A Note from the Blog Administrator: Comment Spam

I suppose it is inevitable.

Once you get a certain amount of readership on a blog, comment spam will ensue.

Until a few days ago, Tigers & Strawberries had been blissfully untouched by the phenomina, but that has changed.

This morning, I awoke to twenty-seven bogus comments from a variety of “commenters,” all advertising for a culinary school blog which has a sum total of two content-free posts.

So here is a free clue to all of the identities that add up to the same person who wants people to desperately read his or her blog:

Emily, jordan, sara, trinity, jasmine, anna, natalie, amber and anonymous–if you want people to read your blog, please put some content up there worth reading. If you did so, other bloggers might promote you for free, without you having to send a spambot out to plaster links to your blog all over other people’s comments.

Comment spam, even when it includes the words, “Your blog is great, I have bookmarked it (no shit–I kinda figured that out when I got twenty-seven comment notifications in my email, dumbass), and will return to it again and again,” is still rude, annoying and irritating. The kind words ring very false when it is obvious that all you are doing in making a comment is shilling for your own blog.

Another clue: if you post a comment to another blog that has something incisive and interesting to say that is in context to the blog post in question, then people will read it and click on the link to your profile or blog and read what you have to say there. Lots of readers here have found me in that way.

And if you have employed a spambot or two to plaster your link all over my blog–I have employed the option of word-verification in order to thwart that possibility.

So, to regular readers and commentors, I apologize for the inconvenience of the extra step you have to take to post your words to my blog. As for spammers–this way, at least, you have to work for your ill-gotten gains.

That said, hopefully, I won’t have to make such a post again.

5 Comments

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1. How long do these spammer take to visit all the blogs?

   Seems like a waste of time to me!

   Comment by Barnze — September 13, 2005 #

2. I have no idea, Barnze.

   Seems like an awful waste of time to me, too.

   For very little gain.

   Comment by Barbara Fisher — September 14, 2005 #

3. Such is the purpose of a bot, just wind it up and let it rip. Takes all the work-a-day drudgery out of spamming.

   Comment by Bryian — September 14, 2005 #

4. That Culinary School Blog has been spamming me too. They’ve spammed my blog at least 15 times so far.

   I’m going to try the word verification on comments from now on, and see if that makes the spambots go away.

   Comment by KnifeSkills — September 14, 2005 #

5. I suspect it was a bot that was being used, Bry, which is why I used the word verification thing.

   Christine–sorry to know that you got hit by them, too. They are quite annoying.

   Comment by Barbara Fisher — September 14, 2005 #

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