How do I know when a message is spam?

thecrocheteer · Member · Mar 30, 2009 at 9:10 pm
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I’ve just received a comment on my About page: “I love your site. Keep it up !” (http://thecrocheteer.wordpress.com/about/) but it’s from a website (http://givemeknol.com/index.php) which just looks like a list of books! Strange site, not a blog or anything, no info, and it doesn’t look like its on wordpress either.

Was it a spam message?! It appeared in my spam folder but I’ve received genuine messages in there before too. Obviously i’m flattered and I dont want to delete it, LOL, but I don’t want to keep it either if it was just something that was automatically generated! How can I find out?

The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
tellyworth · Staff · Mar 30, 2009 at 11:41 pm
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Yes it’s spam.

Short messages such as generic flattery, “thanks”, “nice post/blog”, “subscribed in RSS reader”, “where can I download your theme”, are almost always spam.

They might seem gratifying, but bear in mind that the same guy (or script) just posted exactly the same thing on 5,000 other blogs.

Akismet will almost always catch these and put them in your spam folder. If that’s the case you needn’t do anything. If you notice one that Akismet missed, click the Spam button.

A suggested rule of thumb regarding messages in your spam folder: unless you know the author personally, it is almost certainly spam.
lensbuilder2009 · Member · Mar 31, 2009 at 3:09 pm
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I got an identical message, just so you know.
seafloorexplorer · Member · Apr 1, 2009 at 3:34 pm
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Curses, I got that same message and was sure it wasn’t spam … guess not.
jackielk · Member · Apr 1, 2009 at 4:29 pm
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I was so excited about someone likeing my posts. How do we stop this same person coming on all the time.What is the point of this kind of spam?
sensuouscurmudgeon · Member · Apr 1, 2009 at 5:11 pm
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The “point” of such spam is to spray the internet with links to the spammer’s website. I think it’s called linkspam. The idea is that Google will be impressed by all those links and rank the spammer’s site highly. I suspect that such tricks are rarely successful in fooling Google.

The key to spotting comments as spam is if they (or the commenter’s name) contain links. If so, and if you don’t know the commenter, and if the comment is something vague that could fit in any blog anywhere, then it’s spam.
justjennifer · Member · Apr 1, 2009 at 8:06 pm
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If the person has a legitimate unspammy website, I will usually let one such comment through (if it hasn’t gone to the spam folder) and then put them on the moderated list. If they come back and post the same type of comment again, onto the blacklist they go.

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davideowen · Member · Apr 11, 2009 at 1:35 pm
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when I get spam it’s usually some type of advertisement and it goes into the spam filter. this has been my general experience.
sventje · Member · May 20, 2009 at 9:45 am
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yup, got one too from that knol guy

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