BuyBlogComments.com: Blog Comments And Backlinks For Sale
I think it’s a very sad state of affairs when the blogosphere gets to the point where services like BuyBlogComments.com are launched. This new service will for a fee leave ‘relevant’ comments on blogs that are human generated to increase the chances of the site owner not spotting the spam, to try and create backlinks. Three packages are available - $20 for 100 blog comments, $100 for 500 comments, and $200 for 1000 comments.
Services like these are going to make it much harder for site owners to stop spam comments. At the moment I’m doing a good job of stopping the human spam that is designed to generate backlinks, but it’s getting harder and harder. To try and dissuade human spammers, I’ve been removing any site names or urls from comments that are obviously just trying to take advantage of my ‘DoFollow’ policy.
However, I do have a couple of regular users where I’m very tempted to remove their comments as well, as sometimes they don’t add a lot of value and because I have a suspicion that they are leaving 4-5 poor quality comments all at once just so that they can get a link in my top commenters section.
I’m letting them through for now, but I’m reviewing my policy on a daily basis.
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Comment by 3gp on 11 July 2007:
I think it is over hyped every one is talking about it. It is not worthy enough to be discussed.
Pingback by Buy Blog Comments: A Dark Day in the Blogosphere | Ian Fernando on 11 July 2007:
[...] Connected Internet Says: Services like these are going to make it much harder for site owners to stop spam comments. At the moment I’m doing a good job of stopping the human spam that is designed to generate backlinks, but it’s getting harder and harder. To try and dissuade human spammers, I’ve been removing any site names or urls from comments that are obviously just trying to take advantage of my ‘DoFollow’ policy. [...]
Comment by Brown Baron on 11 July 2007:
I was wondering why the number of spam caught by Akismet was increasing over the last few days. It’s probably connected to this.
Comment by Everton on 11 July 2007:
Le Baron
It’s probably because Akismet isn’t the fastest to adapt and spam levels have increased in general over the last 10 days. You should switch to SK2 - you won’t regret it
Comment by Angie on 11 July 2007:
I have no qualms whatsoever about leaving the meat of a comment and stripping out the URL and even a company name. It’s a lot of additional work for me, bu i actually mod all comments right now. I really do need to get a good spam filter system in place, but I read reviews for each of them and it seems that genuine comments sometimes sift into the spam catch.
Comment by Mike on 12 July 2007:
I’m disappointed to see the likes of Wendy Piersall dropping DoFollow and even Chris Garrett considering doing so purely on the basis of this new “service”. I won’t be dropping DoFollow unless it has an adverse affect on my site. What I may do, though, is review my comment policy so that I will only accept comments where people use their real name or a non-product/site related handle.
Comment by Brown Baron on 12 July 2007:
A lot of people are saying SK2 is better than Akismet. I think I’ll go take a look at SK2. Thanks EB.
Comment by Shankar on 12 July 2007:
May be you should add the image verifycation method to avoid a few spammers. In one of my forum, I added a checkbox near the login form saying “I am not a spam” and the forums logs in only when u tick that checkbox. This simple idea reduced the spammers by 90%. and only a hardcore human spammer who is dare to do these thing come now which is easy to block.
Comment by Everton on 12 July 2007:
@Shankar
That won’t help solve this problem - as human ’spammers’ will just keep doing what they are doing
Comment by Aaron on 27 September 2007:
I guess I somewhat disagree with your notion. The reason that most people comment at all is because they can call attention to their own site or blog. If this wasn’t true why would they even bother putting their website in the website field on the comment form - just like everyone who has posted a comment here has… So, are they ALL spam. Your argument would seem to say yes, even though they are relevant. 95% of the time people comment to call attention to their own site - simple as that. So, if the comments you buy are really relevant, there’s little difference…
And anyone posting here can’t argue otherwise - they put their URL in the optional Website field.
Comment by Kline on 23 October 2007:
I don’t think you can really stop real human scammers. I mean, if I were to target a niche, say SEO, I could type up about 10-50 actual long relevent targetted comments, and then just copy/paste my way through 100s of blog posts.. Every article I can find on buyblogcomments, I can just post this comment I’ve written right here. Anyone who would have blogged about these guys probably will write about the same thing, and.. who would actually see this comment here as a piece of spam??
—-
//comment template off//.. no.. i’m not really doing this, but I could see how a comment like my lame one above could make it through any ‘human filter’ out there. Honestly, right now, its not even about the # of backlinks you have, its about the quality, so a targetted attack like this, I do it enough times, I could rank #2 for buyblogcomments if I really wanted to….
yay. on to start my lame empire
Comment by Collin LaHay on 25 October 2007:
I wouldn’t be surprised if WordPress was forced to add nasty image verifications to the comments, as I don’t see any other solution. =(
Comment by Sophie on 15 November 2007:
I can’t decide what to do on my blogs - I hate spam so much I tend to want every last protection from it, but if it reduces the number of comments and prevents decent debate then that’s gonna kill the blog eventually.
I do think it depends on the industry you are in and how many people who are reading your site are likely to have their own site. If it’s, say, 90%, then you’re bound to get more comments if you dofollow and allow URLs…but then the quality of comments probably goes down. It’s a balance.
Comment by Sound of Music on 27 November 2007:
Now what’s wrong with drawing attention? What about those of us who can’t afford buying the stuff? And the owner also gets traffic from this, so …
Comment by Data Entry on 29 December 2007:
I do think it depends on the industry you are in and how many people who are reading your site are likely to have their own site. If it’s, say, 90%, then you’re bound to get more comments if you dofollow and allow URLs…but then the quality of comments probably goes down. It’s a balance
Comment by i like socks on 19 January 2008:
i get some obvious comment spam on my site, but if the comments are thoughtfull and invite discussion then why not let them continue?
some the anchor text makes it obvious comment spam though. i wonder if putting “i like socks” as my achor will be let on this blog??