Blog Comment Spam Warning
It was only a matter of time before Google went public with its plan to swing a heavy axe through the blog comment spam jungle. It seems comment spammers are now going to have to watch their backs when it comes to link dropping all over the place.
Such news is also putting the fear of God in some legitimate commenters as well. Determining what is spam and what is not is a purely subjective opinion best left to blog owners and not an algorithm or a Google Webspam employee that may not like your comment.
For too long blog comment spam has been a problem. This blog also gets spammed to death daily, which is why I am tough on comments. If they are legit I will approve them. If the comments are on the borderline, I may just delete them. Flat out spam comments are reported to Akismet.
If you want to read more about Google’s new policy regarding blog comment spam, you can read it here.
As a blog owner myself, part of me sides with Google on this. But ultimately a website is the responsibility of its owner. If the blog has been spammed to death, it would be far more appropriate to devalue all the links on such blogs to 0 instead of throwing out penalties for blog comment spams.
When you think about it, Google is pushing the small webmasters into a corner when it comes to link building. We all know Google’s stand on how to rank well - build a multi-million dollar website that can crush Twitter and you will rank well when tens of thousands of people link to you. In the real world, that does not happen too often. And in many niches outside of the webmaster niche, it is difficult for new businesses to improve their ranks. Blog commenting is yet another concern for what are typically many small mom and pop websites.
Regardless of our opinions, Google has spoken. The comment spamming must stop, so Google says. When commenting on blogs, make sure your comments will not be flagged as spam. The last thing anyone needs is to be labeled a blog comment spammer in Google’s eyes and hit with a penalty!
