Commenting on blogs that provide benefits of DoFollow is one of the best ways to build incoming links. It give you deep content linking, especially when done on blogs with CommentLuv enabled and it passes Page Rank to help you build authority of your own blog.
It is one strategy I personally use and highly recommended in several posts. Problem I have is when people who comment fail to read comment guidelines and leave SPAM and what is even worse…
When Marketers I Personally Respect Outsource The Spamming Process!
Be it intentionally or not is secondary to the conversation as I still have to deal with that spam and here is latest example…
This morning while going through the Comments waiting to be approved I have noticed that couple comments actually lead to a blog of an Internet Marketer I personally have great respect for. I did hide the easily identifiable information that leads to his blog in image below out of respect and with hopes that he will address the issue. My goal he is NOT to create a controversy post and score few extra visits but bring problem to the surface!
Problem is – those comments are SPAM and completely ignoring my Commenting Guidelines that are present in comments form!
What is even worse – entire comment is nothing more than simply copy/paste from the blog post it is made on! I simply couldn’t believe that this blatant spam was coming from that person himself or even the part of his normal team!
There has to be a catch!
So I went in and investigated the source of the comment: 123.238.34.37. I have to mention here that I have marked as spam quite a few similar comments coming from that 123.236.0.0/14 IP range so I knew by glancing on it that it must be coming from some outsourcing outfit in India. Surely enough – WHOIS doesn’t lie…
I have no problem outsourcing tasks, including doing a promotion as long as commenting done properly, according to guidelines and also person commenting uses his own name or alias while linking to my blog! In fact we use commenting as described in my guides to promote some of our Niche Blogs.
Looks like spammer commenting on my blog had little to none education on how to properly comment and by simple association – be is intentional, through the job requirement or otherwise – it puts a dark shadow over good name of the marketer in my opinion! If he is not fired yet – he should be!
I simply can’t believe that marketer in question here outsourced the process to someone who arrogantly lazy to even make a proper comment in order to get links to his blog and completely ignoring comment guidelines, clearly provided!
I don’t know how much he pays this spammer but my question is:
Does One Link Really Worth It?
What do you, my reader think about it?
Thanks for bringing this subject up, and also for continuing to endorse GOOD blog comments as a source of good link juice. Much of the “trade show speaking” SEO industry now pooh-poohs these blog links as if they have no value.
IMHO, this is due to a) many blogs going totally no-follow and b) all that offshore (and some onshore) outsourced blog comment spam.
I think they’ve forgotten that there is a whole tranche left of quality blogowners (like your place here) that still understands the concept of community, and that a focused engagement with those bloggers, that builds a relationship and provides REAL content value over time, can pay off. I just love your policy of moving to dofollow at comment #3. Or rather, *good* comment #3, where good is in the eye of the guy who cares the most about the quality of content on this site. Bravo!
Hi Alex –
I haven’t had outsourced SPAM comments at my blog yet that I know of. I do all my own commenting. I do check the URLs and IPs to see where they go. The reason I do this is one day I got a comment in Akismet that looked borderline. I decided to check where the links went even though the appeared harmless. The domain name was topic related. When I tried the link it redirected to a site that an unsuspecting visitor might find highly offensive.
Since then I check every time some one posts a comment with a few exceptions. I also added a captcha plugin (SI CAPTCHA) which I know is unpopular with many people. This came about because I was spending to much time going through the SPAM comments Akismet was catching. I didn’t want to just delete them without reviewing them because I had found valid comments in there before.
I was getting 40 – 50 SPAM comments in Akismet every hour when I decided enough was enough and added the captcha. Now I get maybe 1 a week.
Also I saw you were using LuciaLinkyLove here so I added it to my blog. Seems to be totally compatible. I also use CommentLuv. Another thing I did was add comment guidelines that are suspiciously similar to yours. I hope you don’t mind. I almost didn’t do it because it involved editing in PHP. But I took a chance and it worked.
Thanks – John
John Collinss last blog post..Push Button Article Idea Tool
I didn’t know there where companies out there that provided a commenting service. Seems a little slimy.
Brad Officers last blog post..Short Sale Help in Jacksonville
Well, spams are are a big annoyance. Can you suggest me which is the best anti spam plugin?
chinmoys last blog post..Free Software – 3D Photo Album
Just search for “comment spam” on this blog. I spoke out and made my recommendations several times
Like me for example, I read your article (and the comments) and I wanted to get a link at the same time. Now what if I hired someone capable of writing something logical, unique and with sensitivity to your subject/article like I am right now? Are we just mad that our branding is not what brought the visitor, just the carrot? I think either way continue to be happy with comments that actually made sense no matter which link baiting method you used or setup (even unknowingly) which linked them here. As long as it’s logical and sensitive to the subject matter you’re golden.
What I think you should know is after these people finding your site for the 3rd or fourth time, they start to know what your contact form looks like better than your header or logo. perhaps begin putting the logo down here 🙂
Larry
Larry,
Thanks for comment and as you can see – I’m willing to make exceptions to a comment that actually adds value to my site, even though you just went completely against my Comment Policy and stuffed name with key words!
But comment actually has to have value, this post was written about dumb a$$ who simply swiped part of my content and posted it as comment. Common! I’m not that dumb! I’m willing to ignore my own rules every once in a while but I have to have a reason for it.
Alex
OUtsourcing for blog comments would be acceptable. it is really a time consuming part of optimizing site. let other individual work this for you. but be sure that the links should not look spammy.
Outsourcing is really a smart way to proceed to the next level in promoting and maintaining your site especially to those people who are having more than one businesses. just try to search in the net to find for some tips and guides for choosing individuals for a specific task to do! make a test out of it and choose among candidates which of them should be the one to work with you!
by the way, thanks for this post! Great! hoping to read more form you!