Transform Your Chronic Life

Image via Wikipedia

By Wendy Burnett
Spammers are a major annoyance on a lot of blogs, leaving comments that have absolutely nothing to do with the post they’re commenting on, and cluttering things up just to get a backlink.

I’ve got Askimet, so the VAST majority of spam comments are caught and “quarantined” until I get around to deleting them, but every now and then one gets through. I’m pretty easily amused, so I sometimes read through them, just to see how stupid some of these people can be; and I thought I’d share some of the “best” with you.

First, this guy, who’s obviously never actually BEEN to this blog:

Audio began playing as soon as I opened up this web page, so annoying!

Audio? Really? Ummmm, when did I put audio anything on the site? LOL (I actually hate sites that have audio that plays automatically. Scares the shit outta me when it kicks in.)

This guy may have read the title of the post, since the comment is semi-relevant, but do you have any idea what he’s trying to say?

I like this information given and it has given me some sort of desire to succeed for some reason, so thank you.

Really? You like it and maybe it gave you some kind of desire to succeed, but you don’t know why?

The ones who ummmm, use a program to post comments are always kind of interesting, too:

Dead indited subject material , Really enjoyed studying.

HUH? The best thing about these kinds of comments is that they’re so obviously spam that even a crappy spam filter will catch them.

Then there are the folks who actually put a little thought into it. They put the same comment everywhere, but it’s generic enough to almost seem like a real comment:

Hi there just wanted to give you a quick heads up and let you know a few of the images aren’t loading correctly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different web browsers and both show the same results.

This one actually slipped through Askimet the first time, but it hasn’t since. I can see why, too. Most of us have at least a few images that are linked from other sites, not hosted on our own, so for a site with some content, this is going to be true. Some of the images probably won’t load properly because the image has been moved or deleted and the link doesn’t work any more. It might have gotten past me, too, except that it was left on a post with a working link.

Then there’s the guy who just picks a phrase or name that gets lots of searches, and links it to his site, like this one:

John Lennon

Not only does this comment have nothing to do with anything on this site, it has nothing to do with anything on the site it’s linked to. The words “John Lennon” don’t appear anywhere on that domain, according to Google (no, I didn’t give him a click, just used Google to search his site.)

Then there are the “helpful” spammers:

You should really think better about naming your page titles. You should consider putting keywords in them so Google will find and rank your post page higher. I am not trying to be an ass but I am just trying to help. For example, what do you think you can improve on (Chronic Illness) = Loneliness + Isolation | Transform Your Chronic Life . Again, just trying to help here

This would have worked better if she’d picked one that didn’t show up on page one of the Google results for “chronic illness.” (Yes, it was the last result on the page, but it was still page one, and that works for me.)

And another “helper:”

Have you thought about putting some social bookmark links on your site? At least put one for Stumbleupon so we could ping them up!

Okay, this one obviously hasn’t actually even LOOKED at any post on the site, since every one of them has a whole row of social bookmarks right below the title. Not just Stumbleupon, but Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and several more . . .

How about the flatterers? I know you’ve gotten some of these, we all have. I wish I could believe they’re telling the truth, but nobody is that good, not even me . . . (besides, it’s hard to believe a compliment when you have trouble figuring out what they’re saying.)

A formidable share, I simply given this onto a colleague who was doing slightly evaluation on this. And he actually purchased me breakfast as a result of I found it for him.. smile. So let me reword that: Thnx for the treat! But yeah Thnkx for spending the time to discuss this, I feel strongly about it and love reading more on this topic. If attainable, as you grow to be expertise, would you mind updating your blog with more details? It is extremely useful for me. Large thumb up for this weblog submit!

This one isn’t terrible, actually, but still obviously spam.

And then there are the gratuitous insults that try to tempt you into arguing with them:

Got to be the dumbest show I have ever seen. Mixing modern pictures with the Battle of Waterloowhat am I missing???? If youre going to tell a story, tell it in one century or another.dumb, dumb, dumb.

This one was on (Chronic Illness) = Loneliness + Isolation. Not a single word about Waterloo in the whole post. What am *I* missing?

All in all, I find comment spam more amusing than irritating. I mean, how can you not laugh at some of this crap?

(Side note: I got home from work tonite, and the roomie was cooking, so I took a nap. When I woke up and went up for dinner, I discovered we were having spam and eggs . . . very odd. I haven’t had spam in about 15 years, and the day that I write a post about comment spam, I come home and the roomie cooks spam for dinner? What’s up with that?)

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