Spam Shams

spam fake canned meatYOU, my friend, who I am happy so to have found you on this blogging post when I did do the search Google.
YOU are the happiest new person of great articles I will found. Look familiar to you at all? If so you may very well be having the Spam Shams on the best blog wonderful of good information articles I have read.
Seriously though. Having been around the Internet for quite some time now, and having had various web sites/blogs over the course of the past 20 or so years (at least), I think it would be safe to say that when it comes to spam comments, I’ve seen them all.
When a comment starts out by telling you that you are the next best thing to sliced bread and the greatest writer they’ve seen since their time spent at Shakespeare’s knee, you can be fairly certain that the user name is going to contain a link to some sort of product they’re promoting and trying to push past your egocentric eyes.
Who doesn’t like to hear a bit of praise now and again?  Especially when it comes from a complete stranger who is so intelligent that they’re able to recognize your genius on a post about tongue depressors being made from wood.
No one could have said it better, and now that I’ve convinced you of your greatness please ignore the fact that there is not only a link in my user name, but ten or more strewn throughout the rest of this largely incomprehensive comment.  After the largesse due such a wondrous wordsmith as yourself, what generally follows is just common claptrap.  As you’re basking in the glow of such praise,  you are also too blinded by it that you don’t even read the rest of the comment,  so allow it to slip by, and actually reply! Congrats! You have just been Spam Shammed.
I figured this little game out very quickly as I know my limitations.  When I found such unwarranted praise awaiting me in moderation, I knew it to be highly suspicious.  Any comment from someone whose user name contains a link in it somewhere is a spammer. No ifs, ands or buts about it.
While I have Askimet, every site owner’s friend installed, and it continues to do the miraculous job of tracking and catching spam as it’s always done, I don’t have it set to automatically trash what it finds as spam comments, because on a very rare occasion it will capture a real comment, so I keep mine set to keep all comments in moderation until I manually delete them.  Sometimes they’re just really funny to read too.
I love the ones that tell you what a great webmaster you are and could you let them know how you ever managed to make your site load faster than Superman ever thought of jetting to Krypton and back.  The thing with that is half of the people on the Internet now wouldn’t know a webmaster if it reached up and bit them on the ass.
ANYONE can claim to be a webmaster these days as long as they have just a little technical knowledge and the ability to download WordPress or some other CMS.  Won’t someone know they didn’t construct said site from scratch, coding php and writing HTML and or CSS or whatever format a template is constructed with?  Want to take off all references to someone else’s hard ass work and brains?
There’s a plugin for that. Of course those plugins usually aren’t free, but when you’re charging someone an arm and a leg (which they expect, after all, you’re GREAT), the relatively low cost of a premium plugin is peanuts.
I have a free one that I use to skin my login pages.  Not because I don’t want to give credit to WordPress, but because I have a totally anal compulsion to have everything match.  I also like to be able to replace their link with one of my own to another site, or a favorite post.  They have a link in my footer and that’s good enough.  I’m never reticent to tell anyone about my choice of site platforms.
There is a profligate number of new sites appearing recently and I guess that was bound to happen the way technology moves forward.  That and the increasing number of new domains available, and some poor schmucks who think  they can parlay their Facebook Fan Pages into riches.  THAT is a whole other post, but my point is that new site owners are often very inexperienced and if they haven’t had an actual webmaster set up their sites for them so that they never have to worry about getting a spam comment, will boundless be taken in by some of the spam shammer’s techniques.
I’d like to interject here before I go farther that I think you CAN be a webmaster and make use of CMS at the same time.  Please don’t send hate mail.
Now! Let’s take a look at a few actual comments.
You could certainly see your skills within the article you write. The world hopes for even more passionate writers such as you who aren’t afraid to mention how they believe. All the time go after your heart.
Hello there, just changed into alert to your weblog thru Google, and found that it’s truly informative. I’m going to watch out for brussels. I’ll appreciate in case you continue this in future. Numerous people can be benefited from your writing.
Cheers! Thanks for some other magnificent post. The place else may just anyone get that kind of info in such an ideal way of writing? I’ve a presentation subsequent week, and I am at the search for such info. It’s actually a cool and helpful piece of info. I’m satisfied that you simply shared this useful info with us. Please keep us up to date like this. Thank you for sharing.
I REALLY love this next one.  SMH
Hey! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be okay. I’m definitely enjoying your blog and look forward to new posts.
If you don’t know any better that last one might make you hit the approve button.  What did all of these comments I’ve copied here from another site I don’t own, but do manage, have in common other than their blatant flattery?  Links in the user name. Every Single One.  SO, if you are new to blogging, site ownership, or any other type of endeavor on the Internet where you have reason to have comments, and you have those turned on, remember that little rule of thumb and if you manually remove or approve your comments, it will help you to scan through them quickly.
I am gladly with hoping you reading my wonderful posts.  😉

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *