Spam by any other name….
For those of you who hate it when I’m in a bad mood, RANT ALERT!
I woke up this morning to find this on my blog:
Hi,
let me first tell you this not spam.i am a real person sitting at a real desk.I am Rajeev Mahadevan from India.I just wanted to tell you that i have found a really easy way to make money online.its free,and easy.i made $142/- in my first week.below’s the link.if you want to make effortless money.
A.W.SURVEYS
First, Rajeev, let me tell you that if you had read any of my blog at all it would have been plain to you that if there’s anything I hate, it is spam.
You seek to justify yourself by telling me that your comment is not spam, so it seems I am going to have to enlighten you about the definition of spam.
How do you think spam gets written other than by real people at real desks? True we might think of them in our mind’s eye shuffling up to a trough in a barn, but the truth is most of them look just like you or I and they do, wait for it, sit at a desk somewhere.
Whether or not you sit at a desk is not a measure of how spammy your comments are. The measure is this:
If your comment contains a self-serving link leading to a site that has NOTHING to do with the contents of the blog post then, yes, you are a spammer, whether you choose to call yourself that or not. You are attempting to steal my traffic. And while you say you are inviting people to ‘make effortless money,’ let me tell you there is no such thing as a ‘free lunch.’ You may not be working for the traffic, but the people who own the blogs you are spamming most certainly did work hard for that traffic. They spent endless hours educating themselves about their subject, they have built up a network of people they know, like and, dare I say it? TRUST online (and yes, who also recognize them by name). Additionally, legitimate bloggers spend hours researching and writing blog posts so that others will want to visit and read.
Which brings me to yet another point: while you’re posting spammy comments on other people’s blogs, you are not finding targeted traffic. Targeted traffic is when you aim for people who are looking for what you have to offer (just so you know).
So someone, somewhere is paying for your traffic (assuming anyone in their right mind would want to click on your link).
Sorry Ranjeev, your spammy comment is in the spam bin where it belongs.
Legitimate Promotion Strategies
But in the spirit of online camaraderie, let me just give you some advice.
Unless you’re planning to give something back, such as a valuable link from your website, a talkup on your blog, or the like, never try to benefit from someone else’s hard work. They’ll resent it.
There are plenty of legitimate ways you can promote your product. I suggest you try one of the many great forums on affiliate marketing for this.
Create a web page to promote your product and drive traffic to that with legitimate comments on other people’s blogs (no need to spam, you still get the link if you take part in their conversation). Create meaningful, mutually beneficial online relationships that will fuel your progress. Heck, shell out and buy some PPC. That’s always a great choice for anyone who doesn’t know what else to do and it needn’t be very expensive.
SEO Self Regulation Community--SEOs for Higher Standards!
Search Engine Journal
SOSG
Well said, Patricia. If you're known to have blogs that do not use the rel=”nofollow” on outward links, you get even more of these folk who believe they're not spamming. It's a little more work to have to trash them, but it's got to be done if you want to do the quality control to ensure you have only comments with substance and interest for other readers. I hope Google appreciates the effort we all put in to try to maintain quality on the Web.
One could say this a slightly more nobler form of spam, instead of the usually links and general nonsense. I genuinely believe this guy thinks that he has something to offer. This is the problem when anyone anywhere can make use of web 2.0. The only alternative to this is to go private and not make the material available to unregistered users.
Hi Leo, I agree with you that maybe he thinks he has something valuable, but don't you think it's up to us who, it seems know better, to perhaps help to enlighten the online community? Maybe we'll help to put him on the right track so he can make some real money–I hope.
Hi Patricia
Thanks for this. I agree with your general definition of spam, but as I'm sure you know it is often difficult to differentiate between a meaningful contribution and just a generic comment that could apply to almost any post. I am surprised that spammers don't try harder to fashion their comments so they are less obvious.
It wouldn't be at all hard to do it legitimately. It would just take a bit more knowledge/effort. MOral of the story is, do your research I suppose.
Should I believe that majority of commenter are just spammers? They always disclose something very funny and stupid which might be a wonderful gift from them to to others. In no time I can find his site in Akismet, well, that is a hell for all spammers and their customers along with their sites. May be it is very difficult to decide which is legit and which is not but I know now after having 10 blogs(It took so long for me to learn all that).
maybe he is a real man who commenting to your blog. But his post comment don't have correlation with your article. Thats why you mark it as spamm comment. I'll do the same way if i found that comment in my blog too.
Try Disqus: much better than akismet in my opinion.
Yes Patricia I do agree that we have to hold people accountable. Is that not the number factor in any community?
we dont have it.
come on be soft
On your url wellwrittenwords, the same thing shows on your article. By heart I would like to clap for whatever your article says
Thanks a lot and keep writing
It is difficult to find a single legit comment on a lot of blogs(Majority of them are “do follow”). There is no question of such spam on no follow blogs because they are useless for spammers. I think there are many more ways to seek links but in this ways(blog comments) we just ruin others and ourselves. Your definition for spam is pretty fair and right though.
whoa.. your on fire dude, and that man made your breakfast taste bitter, its really funny how other people do things, for me posting a link as your name is fine as long as you are contributing to the conversation, but advertising on blog is quite childish and considered as unprofessional sides of SEO, it really leaves a bad impression of this job..
by the way you still manage to give advice on how to give traffic, and its so nice of you..
whoa.. your on fire dude, and that man made your breakfast taste bitter, its really funny how other people do things, for me posting a link as your name is fine as long as you are contributing to the conversation, but advertising on blog is quite childish and considered as unprofessional sides of SEO, it really leaves a bad impression of this job..
by the way you still manage to give advice on how to give traffic, and its so nice of you..