Ok.  Spam.  no one who has a website really wants spam.  Spam, of course is unsolicited, gratuitous comments to which are attached advertisements or links to promote the spammer’s web site by using yours to display it- free and without permission.  Whatever title you give yourself: Webmaster, Web Site Owner, Blogger or whatever it is, for you, SPAM is a four letter word.

     Spam is a problem because it quickly fills your spam filter or otherwise accumulates on your web site like the detritus in a roadside gutter after a flashflood.  OK.  maybe that’s a little dramatic, but the more traffic you have the more spam you will get and you have to manage it.  It requires extra time  to cull and sort and delete and empty from your filter.  This is time you could spend more productively to write posts, search for interesting products to promote or answer legitimate comments.  It is not just the overwhelming volume of spam on your web site that is annoying.  It is the unprofessional disrespect and inconsiderateness of the spammers who send out their spam to your site without, apparently, any thought about how they are impacting your site; the “host” site, to use a term from parisitology.  Their sole aim is to promote their site and they are not interested in any mutual agreements with the spammed sites to promote each others’ sites.  They are self-serving .

     There are several ways in which spam may display on your site and there are distinctive identifying hallmarks to indicate that a comment is, in fact, a spam comment:

 1. It is in your spam filter.    (Spam filters are quite advanced and are very good at screening out  spam comments.)

2.  A characteristic of these comments is that the urls have one or more subdomains attached and usually bring you to a commercial site.

3.  If you click on the link, it will bring you to a third party site which is not owned by the spammer.

4.  There are imbedded “no follow” links within the comment.  Here is an axample:

      Hello dudes , this is a great forum! if yas dont mind, im trying to improve my forum, can you guys give me some feedback please : privateserver (link de-activated) also is it possible to donate to the owner of this website? its great

5.  The comment is totally irrelevant to your post. Example:

      This is really good news today……  (In response to the post about “…Doorknobs.”)

6.  The comment is so general, it could apply to any post.  Example:

      That’s a very interesting information. I didn’t know about it. Keep developing your site!

7.  The comment has been cobbled together by an automatic article writing softwar device or something similar and it is, mostly, “gibberish.” Here is an example:

Lemons. a abigail of the most authentic alkalinizing foods, are pattern to tropical Asia, where cultivation dates spring endorse from at least 2,500 years. In the twelfth century the Arabs brought lemons to Spain and Africa. It was Christopher Columbus, who brought the seeds of lemons with him from the Canary Islands on his damaged voyage. In the Redone Men, lemons were introduced at calligraphy control means of the Spanish adventurers in Haiti, then known as Hispaniola. In the Appraisal States, Florida was the in the principal stock lemon-producing limit, and this awe-inspiring led in origination of lemons until a mournfulness integrate in 1895 killed the lemon groves. They were not in a million years replanted. In the mount circumstances, to 95 percent of the lemons against in the Pooled States and Canada are produced in southern California. The other 5 percent are grown in Italy. Italy and California together postulate in return all reasonable purposes the bund’s make whoopee equipping of lemons

8.  If you try to contact the sender, you get an “failure” notice because the e-mail address is not real.

 9.  The comment is gushing and effusive with fulsome praise and excessive flattery out of all proportion to your humble accomplishments and, of course, has links attached to promote the spammers’web sites. Example;

I want this post has been up top, up top! Top up to everyone to see!

 and you already saw this one above:

Hello dudes , this is a great forum! if yas dont mind, im trying to improve my forum, can you guys give me some feedback please : privateserver (link de-activated) also is it possible to donate to the owner of this website? its great

10. The comment is attached to an illustration on your site and not to a post.  You cannot publish this kind of comment.  It will not appear in the comments of a post.  Here is a comment that was attached to a picture of a doorknob:

Great points…I would note that as someone who really doesn’t comment to blogs much (in fact, this may be my first post), I don’t think the term “lurker” is very becoming to a non-posting reader. It’s not your fault really , but perhaps the blogosphere could come up with a better, non-creepy name for the 90% of us that enjoy reading the content .

By the way, this would have been a good comment if the sender had commented in a legitimate way.  I wanted to post it but was unable to put in it the correct comment group. ( so I show it here as an example.)  I actually answered this post and, I might as well include my answer here as I was unable to link my answer and the comment to a post:

11.  Comment spam may also be identified by the frequency of its occurance.  “Same Spam Different Day” would aptly describe this tactic.  I have received two or three comments from    from different IP addresses.  The duplicate comments are exactly the same, ostensibly from      different individuals, sometimes from the same people. They can reoccur weeks apart or  appear after a month or more.                                        

     Spam is here to stay.  It is a part of the Internet Scene.  so far, no one has been able to eliminate spam completely, but there are ways to control it.  The most obvious way to do this is to have a good spam filter.  There are many but one of the most powerful and effective filters is Aksimet from Wordpress.  If you want to save time you really need a spam filter.  

 Spam comments, especially those generated by “bots” can be foiled with the use of CAPTCHA codes.  This prevents anyone from simply pressing a button to send spam to your site, because the spam device cannot “read” the code ( sometimes I cannot read the code either ).  The person has to manually send his comment  This is time-consuming and not favored by those spammers who want things to be easy. 

Some sites ”build” all kinds of virtual barriers to keep spam at bay.  They will use CAPTCHA codes, make you register and sign in every time you want to leave a comment and so on.  I don’t use this simply because many readers do not want to “jump through hoops” just to leave a comment.  I believe, and this is my personal opinion, that readers who do take the time to leave you a comment are contributing to the interest of your blog and I don’t like to put obstacles between them and my site, which might discourage them from commenting.  One of the most common complaints of bloggers is ” I am not getting enough comments.  How do I get people to comment more?”  The answer is very simple.  Encourage readers to leave comments and make it as easy as possible for them.  

    Spam is a problem, but, believe it or not, I have found some spam to be really useful.  I actually have discovered that spam can be interesting and entertaining and I look forward to checking my spam filter for potentially “useful” spam.  I will tell you all about it in my next post:  “Recycling Spam.”

Take Care and “Blog-On”

–Wil