Comment Spam

A couple of weeks ago I responded to a question about links in blog comments. That post generated quite a few comments.  To follow up on that issue, today we got a comment that primarily promoted a competitor's blog services. He included some good feedback in the comment but then proceeded to promote his own blogging program.

I can tell you from my perspective, as the blog owner, that's a big NO NO.  I deleted the promotional paragraphs from his comment and left the info that contributed to the conversation.

Then, I read a post over on Blog Business Summit about the fine line between SEO and spam.

Blogging is about building relationships.  Business blogs showcase the author's expertise and services.  Bloggers are mostly very generous and link to competitors and others who can assist their readers.  But don't abuse that generosity by overtly promoting your own business on someone else's blog. Participate in the conversation and if readers are compelled by what you write, they will visit your blog or site.  If you have a link to a post on your own blog that supports your comments, then include it, but DO NOT blatantly advertise your business in comments on my blog unless I have invited you to do so.

End of rant.

Comments

[John Trosko]

Denise,

As one of your Clients, we've talked about this before. There's someone roaming blog after blog commenting and adding to the conversation with what seems like a real person. The comments are relative, and do add to the post-- but the link this person adds is some sort of spam site with various links. This person has 10 blogs that span the lifestyle arena. I just get a really bad feeling about this whole thing. Instead of a computer, there's a real person. But it's really become obvious that they are looking to build traffic for crap.

[Denise aka The Blog Squad]

If comment and trackback spam starts to waste too much of your time, you can always go to moderation. I get a few comment spams every week. I hit the delete key. I won't tolerate spam attempts in any form, even if there is a decent comment to go along with it.