Wednesday, July 02, 2008

how not to comment spam

i recently received some comment spam for this blog... that's not altogether unusual, and certainly not noteworthy in itself, but this comment was something else... i think i'll need to show you what i saw:
[commentspam.png]
now i've seen a number of things over the years that have triggered my internal spam detecter (including people trying to put html tags in the name field - a great way to get your comment rejected, just so you know) but never has anyone put in so much individual effort into blowing smoke up my ass...

add to that the name this person entered: seo is a common abbreviation for search engine optimization which is something that comment spammers try to accomplish...

and of course, the most obvious sign of them all, the link that has nothing to do with the article the commenter was commenting on nor the comment itself... links that aren't a natural part of the conversation shouldn't go in the comment... if you want to raise awareness for a site, stick the url in the website field of the comment form...

in fact, if you really want to successfully raise awareness for something, take a look at rob lewis' comments... it became clear to me rather quickly that rob trying to drum up interest in a product but i accepted his comments anyways... why? because he asked questions, he asked for opinions, he engaged in conversation and posted links in a manner that fit with the conversation... in short he was an evangelist rather than a mindless comment spammer...

oh well, just more grist for the lolthreats mill i suppose...

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