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If you have been using WordPress or really any blogging platform one thing you’ll quickly run into is comment spam.  Comment spam are those generally meaningless general comments you see on every blog post.

Why would anyone spend the time to post spam comments? Well it’s not people so much as automated bots.  These bots are usually run by SEO groups that are attempting to obtain backlinks for their clients.  Backlinks are simply hyperlinks from one site to another.

This may sound a bit odd but, backlinks are one of the key signals that Google, Bing and others use to determine relevant content for search.  The more backlinks to a site the better.  There are some exceptions to this as bloggers commonly use the rel=”nofollow” attribute on hyperlinks to inform the search engines to ignore the links for ranking purposes.  But, not all the SEO’s have caught on yet.

In every blog comment by these comment spam bots you will notice a couple things.

1. A generic comment that can be applied to multiple posts
2. A hyperlink to the site trying to boost their SEO value

Here are the basic categories of comment spam and examples of what they look like:

Simple
I truly like your site

That’s not just the best asnewr. It’s the bestest answer!

Complementary
I as well as my friends have been examining the good information found on your site then all of the sudden came up with a terrible feeling I never thanked you for those strategies. These boys happened to be so thrilled to see them and have in effect clearly been taking pleasure in these things. Thank you for indeed being simply thoughtful and also for selecting this form of incredibly good tips most people are really needing to discover. My very own honest apologies for not expressing appreciation to you sooner.

Off Topic
Today, I went to the beach front with my kids. I found a sea shell and gave it to my 4 year old daughter and said “You can hear the ocean if you put this to your ear.” She placed the shell to her ear and screamed. There was a hermit crab inside and it pinched her ear. She never wants to go back! LoL I know this is completely off topic but I had to tell someone!

Helpful
I really love your site but, I thought you should know that the images aren’t loading in my browser.  I don’t know why but, thought you should fix it as you have very good knowledge.

As you can see these comments could be used on just about any post although they probably need grammar and spell check .  These comments will be littered with hyper-links to sites hawking success secrets, supplements, get rich quick schemes, cheap software and the like.

One thing you can do if you have a blog is to moderate comments and simply reject comments that are spammy like those I mention.  If your blog is getting sufficiently popular this may become a hassle. There are also many plugins for popular blogging platforms to force a user to login or enter a CAPTCHA code to place a comment.  Those plugins can be slightly annoying for visitors but, will eliminate most of the comment spam and can be a good option.

So now I go to publish this post and await to comment spam I am sure will come.  When will the SEO’s learn that all these blog comment back-links have little value in SEO.  Stop spamming everyone!