Compliment Spam

I’ve been getting comments like this on my blog:

I just wanted to comment your blog and say that I really enjoyed reading your blog post here. It was very informative and I also digg the way you write! Keep it up and I’ll be back to read more soon …

Sounds great, right?

Not! It’s like getting a cookie with a radioactive lump in the middle. The comment itself is completely nice (almost too nice…) and doesn’t say much. In fact, you could post the same comment after any blog post. It’s the sort of thing that most people would approve. But not me!

Why? Well… in the form field where they were supposed to put their personal website (optional), they put a scummy commercial website instead. If I approve the comment, then they get a link from my blog to the commercial website, which increases that website’s Google juice.

This “compliment spam” is almost impossible to detect automatically. The only tip-off is the URL, and if it’s a new URL with ordinary words in it, there’s no way to guess it’s some bozo selling real estate in Honduras.

You know, I do like getting compliments… even from robots! Maybe I should just edit those compliment comments, changing the website to one I like…

Photo credit: Gotta Geta Chocolate Walnut Wasabi Krackles by norwichnuts on Flickr is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.