8 Commenting Mistakes that Make You Look Like a Spammer

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Spam is the scourge of the internet. Depending on which source you want to use, somewhere between 80-99.9% of all email is spam. Akismet, the most widely used WordPRess spam filter, shows that right now 83% of comments are spam on blogs running their plugin. That means that only 17% of blog comments are legitimate, what Akismet calls ham.

The flood of spam is the reason I first implemented a Comment Policy here at SuccessCREEations.

Spam is nasty stuff.

Danger of Getting Labeled a Spammer

When it comes to blogging, there is a big danger in getting labeled a spammer. Most of the prominent spam filters such as Akismet (Defensio is another good one I recommend) have filtering algorithms that learn which commenters are spammers and which are legitimate (hammers?) based on user submissions.

This means that every time I mark a comment as spam, or tell the filter that I think a comment that it has marked as spam is really OK, it sends that info to a central database and learns. Combine my input with millions of other users and the filters get pretty accurate pretty fast.

Of course, if the filter ever starts thinking you are a spammer it can be nearly impossible to get your comments approved again. On any blog anywhere.

I’ve had friends end up there by mistake and I promise it is no fun. You don’t want to have that happen. Seriously.

Characteristics of Spammers

To help you out I thought it would be good to share some common characteristics that spam comments tend to share so that you know what to avoid. Hopefully it will help you stay out of spam purgatory.

Keep in mind that most of these characteristics taken individually do not necessarily mean your comment will be marked as spam. However the fewer of these you have in your comments the lower your chances of your comments being marked as spam. On, and I’m going to leave out the painfully obvious things like link stuffing for porn, pills or gambling.

1. Arrive from a DoFollow list. The short version is that there are lists of blogs floating around out there listing blogs with decent Page Rank who have removed the NoFollow property from comments. Since this blog is on many of those lists I know that the majority of folks who come here from them are more interested in link juice than conversation.
2. Leave several comments in a very short time. It is not unusual to see a commenter leave a half a dozen or more short comments on various posts in the span of 10 minutes or so. More often than not they never comback after their initial slash and burn pass. Instead, leave on comment a day over several days.
3. Use key words instead of their name. Since spammers are all about getting better ranking in the search engines they often fill the name field with key words instead of, well, their name. Talking with keywords instead of people makes for awkward conversation, to say the least. Use your name and participate in the conversation.
4. Don’t have a Gravatar. Spammers are about staying anonymous. Adding a picture of yourself goes a long way towards identifying you as a person and not a spammer. Go get your Gravatar set up so blog owners know you are a person.
5. Only 1 or 2 sentence comments. Spamming is a high volume, low return activity. Since comment spamming is about getting the link the only incentive is to add just enough comment text to (hopefully) make it past the filter. Taking a moment to add value to the conversation will go a long way towards your comment being approved.
6. Use free email service instead of email with your domain name. Spammers use throw away email addresses because it helps the anonymity factor. They tend to be random letters and numbers. Using your name in your email, or better yet your own blog domain will help you look less like a spammer.
7. Blog has comments closed on all posts. Spammers are not interested in conversation. Since they are spamming, they probably think everyone else is spamming too. Turning their comments off is a sure way to prevent getting spammed back. Make sure yours are on and encourage conversation.
8. Link to a sales page instead of a blog. Spammers are trying to improve the ranking of their sales page so they can make more money. It is much more effective long term to engage in dialog and let your ranking grow over time rather than trying to “trick” the search engines into giving you good ranking. If your blog is on an internal page of your business site, consider linking there instead of to your front page.

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list. But avoiding these mistakes will go a long way towards keeping your comments out of spam filters.

What would you add to the list?

One Wrong Way to Get Links

We all know that getting inbound links, links from other web sites linking in to yours, is an important part of marketing your blog and raising your authority and rankings in the search engines. There are all kinds of ways to encourage other bloggers to link to you, but ultimately the best way to get inbound links is to earn them.

When you produce high quality valuable content people will see its value and link to it. Combine that with consistent active networking and the number of inbound links you get will grow over time.

No Good Shortcuts

It is a consistent part of human nature that people tend to be lazy. Most folks want the reward without the work.

Unfortunately at best shortcuts tend to run smack into the Law of Unintended Consequences. At their worst, shortcuts can be manipulative, destructive and downright counter productive. Especially when it comes to influencing others to take an action that benefits you.

This is especially true when it comes to building an audience for your blog.

There is no substitute for consistent effort over time. Sure there are some things you can do to help compound your efforts. But there are no shortcuts. Without work there is no miracle.

Don’t Try This Guy’s Approach

I get lots of requests for links. I’ve been blogging here at SuccessCREEations for a while, have decent page rank and people want to tap into that. It’s flattering.

Most of the requests are bumbling and get ignored. Occasionally I’ll respond with a, “no thank you” if the request is especially polite.

But the other day I found this comment in my moderation folder and was floored. I have never posted a comment like this, but this guy was arrogantly rude. On top of that he put this in my comment box (twice, by the way) instead of emailing me through the contact page so he fully expected it to be public.

Please don’t ever approach a blogger like this: Read more

Joining Skinny Moose Media

Last week I alluded to an upcoming announcement. Today I’m thrilled to announce that I have joined Skinny Moose Media as their new Community Development Director.

Between their Skinny Moose blog network and their US Hunting Today brand they have just over 100 websites in their community generating nearly a million page views a month.

As Community Development Director I will be working with the Skinny Moose bloggers and their readership to create a place that people can feel a part of where they want to belong. We have several initiatives that we’ve talked about and I’m exited to be joining such a dynamic group over there.

Longtime Relationship

I first met Steve Remington, the President and driving force behind Skinny Moose,  years ago over on Liz Strauss’ Successful-Blog. It was one of her Tuesday night Open Comment Nights in fact. (I even found that original connection.)

That was when he was just getting started putting a blog network together. And I was just looking at taking the step away from Blogger over to WordPress. In Steve’s world that was 2 kids ago (he’s got 6 now!)

Over the years we’ve tracked each others progress and kept in touch. Steve even asked me to come blog for him a couple times in the past but we never quite came together.

We did talk several times the past few months and then last month Steve made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. The moral of that story is that it pays to network!

SuccessCREEations & Clients

What does this new turn mean for SuccessCREEations and our clients?

Ultimately they’ll see no change. We will still serve our existing clients. That was part of what made Steve’s offer so attractive to me.

Of course we will now have to be more selective on the new clients we take on in the future. But that will workout in everyone’s benefit as we will now be able to focus down even further on our core competencies here.

And in the end it may even free me up to once again blog more consistently here at SuccessCREEations. We’ll have to see how that works out.

Traffic and Money

There are two types of people who tend to know how to drive traffic on the internet. And the top players in both categories know how to drive massive traffic.

Interestingly enough historically there hasn’t been much of any crossover between the two groups. In fact, the two groups tend to look on one another with suspicion and disdain.

Internet Marketers

On the one hand you have the hard core internet marketers. These folks go by many different names such as SEO experts, search marketers, affiliate marketers, pay-per-click marketers, ect.

Their realm is that of the paid search results. They live in the land of the Sponsored Results that you see at the top and right side of the Google results pages.

Internet Marketers understand keywords and bidding processes. They know that it takes money to make money and they are perfectly willing to spend what it takes to drive traffic to their web sites because those web sites in turn make them money.

They tend to be really good with numbers and analysis. They use terms like click through rate, impressions, autoresponders, and squeeze pages. Sure they have word skills too.

But their interest in words often only carries as far as it takes to persuade people to take action, whether that is to click on the search ad or make a purchase after their target audience has clicked through to their website. And their websites often consist of a few landing pages designed specifically to convince people to make some purchase.

Good Internet Marketers are making a bunch of money. The best take in millions each year.

Bloggers

The other group that knows how to drive traffic to web sites is the bloggers. Their methods are very different from the Internet Marketers.

Bloggers are the word people, the relational ones. They are really good at generating original content and developing conversation. They network with other bloggers, spend time in the comment box.

For the most part bloggers completely ignore paid search all together. Some even cary that so far as to almost never click on ads or “sponsored results”. Often the only time they pay attention to paid search ads is when they check the few dollars they may earn a month from running Google ads on their blogs.

Instead bloggers live in the realm of organic search. They understand search engine optimization and assume that the only way to be good at it is to master the free side of the search results. They are self restricted from the paid side of the search engines.

Because most bloggers are completely broke.

Bridging the Gap

As I already mentioned there tends to be very little cross over between the two groups. The internet marketing folks are busy tweaking and adjusting their ad campaigns so that they are profitable to have time to generate lots of original content. They may even have a tough time understanding why someone would bother spending time on a website (or a blog) that wasn’t earning any money.

Bloggers have a tendency to be suspicious of anyone motivated by profit. They thrive on independent viewpoints and in their minds once moeny gets involved the independence flies out the window.

But here’s what I suspect. Something tells me that the folks who bridge that gap between the two biggest traffic generators on the web will be in a position to become very wealthy indeed.

As a longtime blogger I’ve recently been doing some heavy research on the internet marketing side of things. And I’m intrigued with what I’m learning.

New Projects

I started looking at paid search because I had an idea for a new project and, with everything else I have going on, that project needs to be profitable if I’m going to make it work. I’m thinking that paid search will play a significant role in that profitability, especially during the start up phase.

Not only will bridging the gap be useful for my own side project but it will allow me to help one of my clients directly. And beyond even that, the simple act of doing the research, gaining the knowledge, has opened the door for another new opportunity for me.

All that to say, expect some announcements in the next couple weeks. Things are happening here at SuccessCREEations!

KnowMoreMedia – Demise of a Blog Network

This has been a sad week for the blogging world. KnowMoreMedia, a major blog network with over 100 blogs focused on the business world, effectively went out of business as of Thursday.

Well, they laid off all their employees anyway. I suppose technically that’s not exactly the same thing as going out of business.

But it might as well be for the folks who are no longer being paid.

Postmortem

I can’t imagine autopsies being fun.  Nor do I understand we’re so prone to slow way down when passing a highway accident to be sure we get a good look.

Yet we do slow down to get that good look. And I can’t help asking some questions as I look at the apparent downfall of one of the larger niche blogging networks out there.

And as an aside let me say that I completely admire what KnowMoreMedia did for blogging as a medium and for bloggers individually. I consider Easton Ellsworth, their now former Senior Editor and longtime author of BusinessBlogWire, a good friend.

I take no pleasure in their demise. But I do have lots of questions. Read more

Analog Networking eWomenNetwork Style

I flew out late last week to join Gorgeous in Dallas at the eWomenNetwork annual national conference. I bought the latest Technology Review to read on the flight because the current issue is all about social media and the future of Web 2.0, which is obviously something I’m interested in.

On page 56 is an article about the coming bandwidth crunch and how much video content is passing around the web. One of their examples is a video called Evolution of Dance by a guy named Judson Laipply. They pointed out that this particular video was viewed 87 million times.

Evolution of Dance

I mention this because the very first speaker of the eWomenNetwork conference was none other than Judson Liapply. Turns out he’s a very entertaining speaker.

His message is pretty straight forward. If you don’t adapt to the rapidly changing nature of our society you’re going to be left behind.

In the social media environment that is especially true. And it turns out that Judson’s video clip has been seen another 5 million times since that Technology review article was penned.

I don’t know what the lead time is on an article for that publication. Regardless it doesn’t seem like the demand for video content is going anywhere but up! Since that’s the case take a moment and check it out for yourself. Read more

Don’t Make this Traffic Killing Mistake

One of the big reasons we have web sites and blogs is to generate traffic. I mean why put up a site unless want people to see it, right?

Yet some people insist on adding this traffic repellent to their sites and then wonder why they never see more than a handful of visitors.

Smelling Fishy

When folks do this to their blogs or web sites it’s like the owner of a high end clothing store who chooses to intentionally have an overpowering smell in their store that’s just a little offish.

Perhaps that store has a nautical theme to its branding. Maybe the owner is even an avid boater. Perhaps he loves the smell of the sea. So he has figured out a way to bring that smell into his store. The idea is that he’ll boost sales because people will feel like they are shopping by the ocean.

Sure a small percentage of folks will like it. But the trouble is, to a whole lot of people the ocean just plain smells fishy. And those people almost never come back to the store.

Sound like a silly example? Well some people do exactly the same thing with their blogs and web sites. Read more

Competition for Blogs

My good friend Liz Strauss was in the UK recently and shared a little the other day about her experience at City University while she was over there. While she was there she was asked an excellent question.

What is a blog’s competition?

Normally I come up with answers to questions about blogging fairly quickly but this one made me think. Quite a bit.

Because there isn’t one easy answer.

The reason the question isn’t easily answered is that blogs are simply tools. It would be like asking “What is a hammer’s competition?”

Um, it depends… on what you want to accomplish with your hammer.

I went looking in my toolbox out in the garage and I found a cool baker’s dozen hammers in my hammer drawer. (Yes I have a hammer drawer. Give me a Tim Allen grunt!)

Most of these I inherited from my father in law not too long ago. And I confess there are a couple there that I haven’t the slightest idea what they’re for. But I’m sure they may come in handy one day!

Depending on the job at hand the “competition” for a hammer could be a nail gun, a screwdriver, a wrecking ball, a metal stamping machine or even high explosives.

Blogs Are Tools

Like hammers, blogs are tools. Specifically blogs are web publishing platforms. And just like hammers, blogs can be used for vastly different purposes.

Depending on the needs and intention of the blog owner, the blog might be “in competition” with a whole slew of things. For example here are some things I can see a blog possibly “competing” with. Read more

Presentation – Blogging and Social Media in Your Business

This past week I gave a presentation on Blogging and Social Media in Your Business to a local group of 60+ entrepreneurs. The talk was sponsored by the ATDC and the Creative Coast here in Savannah.

The talk was designed as an introductory talk for business people who didn’t yet have an understanding of what blogging and social media is all about. Because most of the people in the room were not much beyond the “we’ve hear the terms” phase it meant I had to cram a ton of information into the 30 minutes I was given. (For some reason when preparing I thought I had 45 minutes plus 15 minutes question time not 30/15. Oops.)

I told the folks to buckle their seat belts and hold on ’cause I threw a bunch of information at them very fast.

My hope was that everyone would find at least one nugget to walk away with that they could take back to their own businesses and get thinking about the possibilities.

Here are the slides I presented for any who are interested.

Enjoy!

Down to Business at SOBCon08

Gorgeous and I spent this past weekend at SOBCon in Chicago. It was a tremendous weekend for the both of us.

This years event kept some of the best parts of SOBCon07 and yet was quite different in at least one key element, that of focus. Last year SOBCon was all about community with a little bit of marketing thrown in.

All About Business

This time around SOBCon was all about business. Sure there were several bloggers in the room whose focus was not on making money with their blogs. But having just made the break from corporate life to the entrepreneur world this year, Gorgeous and I were definately focused on business while we were in Chicago.

And we weren’t disappointed.

Still Made Connections

Just like last year we made new connections which will likely produce valuable exchanges to help mutually propel our various businesses forward.

It is interesting to me that the people I made strongest connection with were not the same folks that I set out to get to know. Because I set out with that intentionality I still met the people and started the relationships that may potentially be catalysts for growth in my business. Those connections were just with unexpected people is all. Read more

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