Comment Craze: An Observation
Jul 12th, 2007 by msdanielle
I’m sure many of you who roam around the blogosphere in your spare time have been noticing a lot of people talking this week about blog comments: would you pay for them, who wouldn’t pay for them, what qualifies as a quality comment, when blogs are exploited, how to spot spamments, how to minimize what’s in your Akismet, etc. The talk is endless when it comes to commenting and the ethics involved on the subject. Here is a great analysis by Liz Strauss of the basis for much of the talk. Please, I’ll wait until you are done reading it to continue.
OK now that you’ve read Liz’s breakdown, here’s a snippet of how “Buy Blog Comments” works:
The concept is simple. The More targeted backlinks a website has for a keyword, the higher up on the search engine rankings it will be. But how do we get backlinks? This is the hard part. There are many ways, for whitehatters you can buy them and/or trade them.
But how about getting very targeted backlinks without spamming? Thats easy! Just hire us!
BUT! We try to not post comments on blogs with the nofollow tag on the sites. We have gathered a list of people who don’t support the nofollow tag, and some types of blogs that do not use the tag at all. So don’t worry, you will still be getting weight to your site.
First off, I’m not sure how “white hat” buying links is, even though most SEOs do it. I’d say it’s more gray than anything. But one thing I think I can safely say is that most bloggers would cringe at the thought of people paying for spammed comment links. But there are people that would actually pay for his service! Is John Warass just the one guy who’s slimy enough to provide this service out in the open, versus doing it under the radar?
What do you guys think?
How much spam do you really get?
How many comments do you suspect are spam that may or may not be?
When do you click the “Unapprove” button in your Comments?
When do you click “Not spam” in your Akismet?
Do you let the comments that seem innocent get approved?
Are spammy comments really a problem for you?
How much time do you spend filtering these comments?
Does the thought of someone making money off comments make you upset?
Have you installed the Dofollow plugin?
Luckily, I don’t get that much spam in my Akismet — maybe five or so per day, sometimes more. Most of them are blatantly, obviously, undoubtedly spam. I’m sure if I had more exposure I’d have much more than I currently do. I spend only a few minutes a day checking and deleting them, but I make sure to check my Akismet everyday, regardless. For the last few days, I’ve had the Dofollow plugin removed to see if there are less comments on my blog. But I’m not sure right now I’m receiving any spam, so I may go back and forth testing it further to see if any trends appear when I add or remove the plugin. It’s safe to say that a majority of the comments left here are of highly substantial value. Thanks, everyone! 
Here’s a question: Would any of you like to know how “Buy Blog Comments” really works? Would it be even more evil to hire them and see what they truly deliver? Are you curious to know what these comments look like in action? Do you want to know which blogs are targets? Have you thought of exposing their system for what it really is to the rest of the active blogosphere? I know I have. 
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Hi ms danielle, Thank you for the compliment. Mr. W. really wrote his own background. It was easy to find and pull together for you in my post.
On the subject of what he does: I didn’t care as much about comments the day I started blogging. I would have cared more about this issue a year later than I do now. But now as I approach the end of my second year. I care fiercely about the people who cross the threshold of my comment box. You see, the relationships I’ve made there are that much longer, stronger, deeper, dearer to my head and heart. The people whom I talk with share their minds and their hearts. I don’t want folks who don’t belong. That’s like some hitchhiker, telling bad jokes, on a roadtrip with a bunch of college friends.
To think someone would pay the hitchhiker for being there and forcing us to put up with him . . . well. And if we didn’t notice? Does it make a difference? Yeah, it does. Yeah, it does. Because sometimes we notice things that just don’t register on our top level radar — little things that seem not quite right, just a little wrong. We don’t need that. We don’t need milk that’s a little sour or comments that are a little insincerel.
Thanks again, ms danielle,
Liz
hi Liz, thank you for sharing your thoughts
i can tell from the way you write that your blog is serious business to you, in the sense of sharing meaningful discussion. in terms of your analogy, i think if the hitch-hiker did make his way onto the bus, eventually someone would call him out and kick him off. and most likely he wouldn’t try to come back. it’s the law of nature, things can’t be forced or faked. if so, they will eventually fade away on their own and never return.
i hope to share more thoughts with you in the future
thanks for sharing them here and in your blog!
Look at me trying to get some SEO “Personal Blog” backlinks.
I know I won’t be top page on Google for Personal Blog but it never hurts to try I guess. I would never spend money to have some one make comments for MY voice.
hi browie
hehe… you share the same sentiments as roberta f. about not having others represent your voice. honestly, i don’t really have a problem with it. i like your blog, and i enjoy your comments 
Speaking about nofollow comments. I realize that a lot of people are too shy to put their anchor text in their name (I know I am). I’ve thought about writing a little Wordpress plug-in to add an extra optional field for people to enter their anchor text.
It might encourage more comments without having people compromise their morals
That would be a great addition to the Threaded Comments!
I sometimes use anchor text and just sign the comment off with my name… do followers know the score… thats why they follow….
As for akismet, I see more getting throught that filter now, I reckon spammers are dynamically changing ip’s and messages… still easy to spot… just avoid generic comments like “great post”….
I really don’t care where the comments come from as long as they are relevant. If you really think about it, marketing and advertisement at it’s root level is not that ethical, getting someone to do something they don’t need/want.
Not sure why everyone is acting like their 5hit doesn’t stink these days, IMO traffic is traffic. In the end is only really matters how many targeted visitors come to a site, not how the author got them there…
it’s all subjective i think. some people really don’t like when comments are not directly related to the post, or added with the intention of increasing valuable discussion. some people are prob upset that others are being paid to “fake the funk.”
@jon - what would that look like in the link? they see the name “jon lee” and do they also see the anchor text?
Personally I think way and I mean way to much is being made over this. Some bloggers in the dofollow community are actually talking about going back to adding nofollow over this. That is just plain stupid. The way I feel is simple is a person comments in my blogs, the comment is relevant and on topic and the link does not go to some “bad thing†and otherwise complies with my comment policy I am fine with it. Who actually wrote the comment and what the “intent†was means absolutely nothing to me only that it meets the rules of my personal comment policy.
Everyone needs to realize that this is nothing but the latest topic du jour and just have a beer and rock on with life. Basically those saying nofollow is the solution to this are saying,
Comment spam gave birth to rel=”nofollow”, people realized it did nothing to solve the problem and screwed over posters. So the do-follow movement occurred which has led to people comment spamming, which means we might as well use nofollow again, which did not work in the first place.
Sound like a circle of insanity? There’s a reason, it is!
The simple facts are if the comments are relevant to your blog, who cares if the poster or the guy who hired him gets some link juice? Anyone who does can’t see the forest for the trees! The reality is comments make your blog better; they improve your search traffic as well.
I believe all they hype around this is being swelled underground by Google because they hate the dofollow movement! They are trying to kill any paid links or any links a user can easily create or hire someone else to create. Why? Because they can’t fix their own algorithms, that’s why.
This “war on paid links” has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with money, don’t be fooled and stop worrying. The Internet has done fine for a long time now and it keeps getting better, like us or not SEOs are a big part of why
i think it’s valuable discussion and i think people want to share their opinion on the subject, so i’m not sure it’s overkill — yet. i’m interested in what your comment policy is. this is the type of information that can be fleshed out in these talks. i don’t really have a comment policy. please share
and yes the circle of insanity hurts my brain a little. i’d love to have a beer and rock on with life
and yes this is all google’s fault. matt cutts calling on advertisers to report their competitors paid links was a sad display.
I get about 200~300 spam in my akismet a day, and sometimes I get one or two OBVIOUS spams slipping through. Like the ones with links after links about 18 year olds having an*l etc.
But then there are the occasioanl comments that sound like it’s not spam, but it is, only to be a link-bait.. like, I had one that said somethign like “why don’t you bloggers write about something meaning ful like charity that you support nad what not???” and went on a 2 paragraph speel about how I should try to make a bigger difference in the world. And it had nothing to do with what my post had said - so I just got rid of his links through my backend, so nobody can see or link to his site.
I’m currently getting around 100 myself, and I’m having so much trouble staying on top of them…
I’ve developed a fast-scanning technique, where I can dart through the comments really really fast while I move my scroll wheel non-stop!
That’s funny, I do the same thing!
The thing that makes me mad about the whole “buying comments” thing is that I respond to nearly EVERY comment on my blog. I don’t want to respond to comments left by someone who has no intention of ever returning to my blog. It’s a waste of my time and my readers shouldn’t have to be subjected to spam comments even if they are relevant to the discussion. In my opinion, if someone was paid to post the comment, it’s spam. Period.
Although, I am intrigued at the concept and would certainly be interested in seeing it in action and exposing their operation.
Can a Cow post here without getting shot?
Haha your comment borders a spam comment and a legitimate comment :p
I like your parody with John Chow! It’s a good funny concept.
In Response to Donovan who said, ” I don’t want to respond to comments left by someone who has no intention of ever returning to my blog. It’s a waste of my time and my readers shouldn’t have to be subjected to spam comments even if they are relevant to the discussion”.
To me that really depends on the following, Are the comments good? Do they improve the blog? Are the questions spot on and will my answer help other readers? If so I am happy to answer them, then the person with the same observation, question or view who comes along next either gets an answer or is more likely to get into the discussion. Honestly the hardest comment to get on any post is often the first one.
I really find it funny how much negative press this guy is getting, do you now all realize how successful you are making the very think you are so opposed to?
Jack: I suppose I was looking at it from a different angle. I can’t imagine someone who is charged with posting 200 comments for just one customer will take the time to read the post and author a quality comment. Maybe they will, who knows.
You do have a point, though. If the comments were relevant to the discussion, I would probably leave them and respond as well. I would just hate to find out that a large majority of comments on my blog were “manufactured” instead of posted by real readers.
Donovan,
That is how the service is being marketed for now. They say they post real comments that relate to the post. Can that be done at the current rate for long? I don’t know but it is possible that he is going super cheap to build a client list and then is going to raise rates.
If I can get links this way, I will buy them and if they prove out and I like the content with them I would pay far more then the current rate. If they suck, if the content is lame and if they look like spam, nope I would not use them.
I just have a LOT of faith in the free market to take care of a lot of things people seem to want to regulate. Now like I have said a lot of times I would not use this to build my blog. This type of link buying would be directed at driving commercial ranking not blog popularity. I think that is part of the disconnect here, bloggers think they are being asked to buy these links or that it will be other blogger buying them. I doubt that highly.
I did buy 100 links for a specific site (I will not name). I did this to see
1. Is the quality of the posting what is being marketed
2. Will it have the effect I expect it to have
Rest assured if they can’t deliver what is promised I will HAMMER them on that, but not on touchy feely stuff that is subjective like the feelings that some seem to have that “comments and blogs are sacred”.
Hi Danielle,
There is an assumption that these comments are spam comments. I am not sure how to define spammy commenets. But if someone is taking the time to read my blog, leaving decent comments on it, I do not care if they are getting paid for that or not. As a matter of fact, I think it might be good for a blog to have more of these comments. They might actually engage more of the readers to participate. It all depdends on the quality of these comments. But even if these comments were of the nature: “nice blog” or “interesting blog”, don’t we already get these comments from readers everyday?
Khalid
I do get a good amount of spam on some blogs, but not as much as I would expect on others; it is weird the way that this works out.
I will be interested to see what happens with the whole “buying comments” trend. I really have no clue as to if people will take to this or not…
To answer your questions:
I would never pay anyone else to represent me or make comments on my behalf.
I get about 2-10 spam comments a day across 4 blogs.
I get maybe one that i am unsure is a spam comment a week, every one else is pretty obvious.
I have only ever clicked the ‘not spam’ button once.
YES someone making money off comments make me very upset.
>> Have you installed the Dofollow plugin
Absolutely not and I have ranted about this before on my own blog
http://www.abluestar.com/blog/removing-the-nofollow-link/
I’m all for rewarding people for making good comments by adding them to the post its as simple as… [Edit] Mr.X made a good points about….
But the worst thing I can think of is someone creating a list of people that use the do follow plugin, this is a spamers gold mine.
This topic has certainly lit the blogosphere on fire, recently. I agree with Jack that the free market will decide whether services such as this will thrive or fail. For many beginner sites, traffic is traffic, regardless of how warranted it might be. $20 for a very quick jump up Technorati and Google’s rankings is peanuts for most people, but if the market decides to brand these tactics as spam, then I’m sure services like Akismet or BadBehavior will be updated to quickly handle these things.
To answer your questions, I typically receive about 15 spam comments a week, however, I have averaged 30 a day since last weekend. There are usually one or two a month that I think might be spam, but I let them through unless they’re pointing to my About page and have nothing to do with anything. I will unapprove comments if there are racist or other intolerant slurs. Comments that seem innocent will be approved, unless the backlink is pointing to something clearly fake like dgasjkl.com. 3 minutes is the most I have ever spent dealing with spam. I have no problems if someone makes money from leaving comments on my site (a small cut back would be appreciated, though
). And yes, I have installed the “DoFollow” plugin.
I don’t know how some bloggers can keep up with all their comments as it is, but if the spams start to get too intelligent, perhaps we’ll need to start using some cheap international labor to moderate our comments. After all, if cheap labor is being used to create these comments, then cheap labor can be used to erradicate it, too
I dont even have the dofollow on, and i still get 300 a day. I dont understand.
Of course you do, that is the whole point of the dofollow movement. rel=”nofollow” is useless and just screws over the people that participate in your blog. Nofollow has done nothing as in ZERO to stop spamming. Anyone using it intentionally is only helping Google dictate to the market and tell others how to run their business lives.
Ha! That is a great idea, and it would make for an awesome post! You could include the emails and everything. Just don’t associate it with a blog you care about… Since I don’t get zillions of comments, it is not a big concern of mine at the moment, and I don’t have DoFollow enabled primarily because I don’t know how. Some people don’t recommend it, either, although I don’t exactly grasp why not.
This comment brought to you by The Evil Fake Commenting Site.
how did this comment get through!?!
I’d be happy to get a comment, even if it was spam right at this moment! Ha Ha!!!!
Truthfully though, I like anyone am trying to learn and find out how to make money from my blog and won’t disagree with getting paid or paying for cretain services but the voice of people should not be tainted with spam and commenting should be the true reflection of peoples feelings. After all people commenting and giving a damn about each others blogs started this whole business thing in the first place.
If someone wants to outsource to spread their link then more power to them. In the end it feel it is the people who comment and follows up their comments that a blog publisher builds a relationship with and then links to in future post. That is the real benefit of comments, the relationship building.
If someone pays to have someone project their thoughts through comments, then let them. They are playing to the machine and forgetting about the all important human element.
I talk too much to want to buy any comments from anyone. I think it’s a horrible idea, and I think it’s just another linkbaiting tactic.