck, though.
i suppose that the only way to stop these spammers is to turn replies off
Hi David!
Oh gosh, I couldn't resist answering this one (sorry if I'm a bit late to the game). I too found your blog through a recommendation to place a link here (err, sorry!). But I'm definitely NOT part of a "roomful of people paid to comment..." It's just me, at home, by myself.
I generally try to "tread lightly" - ie when I leave comments, wherever they are, I truly want them to be relevant. The last thing I'm looking to do is frustrate blog owners or have them shut down comments, and I very often find fascinating subjects that I hadn't given much thought to, which is fun.
This is the first time I've seen a blog owner actually call out what was happening, and ask about it though (thanks). I had never thought about it from the angle of "but you're not my target audience" - although, as others have pointed out, sometimes those of us not in the target audience actually DO stick around to learn more.
Anyway, this was the first post of yours I read, I'm looking forward to going back and reading some others now. Thanks!
Hi David,
this is an excellent blog that google loves so people like getting links from it. While this is my first post here I am pretty sure most of people posting are just webmasters trying to post quality comments in exchange for getting a link back to their site.
In my opinion this is a fair trade as long as the replies are quality.
I read almost all the comments made about this article and I noticed that everyone has a site to promote (including me).
The only ones I consider as spam are the ones which didn't even make an attempt to stay on the topic, specially the ones who just typed their products on the comment box.
It's not only annoying for webmasters but for the other readers as well.
Hello David,
I was wondering about the technique of posting on a blog just to get a backlink even though you have no interest in the forum. My mentor said it was the technique to use in order to get better page ranking from Google as others have said on this thread. My mentor provided overwhelming evidence that this technique works. His sites are all on page one of Google for his keywords.
So I am making this post to get backlinks, but I am also interested in the comments that have been made.
My goal is to market with integrity. I am a small business owner with a small budget, but I want to do the right thing.
This forum has currency.
THANK YOU,
Clarence
They may not be doing any harm to the site, but their comments rarely contribute to any dicussion, they tend to be pretty general comments which mess up any actual discussion.
It is indeed, due to your blogs' pagerank, which provides "link juice". I'm no advocate of spammy comments, trust me, they do it to my blog all the time.
I think that's a bit of an extreme view, they aren't "messing up" peoples conversations.
Hi David,
Thank you for this article, I really like the way you write and I agree with every word you say.
Thanks a lot for the article you made. I believe that it will be very helpful to everybody.
It's been interesting to read the comments on this post (although I didn't have the time to read all 110!
Wiki difines spam as....the abuse of electronic messaging systems (including most broadcast media, digital delivery systems) to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately.
I think a major difference that may have happened here is that almost all the comments have been thoughtful and hand written, not indiscriminate bulk messages.
I totally agree with this one..using your connection is one way to sell and convince them to buy to your product...
I happen to agree with almost everything that Chris has laid out, with one exception. If you do make it so that the comments have a no follow attribute so that the Google bots don't follow that link then one only has to modify the link attribute. I.E. Your Keywords
Lol
David, does the picture at the top has any relation to spam.. Cheers
Hi, Sam. It's a picture of spam sushi. I found it on Flickr under a Creative Comments license. Seemed to sum up the idea.
I agree with David (#86). The spam sushi seemed to wrap up the whole idea of spam plus delicious. However, I am still not completely sold out to the idea of labeling thoughtful comments (such as this one! hehe) as spam. How can a thoughtful and useful comment, though incidentally linking to a sales site, be ever spam?
I didn't leave a comment last week, however I often do comment on blogs with a link back to my site. Like you said, it is a way to promote your site. Commenting on other peoples blogs is one of the few ways to get exposure. I don't think it is spam, so long as the comment is actually related to the post being commented on.
See? This guy has no idea how it's done. He just throws keywords into a mesh and expects them to do something for him.
lol, I only stumbled upon this site and have found the post interesting, so...why not leave a comment. People are only trying to get backlinks more than intentions to spam...and yes, you are wrong about the the owners of sites with handbags, fish etc. For as long as they need to backlink to a highly ranked site like this one, they WILL return. I will too:)
Yep, the first poster is onto something. I happened to come across your website today in my search for high pagerank.
You've got a winner that will bring people to this site, David. Ride it, baby!
Plus, who knows maybe some people, like me a Computer Programmer, will actually garner some info from the site and become a long-term participant.
I just added you to my RSS reader since I have a colleague who has an upcoming SAS project.
See, you just never know who might stop by.
I agree with a lot of the comments on here about people who are seeking "backlink gold". It is sort of like becoming famous and all of a sudden you have tons of folks wanting to be your friend. Consider it part of being successful, and the good or bad label is up to you.
Personally I am seeking to gather as much "common sense" on socail media as reasonably possible. Social media changes too fast to rely on any books, seminar data is nearly as tardy.
Specifically I would like to engae in conversation on strategic applications for a social media program. I am finding it challenging to convey to clients that not every social media site is going to be relevant for their business, and that a large part of the benefit is brand development vs. generating sales. ANy comments or feedback are appreciated!
I am starting to become one of your blog followers. It seems alot of people likes the way you write. Thanks I like your post. Hope to see more about building links.
Hello again David what is the latest software that SAS has developed, what does it do and is it for everyone or just big business. Where can i read more about it?
Thank you Philip
Yes, Chris's explanation is full of gold. Now if he could go to all the highly ranked sites, I would only have to search for his name and would find all the great places to put a little virtual real estate... lol... but kidding aside, I have read the book, CrushIt by Gary Vaynerchuk and since I have been avidly searching for social media avenues to promote myself... whatever it takes.
Sophie
Hi David,
I found this post to be very intriguing. You are definitely a realist! The second comment (reply) on your post from Chris was dead on and on the money. This blog (http://blog.sas.com) has a high page rank of 6 (out of a possible 10), and by posting a comment with a link (it’s called anchor text) back to one of my many web sites (I am a web publisher so I have many), will bring some link juice to my site as they call it, thus improving the overall ranking of my web site. Google will see that there is a high page rank 6 site (SAS) pointing back to my site and they will deem that my site must be important ( because I received a VOTE from a page rank 6 site SAS) and it will therefore improve my search engine positioning in the future.
And as Chris so adeptly put it, it’s not about people clicking on your link via this comment, it’s about getting the link juice from the search engines.
Hi David,
This is a follow up from my previous comment... Besides getting really good backlinks from a high page rank site like yours, you also have some really good articles on here. Also it looks like I put in the wrong url, so submitting another comment with correct url. But once again David, this was a pretty good post.
David, I am in total agreement with you about the spamming. My take is that the spamming is because of the ecomony. Those who are spamming is doing it because they are trying to make income, but they are not going about it the right way. They have to abide by the rules and someone have to let them know, otherwise they will continue to break the rules. Some of them don't know the rules that is why they do it, and some do know the rules. The ones who know the rules are doing it to make the money and that is the only thing on their mind, and they have to be stopped by one way or another.
Hallo David, I agree also with what the say by Barney that the Internet was huge with a variety of interests, hence the internet so very interesting, if not less exciting so you know, how we'll anticipate for not taxable spam, but anyway your posts really interesting
i totally agree with you
But i think that spam is caused by google algorithm...something must change.
Remember to add a ink on each of the written content.
They might keep visiting itt over and over or a lot of them might mention it to their
friends and relatives. However, while each page is fundamentally indexed
and listed on its own merits, your entire domain could suffer if you aree using low quality links on numerous pages.
Extraordinary article. I concur now and again its helpful just to leave a connection. It doesn't hurt anybody and helps other people.
I think blog owners and readers can win/win as long as the comments are important to the topic. I have a few blogs, and I authorize each comment manually. There are plenty of comments left on my blog that are related to the subject but probably only commentators who want to get linkback to their site. I don't really worry, because both sides are helping. People get so stuck trying to avoid spammers and get annoyed when they see a link back to the site that a blogger left immediately thinking that they were a spammer. I personally think the comments left are pretty easy to handle. I use Akismet and accept comments that get through manually.
Ok. I must admit that I do want people to visit my website, but I am also looking to build backlinks as well. I also think other bloggers need to add a comments section to their website as some people (me) don't do that. But after reading articles online, I now realize I was seriously wasting a huge opportunity.
Numerous proprietors of sites old and new spot little to any weight on Alexa numbers. I've been interested about this for quite a while.
You've clarified the whys well overall.
Most of the people leave comments when they like your information and some are doing for promotion...Both the ways are correct.
I'll reiterate what everyone else has pretty much said. No, I wasn't someone who posted a comment in the last week, but I bet your suspicions are correct in that they won't be back.
For my personal blog, I really wouldn't mind people leaving thoughtful comments even if they were trying to promote a website via a link. More comments allows that particular post to appear more popular, and therefore attract more readers. Win/win, like others have said.