One of the biggest problems I find with new blogs is spam comments. New bloggers are excited that they receive comments on their posts, so they either set the setting to always approve comments or they just manually approve them. This is great for when it says a particular blog post has 8 comments, but in the long run, approving spam comments will hurt you.
It Makes You Look Unprofessional
The most important thing I will talk about in this post is that it makes your blog look unprofessional. Any blogger with sense can tell that the comment from “Nelida Prescott” that says “I cling on to listening to the news bulletin talk about getting free online grant applications so I have been looking around for the finest site to get one. Could you tell me please, where could i get some?” on a blog post called Mac or PC is spam. This makes you look desperate for comments, which ultimately is unprofessional blogging.
It Scares Away Real Comments
The reason people comment on a blog is to have their comment read by all of the readers and the blog owners themselves. Once they see that you already have eight spam comments approved on a particular post, they will be reluctant to post a legitimate comment because it might never be noticed among the trash. Also, if you have your blog to automatically approve comments and 95% of them are spam, you as the blog owner may never notice their comment.
Spam Is Hard To Reply To
As a general rule, you should reply to every comment left on your blog. If we take Nelida Prescott’s example from earlier, it would be really hard to reply to. The title of the blog post was “Mac or PC” and she was asking about free online grant applications. Even if you were to reply to the comment and supply her with some free online grants, she would never look at your reply and it would add more unrelated content to your post.
You’re Giving Spammers Free Links
The reason spammers leave comments in the first place is to get free links to their website. Granted, the links in the comments are no-follow, but it still allows them to get out there and try (it definitely works better than spamming email). Linking to spam websites makes your site look like spam (in Google’s eyes), helps the website you’re linking to, and is the quickest way to prevent a blog from success.
So… How Do I Prevent Spam?
If you are in a situation where you have nothing but spam comments, I would suggest deleting every single one of them and starting fresh. You should install a plugin called Akismet and set your blog that you need to approve every comment.
To receive more legitimate comments (i.e. real people), you should check out some must-have WordPress comments tools. These five tools will make your comments spam free, encourage more people to comment, and enhance the experience of using your blog.
I had so many old spam comments that I am not sure of that didn’t see until now because a plugin I have blocked them. So I am little relieved but some of them are really good comments… Should I take the risk if they “look” legit? Or should keep them blocked just because if the system caught them trying to get a back link?
i can’t use akismet in my other commercial site, i used a spam free WordPress plugin. all my spam messages are gone but I also lost real people to leave me blog comments. i think the plugin’s security captcha field drive them away..
Another good spam plugin is GASP. This plugin comes included with CommentLuv Premium for free. I highly recommend checking it out. https://www.omegaweb.com/uses-commentluv/
Hey Ian,
You were on my blog and dropped 2 comments. I’m so excited about that and hope to see you again
Meanwhile, CommentLuv Premium (with GASP) is a good way not to even see this spam comments. As you noticed, I have just been blogging for 2 weeks and there is way I can welcome spam comments. I don’t want my blog to look unprofessional 😉
When I wrote this post I didn’t have GASP, I was only using Akismet and I was still getting some spam comments. Now with GASP, I never even see them! Also, only blogging for two weeks you are off to a good start.
Thanks Eberle, I don’t currently allow spam comments but I have heard that you can turn off your spam filter and edit the spam comment so that it works for you. Do you know how to edit a spam comment and make it work for you rather than against you?
What is the point of editing a spam comment? That is essentially the same as going in and leaving fake comments on your own blog posts.
Approving spam comments? :O
You are kidding me Ian.
I don’t think approving spam comments is good thing especially for bloggers like you and me.
Thanks for mentioning my post here.
Not only experienced bloggers like us, but even new bloggers should not approve spam. It’s a bad habit to get into and can run your blog into the ground.