Consequences of approving a comment that turns out to be spam
-
What happens if I approve a comment which turns out to be spam? – Someone has commented about my blog and referred to my flower pictures – however, according to the stats, no one has looked at the post with flowers, so I’m wondering if they are just fishing, but I don’t understand what the consequences are if I approve the comment which, on the surface, seems very innocent. Can you advise please.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
There goes the neighborhood – down the drain
One comment not so bad I guess – but it will attract more spammers and Akismet will OK the Spam and maybe approve it on other blogs
Worst case if you do like one blogger did – approve hundreds of spam comments – then WordPress.COM left some sort of big red warning note in their Dashboard about being concerned about the comments – the blogger had to go back through hundreds of comments and mark them as spam to get the note removed
-
Although Akismet is generally very good about recognizing spam and will put spam in the spam folder, here are some resources that you will want to read to educate yourself to recognize those spam comments that may make it into your regular comments:
5 things every blogger should know about spam: http://akismet.com/how/#gs2
-
Thanks for the feedback, but I suppose I don’t understand how to identify what is spam. However, looking into it a bit more I now see that I can click on his name and it takes me to his own wordpress blog, so I guess it isn’t spam after all.
-
@julieinball,
You and Jen were both in the spam filter and I didn’t notice. She has some good information about identifying spam so I hope you will see her post. -
Thanks, yes I appreciated her posts. Although when she says that web spam is usually in poor English, well, I write about Bali, Indonesia so I expected that local people who respond might not have perfect English – yet that makes it harder to identify spammers.
This has just caused me to look at the spam that Askimet has picked up on… which included a message from my Auntie!
I’m still confused about Jen’s comment that spammers are ‘basically advertising on your blog’ – I don’t see how? And the comment that follows that statement is about them ‘selling’ links, not advertising themselves on your blog?
I suppose I was more concerned that, for all I know, if you let a spam comment on your blog then you could get a virus as a result – (or is that like saying you can get pregant by sitting on a toilet seat?!) -
LOL! No, seriously. The really dangerous spam (viruses et al) never reaches your spam inbox. Those are deleted even before.
Not sure where you saw the info about advertising per se, but, yes, the vast majority of spammers will try to insert a link, either in the comment itself or the site they link to in their comment profile, to a site they are “promoting”. They may not do it on the first comment hoping that you’ll approve them and then the second and subsequent comments will have spam in them. As a rule, I moderate each and every comment on my sites (now 6+). It’s the only logical step when there are increases in spam comments and changes in tactics, like we are currently experiencing.
As I said, Akisment generally does quite a good job, though when spammer tactics change, it may be less effective. If you find a legitimate comment in your spam folder from your auntie, unspam it and Akismet will learn from it. Likewise when you find a spammy comment that got through to your regular comments. Mark it as spam so that Akismet learns.
-
Staff: just as a side note: I subscribed to this thread when I posted my first answer, but even after 1tess unspammed me (sic) I did not receive notification of a new reply (from julieinbali).
-
That is good to know, thank you. And, from a email I’ve just received from WordPress talking about promoting my blog, I have now found the ‘Settings/Discussion’ options and realised that I can have some control over these things – I didn’t realise that before.
For info, the advertising comment came from a heading (no. 3) on the 1st link that you gave.
(Note, I didn’t get an email about your first comment on this thread but I did get one for your 2nd comment).
Thanks for you help
Julie
- The topic ‘Consequences of approving a comment that turns out to be spam’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 