Today someone left the following comment:
Now, it caught my eye for two reasons:
- They left a URL in the comment. I’m constantly on the lookout for that because I don’t want YOU guys (my real readers) to be subjected to spammy comments.
- They claim to be a long time reader who visits constantly.
So I figured that if they visit as much as they say they do, I’d see some verification of that in my Woopra stats. I pulled it up and did a quick search based on the IP address that the comment came from. Here is what we find:
Let’s break it down:
- They arrived at my blog by doing a Google search for the keywords “australian comedy blog”.
- Woopra only finds their visiting address having been on my site one single time. Although its possible that they visited previously from a different IP address, I highly doubt it.
- They spent a total of 4 minutes on the site – including posting the comment. And the video alone is 2 minutes. It takes about another minute to read the page.
So, what we really have here is someone just doing a search and finding high ranking blogs so they can leave a comment and drop their URL in the hopes that some innocent visitors will click through to THEIR website.
This kind of drive-by commenting adds no value whatsoever, and is only intended to hijack visitors. So, if you have a Website I would encourage you to look out for these things and mark them as spam when you see them.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
John, why does not the comment form save, you have to input it all the time and its very time consuming..
This is nice when site are set to remember this, I don’t know if mine is or not, I personally am all about it. Does it encourage spam somehow?
I’m with you all the way, I think some spammers aren’t quite bright enough to realize that these are no follow links. That could be the case anyway :)
PS I just noticed the Woopra stats counter telling how many visitors are online, COOL!