Are you getting some flattering comments on your site? Ah, that’s nice. Except, they’re probably spam.

I totally fell for it. There was a nice comment about how powerful my writing was and how it moved the reader and they signed up for my RSS feed and … wait, except I didn’t have an RSS feed on that site. Then I checked the name and it was something product-y sounding. Hmm. I checked the URL of their domain. Yep, some spammy product. I was crushed! A new fan! A loving comment! But probably just a robot! Waaaaah.

Welcome to new age of comment spam.

I don’t know if they’re robots or just hired guns (at crazy low rates, I’m sure). But they’re sneaky. There was a time when spam was also just a bunch of words thrown together. I didn’t really get that strategy. Of course, the typical keyword stuffing days are over for the most part as your spam (or comment) protection should get them. In WordPress, Akismet does an excellent job of comment spam protection because it gathers the spam from millions (no, millions and millions) of sites to compare notes and get the most accurate kill rates. But now they’re up to new tricks: flattery.

[quote]Hi would you mind letting me know which webhost you’re working with? I’ve loaded your blog in 3 completely different internet browsers and I must say this blog loads a lot faster then most. Can you recommend a good web hosting provider at a honest price? Thanks a lot, I appreciate it![/quote]

They’re hard to detect because maybe they’re even accurate. I don’t know if they actually read the content or even try a little bit to make the comment relevant. But hey, we’re all suckers for flattery, right? Maybe just leave the comment up for a few days? Just to get the Feel Good out of it? Then delete it? Up to you. But with every link out from your site, you’re giving up a tiny bit of your Google Juice to another site. Usually, you want to do that, it’s good all around. But for the spammers, maybe just save their flattering comment in your email, or print it out and put it on your wall, but delete it from your comments.

Is that real chorizo? Or is it spam? How can you tell?

Is that real chorizo? Or is it spam? How can you tell?