Flustered by Fake Friendly Comments

Effec­tive imme­di­ately, I’m insti­tut­ing a new com­ment pol­icy for this blog. Before I explain it to you (it’s really sim­ple as there are only three rules), let me give you the rea­son why.

I’m see­ing a grow­ing num­ber of com­ment spam lately. Not the usual, software-​​driven kind — Akismet and Dis­qus do a won­der­ful job to keep those at bay. But the ones that look, on the sur­face, as legit­i­mate comments.

Legit­i­mate, they are not.

They are faux com­ments mask­ing as real ones for the express pur­pose of siphon­ing traf­fic. Called “friendly com­ment spam,” they are typ­i­cally sim­ple, often just a sen­tence or two, and most of them are generic, irrel­e­vant, and com­pli­men­tary in nature.

Believe me, I love praise like most peo­ple. But just say­ing “nice blog” (or “nice arti­cle,” “nice post,” “good job,” “love this post,” etc) does not con­sti­tute a com­ment. They are not con­tribut­ing any­thing to the con­ver­sa­tion, or any­thing of value to my readers.

I talked about this on Twit­ter and on Face­book, and while most peo­ple agreed with me, some were opposed. One per­son said that many of these com­men­ta­tors are aspir­ing copy­writ­ers and that I should be grate­ful for such a problem.

My guess is, what this per­son is say­ing is that I should care about my fans, allow these com­ments, and give them the credit by let­ting them siphon some of my “traf­fic juice.”

But they don’t understand.

Let me put aside the whole “I owe it to them” issue for now, because that’s a whole other topic — one I have very strong opin­ions about. And if you’ve been fol­low­ing me for some time, you know exactly what I mean. For now, let’s stick with the spam issue.

Sure, praise from an aspir­ing copy­writer makes sense. Or a vet­eran one. Or a mar­keter, entre­pre­neur, or just a loyal reader. I’m OK with those. After all, the com­ment makes sense and I do want to give back to my fans, as this per­son implied.

But don’t patron­ize me.

The fact is, I often get these curt com­ments that con­tain just a few words, along with links to real estate oppor­tu­ni­ties, SEO ser­vices, casi­nos, MLM offers, and even porn sites.

Er, thanks. But no thanks.

Now, you may think like the com­menter above who said, “So what?” But I have over 50 blogs in a vari­ety of niches. And when some of these com­ments are posted on mul­ti­ple blogs, and they are exactly the same, word for word, from the same commenter…

… I get a bad taste in my mouth.

The worst part is, there are some ser­vices out there where you can out­source this, where you’re able to hire peo­ple to do this for you en masse. Not some auto­mated soft­ware or robot, but real, actual peo­ple mas­querad­ing as you.

(The worst come from for­eign elec­tronic sweat­shops. “You mean, I can get a ton of com­ments on other blogs for only five cents per com­ment? Oooooh, sign me up!”)

This mind­set was ram­pant — I’m sure it still is — in the days when I use to own and run a dis­cus­sion forum for copy­writ­ers. I remem­ber hav­ing to delete posts and ban a ton of these fake forum spam­mers every sin­gle day.

A few gurus would teach their stu­dents about sign­ing up on mul­ti­ple dis­cus­sion forums, add a link in their sig­na­ture file, and just post away — with­out care or con­cern about the topic of dis­cus­sion, let alone the forum’s audi­ence or eti­quette rules.

I’m con­fi­dent some of these gurus are say­ing the same thing about blogs.

Either way, these fake friendly com­ments are a scourge.

As Larry Winget replied to my com­ment on Facebook:

“I delete every per­son who does that to me. They have NO inter­est in what you have to say but are only pro­mot­ing their agenda to YOUR fan base and friends. Dump ‘em!”

Granted, I don’t mind peo­ple — or peo­ple who hire peo­ple — who legit­i­mately look for worth­while, highly traf­ficked blogs in one’s niche, and post a rel­e­vant com­ment whose pur­pose is more or less to gain search engine juice, back­links, and traffic.

I love my com­menters, my read­ers, and my fans, and I cer­tainly want them to join in on the con­ver­sa­tion and get expo­sure for their own sites, too.

(By the way, the whole issue of “fol­low” ver­sus “nofol­low” on exter­nal links is a touchy one, par­tic­u­larly lately with the whole pager­ank sculpt­ing debate. But that’s another topic alto­gether, and a dif­fer­ent post for another day.)

How­ever, there’s a dif­fer­ence between real and fake comments.

A real com­ment con­tributes to the con­ver­sa­tion. If they are com­pli­men­tary or con­grat­u­la­tory, they gen­uinely appear as thank­ing me for the post. Either that or they have com­mented on other posts in the past, and have shown to be genuine.

What do I mean by “they gen­uinely appear as thank­ing me?”

When some­one posts “nice arti­cle,” it’s usu­ally fol­lowed by an extra sen­tence or two about what they pulled from or liked about the arti­cle. Those types of com­ments, although they can be ques­tion­able at times, are, in gen­eral, acceptable.

Now, praise is one thing. But there’s the oppo­site, too. In other words, fault­find­ers and naysay­ers who only bitch, whine, crit­i­cize, and cre­ate fake con­tro­versy, often­times for the sake of stir­ring the pot and drum­ming up traf­fic as a result.

Even those who don’t care about the traf­fic but crit­i­cize with­out con­tribut­ing any­thing of sub­stance in return are just as bad as the fake compliments.

I don’t mind peo­ple who oppose me. I’m a fan of healthy, pro­duc­tive, and mature debate between adults. I don’t mind being chal­lenged on my opin­ions and I always lis­ten to what oth­ers have to say. That’s the beauty of hav­ing comments!

But there’s a dif­fer­ence between a cri­tique and a criticism.

Between being crit­i­cal and being a critic.

The for­mer express what they dis­like, and expand on it by offer­ing some­thing we — my read­ers and I — can chew on. They per­haps offer a sug­ges­tion or two on how to make things bet­ter, if not at least an opin­ion as to why, exactly, they dis­agree with me.

The lat­ter, on the other hand, are fire­brands and fault­find­ers. Brag­garts and bul­lies. Heck­lers and hate­mon­gers. They even occa­sion­ally resort to namecalling.

Now, sim­ply telling me you don’t agree with me means absolutely noth­ing, and it means much less when your com­ment includes spite­ful, unfounded, or egre­gious commentary.

Lately, I’ve seen a rash of blogs who avoid the issue alto­gether by turn­ing off com­ments. In these cases, the only way you can com­ment on an arti­cle is by post­ing one on your own blog and track­ing back to it, or talk­ing about it on some social network.

I won’t do this. I think it’s rather aggres­sive, and I pre­fer to con­trol the com­ments by allow­ing them on my blog. I love my fans and read­ers, and I also want to hear what you have to say. In fact, some of the best ideas actu­ally came from my blog’s comments.

It’s all about social media, inter­ac­tion, and community.

So instead, I’ve decided to imple­ment a new com­ment pol­icy on this blog start­ing imme­di­ately. I will be post­ing it on its own page in the future, but for now you can read them below. It’s sim­ple, really. There are only three rules…

1. First and fore­most, the num­ber one rule is respect. If your com­ment con­tains mean­ing­less con­tent, off-​​topic con­tent, abu­sive lan­guage, per­sonal attacks, spam, or ille­gal activ­i­ties, it will be promptly deleted. Bul­lies, spam­mers, and fault­find­ers need not reply. Stay on topic. And think twice before you post.

2. Show your appre­ci­a­tion through action, not words. If you really do appre­ci­ate my con­tent, I pre­fer you show your appre­ci­a­tion by shar­ing the link (such as on Twit­ter, Face­book, or any other social site), send­ing me a tip (see link at the end of this post, after my “about the author” sec­tion), or offer­ing some­thing valu­able for my read­ers. Even bet­ter, post on your own blog and track­back to this web­site or post.
3. Cri­tiques, debates, and chal­lenges are wel­come. If, on the other hand, you dis­like some­thing I said, the same rules apply. Share with us why you dis­like my blog post, why you dis­agree with me, and what you believe is a bet­ter alter­na­tive. Your voice will not only be heard but also carry far more weight if you do it this way.

I look for­ward to your com­ments. Keep in mind, though, all com­ments are mod­er­ated and will be reviewed before approval, usu­ally within 24 hours. Com­ments may be edited (to make them com­pli­ant with the above rules) or deleted, at my dis­cre­tion, with­out notice.

I’m not per­fect. So the occa­sional com­ment that fails to abide by any of these rules may unin­ten­tion­ally slip through the cracks. If you catch one, remem­ber that you can also flag and report com­ments, too. I will review them as soon as I can.

Bot­tom line, be rel­e­vant, be gen­uine, and be nice.

About the Author

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