Comments on: Enough With the Comment Spam

By: MJ Ray

MJ Ray — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:17:55 +0000

Maybe an anti-spam plugin farted.

By: Krisy

Krisy — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:06:28 +0000

LOL. Well that’s weird. It was there last night when I posted, but not this morning when I checked in on the conversation. I didn’t really say anything offensive, I only mentioned that I don’t really consider it spam if the link is relevant to the discussion. I do agree that a link for the sake of a link is spammy.

By: Andrea

Andrea — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:03:19 +0000

I haven’t noticed it either. Maybe it’s because I’m reading the comments later and you’ve already gone in and deleted them? I agree with Julie that I will often click on a link for someone’s site if something they’ve said in their comment makes me curious, but I wouldn’t go to any link for a person who wasn’t actually participating in the discussion.

By: Deb

Deb — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:44:43 +0000

Hi Krisy,

I didn’t delete anything?

By: Krisy

Krisy — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:28:07 +0000

Deb, was my last comment offensive? I notice it was deleted.

By: Kierstin

Kierstin — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:11:56 +0000

…oh wait, do you mean you don’t want us to put our website in the “website” thing…? What?

By: Kierstin

Kierstin — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:09:17 +0000

I guess I haven’t really noticed it, but it doesn’t really bother me either. It’s the internet. And as long as there is conversation flowing I can ignor the comments with links if I want.

Or maybe I’ll actually want to visit some of the links!

By: Jenn

Jenn — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:58:19 +0000

I actually, believe it or not, almost did a marketing gig for a guy, where I would spend days finding relevant blogs, answering questions and adding input to forums, all for the sake of marketing his business. And it had to look like I actually cared about the conversation. Those were his words. It had to be helpful and meaningful, so it didn’t look like spam or marketing. Luckily, I found a REAL writing job and he found someone else to do his grunt work.

By: Kristy

Kristy — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:36:08 +0000

Usually I agree with you Deb, but in this instance I’m not fully seeing things your way. As far as I’m concerned, if the link is relevant to the discussion, it’s not spam. It’s offering another viewpoint and doing a little promoting. Since this site is about helping freelancers and self-promotion, I’m actually a little surprised that you would mind relevant links in a discussion. That being said, I do think links for the sake of links are inappropriate, no matter where they are. Those are what I would truly consider spam and you have every right to be annoyed by them.

But, it’s your site and if you don’t want them, then readers should respect that regardless of their personal feelings on the matter.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:04:20 +0000

Isn’t this just an extension of the social marketing trend? I imagine we’re going to see a lot more of this. In fact, I forget if it was here or somewhere else, but I recall seeing an ad a couple of weeeks ago for paid forum posters.

Like others said, I really don’t mind it if it’s relevant to the topic–in fact, I think it’s a good strategy. If I’m trying to promote an article that I’ve done, I don’t see what’s wrong in hitting relevant forums and blogs to advertise it a little. It’s an easy way of targetting your audience and driving traffic. And if someone isn’t interested, they just need to skip to the next post. I could see that it’d be annoying if it’s totally irrelevant–but this also seems like a poor strategy for the poster. Again, I’d just skip right on to the next post.