Ahhh, spam. We all know about it, we all hate it, and yet we all seem to keep getting it.
No, I don’t mean the weird “food” SPAM.
I mean of course the unwanted email messages that inundate internet users by the seemingly thousand per day. Though that brings up a good point: is there any other word in the English language with just two definitions, which are so vastly different?
But I digress.
We live in an age now where random “bots” or perhaps even real people leave bogus comments all over your pages, trying to link back to their product or site, and flood your inbox if you are silly enough to publish a full email on your site, or on a “contact” page. If you are a blogger, I’m sure you are quite familiar with spam. I know Dave has started his own series on the funniest spam comment each month!
Usually, we just go in a few times a year and batch delete them. Occasionally a real comment gets mis-filed and we rescue it from the Spam folder (sorry Angela!), but 99% of the time comments filed as Spam are exactly that. And spam blockers are getting better, I very rarely now have a comment marked to “moderate” which is spam and not an actual reader.
MAY 2016 SPAM STATISTICS
Now, with all that said, it can be, dare I say, fun to read through spam comments sometimes. The wording, sentence structure, or references can be downright hilarious, occasionally insulting, and often mystifying. And many fall into more than one category too.
Here is my list of the types of spam I have gotten over the years, feel free to share your take in the comments!
The questionable grammar/spelling posts
These type of comments love to mis-capitalize words, notably leaving “i” as undercase or capitalizing the first letter of a random mid-sentence word. They use very poor grammar and sentence structure. And not in a “I’m not a native speaker but I’m trying to learn” kind of way, in a “I’m a computer program trying to be human” kind of way.
Clearly Unrelated to Content
Then there are the “clearly not at all related to what I’m talking about” posts, where they probably just want you to click their link. The article may be about “How to Save On Your Grocery Bill” and the spam mentions how to find NFL jerseys. Clearly not a thing my readers need, bro.
Foreign Languages
And then we get into the weird ones, in different languages. I’ve seriously been noticing a LOT of Russian spam comments lately… coincidence?? Just kidding, no politics allowed in my happy place.
Just a Giant List of Links
Oh, and the ones that are just huge lists of links, or keywords. Sometimes they are all related (i.e. cheapibuprofen.net, cheapadvil.net, cheapmotrin.com) and sometimes they don’t make any sense in reference to the post or to each other. The point is they are all hyperlinks, and no guarantee the link will take you where it says it goes.
I’m not interested in clicking and neither are my readers.
Search Recommendations
Sometimes there is text, trying to get you to Google search a specific phrase. I get these most often referencing paid content, SEO, how to better monetize my site, or how to get more traffic. They usually say something like “Your site is amazing I love it but also you can do better. Just search for “Dominicks super cool SEO tips”.” Thanks for the backhanded compliment, I guess.
Predictive Word Generated
Oh, a fun one I got recently was a ridiculously long novel-like comment. I was almost tempted to publish it, just to triple the word count on the page. The only problem? It was complete gibberish. I don’t think there was an actual complete sentence to be found. It may have been a very juvenile attempt at a predictive word generator for comments? Who knows, but A for effort.
Swing and a Miss
Recently I’ve been getting rashes of comments that seem legitimate, almost. That compliment the content, style, or layout. But they are all comments from the same site/email, and clearly not a real reader. Thus, regardless of whether it is malicious or not, delete.
Or the ones that seems totally legitimate, but then you check out the site, or send an email to the registered email, and it is undeliverable, site is not real or different than advertised, etc. Sorry, delete. At least you said nice things, to make me feel better about wasting my time trying to reply.
The X-Rated Stuff
And of course, there will be plenty of “adult” comments sprinkled in, with totally inappropriate wording, and graphic links directing you towards super shady sites. Insta-perma-delete. Those will not get a photo because they make me a little nauseated, tbh. Thank goodness they are few and far between.
Hahaha yes, I’ve gotten all of these! Thanks for the links back btw 🙂
The most disturbing one I got this month so far though was actually a decently written one advertising a marital counselor.
Disturbing because it started out as “I felt like ending it i lost my husband to another woman 2 years ago after 5 years of marriage.”
Eek.
The past few days, I’ve started to get some Russian and Spanish spambots which is amusing. Haven’t run them through Google Translate yet though…
No problem, Dave! Thanks for stopping by.
Wow… that is crazy. Yikes. Ha, I hadn’t thought to try Google translate! That could be fun… or disturbing…
Hah I still laugh at that spam essay of yours because I’ve never seen anything like that before! I’m co-editor of a blog at work and that gets so many spam comments about “this is excellent content just what i wanted” that I hardly ever read the email notifications about comments anymore. 90% of the time it’s a spam comment because they are apparently just passable people-speak that the filter doesn’t get them. I shudder to think of how many more that blog’s spam filter keeps from getting in!
I get approximately zero spam comments on my blog (or rather, there are zero right now in my spam folder). I wonder if that’s because of a plugin I have installed? Now the emails asking if I want to see a post someone else has written or asking if I’ll accept $100 to put in some backlinks to another website? I get a ton of those. Starting to wonder if I should just take my email off my contact page, whoops.
Oh yeah that giant essay one was over the top. It is interesting the ones the filter lets through sometimes, mostly the “passable people speak” ones. So close…
But don’t you want $100? What kind of frugal blogger are you to say no to that kind of income?? 😉
Hahaha “I’m a computer trying to be human.” Fortunately/unfortunately those days are likely soon to be behind us as AI gets more advanced.
Yeah there are honestly lots of times where I’m like “this must be real… or maybe its spam… it’s really good spam if so…”
My blog isn’t WordPress, but I still get plenty of spam. I think my commenting system is similar enough to attract spambots, but different enough to break them. Appearently they have a few random sentences they then to leave. Sometimes, on my blog, they’ll leave every sentence out of their list of sentences, instead of just one or two. The first time it happened, published it on my blog (https://hendrixjoseph.github.io/dealing-with-spam-comments-a-spambot-dumps-it-contents/). It’s happened a few more times with different sentences.
Not gonna lie Joe, this type of comment toes the line between real and spam! Haha… but your blog is real, I think. Thanks for stopping by.