Back on My Soap-box About Do-Follow and Spam
Do-Follow the popular movement that disables the default WordPress “nofollow” setting for comments does attract comment spam. I know, I’ve blogged about this before but I have to get up on my soap-box one time with a little new information.
New findings
I’ve been monitoring the comment spam coming into my site since a previous post regarding “fringe spam” and here is what I found:
Of the 100% of the comment spam coming since that post, 70% shows up under my original post about joining the do-follow movement. The remaining 30% is somewhat scattered but most of appears under a previous post doing a self-assessment of what’s wrong with my blog.
I’m not completely certain how comments spammers are finding do-follow participating blogs but I suspect they have preprogrammed bots crawling the web for references to do-follow etc. Of course I could combat these bots by removing all references to the do-follow movement from my site; however, the effort to make that change might be more than the effort required to keep comment spam at bay.
Join the movement but be careful how loudly you announce your participation
Despite my dilemma I still recommend participation in the do-follow movement but highly recommend to anyone just joining the movement to carefully consider how much they say about their participation. A graphic image showing support without linking to any particular post tells readers a particular blog supports the cause but won’t be something easily discovered by a bot. When you join the movement, and I hope you do, be creative about how you communicate your participation. Tell your readers, just don’t tell the bots.
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Filed under: Blogging Related
Akismet seems to nail most of my comment spam thank goodness!
I won’t allow people to comment without something interesting to say just to get a link (the link from “LA Photographer” that says “I agree” is just not worth it!).
I also often take a look to see if they’ve subscribed to comment updates as well before moderating it through - are they really showing an interest or could they not give a damn and just want a link from my blog?
Agreed — Akismet takes care of most comment spam. And I’ve thought of taking a stricter position on comment moderation, but I want to encourage comments and not discourage them. I’m afraid people might get put off if I over moderate their comments.
Thanks for the comment Keiron.
I can see what you mean, but I would like engaging readers who are interested in what I’ve got to say and not just into it for their own good.
I guess that is the problem with disabling nofollow — it encourages self-serving comments. On the other hand, I like to “give back” to those that have taken the time to leave a meaningful comment and engage in the discussion. Disabling nofollow is the easiest way to do that. I guess if something can be “gamed”, then there are always those people that will exploit it.
You’ve certainly given me something more to think about. I think I’ll need to get a little more annoyed with fringe spam before I take some serious action.
Thanks again for your return comments
One thing I do to combat it is that all first time comment authors must be moderated, once they’ve posted once (and I’ve allowed it) and I can see they are genuine I’m more likely to allow them to post a comment in the future.
But even when they do post, my dofollow plugin in Wordpress does not remove the nofollow for 24 hours, so I’ve got time to verify the comment. Comes in very handy!
Which dofollow plug-in are you using?
http://kimmo.suominen.com/sw/dofollow/
Actually you’ve made me go digging now, only to find my plugin is several versions behind - I guess that’s another upgrade that needs doing!!!