Tuesday, 29 September 2015

Spam (and it's not another Cameron joke)

I've been getting a bit of spam recently, which is slightly irritating. It's never posted on the most recent entry on the blog; always on an older one, so I presume they think it is likely to remain there undetected. Don't they realise we bloggers get an e-mail alert every time something is posted on our blogs, even on the oldest of posts? This one, the most recent, is fairly typical:

Thanks for taking the time to discuss that, I feel strongly about this and so really like getting to know more on this kind of field. Do you mind updating your blog post with additional insight? It should be really useful for all of us. nail art

'Nail art' was a link, now deactivated, to a website which unsurprisingly is about nail art. As always with spam, the text is worded in a general way to try to sound interested in the subject matter, but is so neutral and non-specific that the whole thing can be cut and pasted into a blog about anything at all. On a previous occasion, a link took me through to the website of a London escort agency: much as I liked the idea that these beautiful women were fascinated by my view of the temperature of the beer in a Liverpool pub, for some reason I was unconvinced. 

Apart from being irritated, I sometimes wonder whether someone takes the time to go through blogs actually posting these adverts themselves, or are they posted at random by a computer programme?
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6 comments:

  1. Bailey29 September 2015 at 17:15

    Nev -- they're almost all completely automated. We follow what we're told is good practice and set comments to close after 14 days which has helped enormously with the volume of spam comment but, obviously, it's a bit frustrating because people sometimes stumble upon old blog posts they've found via Google and can't add useful info or chip in with a genuine opinion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Neville Grundy29 September 2015 at 17:43

      I'd be reluctant to do that. A post I wrote 2 years ago about the autovac still attracts the odd comment (the last was a fortnight ago), and I quite like that. Still, it's worth remembering if the amount of spam becomes excessive.

      Delete
  2. Curmudgeon29 September 2015 at 18:05

    I've set all comments over 30 days old to require approval, which stops spam getting through to the blog.

    Also activating the Blogger captcha is very effective at stopping spam, although I know some people find it very annoying.

    I;d suggest 14 days is a bit early to cut off comments entirely. I get a fair number of genuine comments on older posts on Closed Pubs.

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  3. Paul Bailey29 September 2015 at 20:29

    Thanks for the tips everyone. I didn’t realise it was possible to set comment moderation after a specific time period. I too have been getting spam on older posts, but like Nev, I do get the occasional genuine comment on some.

    I was also unaware that one could set up e-mail alerts on Blogger to notify that something has been posted; I thought this was only possible on WordPress. Time to visit my dashboard and adjust the settings!

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  4. Stonch29 September 2015 at 23:50

    Just set comment moderation for posts older than 14 days.

    Never moderate comments on current posts though.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Neville Grundy30 September 2015 at 15:56

    Some useful tips here - thanks. I've just set moderation for posts more than 28 days old.

    ReplyDelete

Comments, including disagreements, are welcome.
Abuse and spam are not and will be deleted straight away.
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