Have you noticed that a few blog comment spammers are getting creative? Sure, most comment spam we find is the same old lame junk that makes us wonder why they even bother but a few make us take a second look just to be sure.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not praising the low life spammers for a little creativity. I’m sure they stole it from someone. What I do want to do is offer a quick tip on double checking suspicious comments. It’s pretty simple and many of you may already do this but for those who don’t know… Simply run a Google search.
Most blog spammers use the same comments over and over using bots to do the damage. With so many un-moderated blogs out there it stands to reason some comment spam will get through.
Simply take a string of the suspected comment spam, put it in “quotes”, and run the search. If it’s spam you will more than likely find it in the search results.
Here’s an example of creative blog comment spam:
Hello, i guess this is as good of a place as any to post and let you know. I went to subscribe to your RSS feed, and when i clicked it i got an error that said “Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_CONSTANT_ENCAPSED_STRING” followed by other gibberish that scrolled off the screen. I had to force the page to stop loading because it locked up my browser. Cheers.
promoting http://software.best-antivirus.org
Do you want to pay the idiot back for putting you through all that work? Once you verify it’s a spammer, edit the comment to reflect they’re a low life spammer and change their website link to http://lowlifespammer.com/ It’s alright, I own the site and give you permission to link your spammer to it 
What creative spam comments have you found and what do you do about it?
Dennis Edell (14)
Suzanne Vara (14)
Andrew (6)
Chris Roane - Mon... (6)
Brian D. Hawkins (5)
{ 1 trackback }
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
haha I got this spammer today as well; was checking google to see if the comment was duplicated elsewhere. (if it is, it is spam)and spotted your post.
Thanks for the heads up.
[Reply]
That’s good Donace, I didn’t even think about bloggers finding this post from the same type of search.
I just ran the search
"Hello, i guess this is as good of a place as any to post and let you know. I went to subscribe to your RSS feed, and when i clicked it i"and found we made it to number three in a few hours of publishing the post. That’s very cool.[Reply]
Yeah i got it also, searched and found this post. I also took a look at the blog involved, there is a post on there about it.
It seems to me after reading that, someone used his domain to test a spam bot.
But either way, it was convincing i spent 10 minutes trying to recreate the problem with my RSS before i Googled the comment.
I guess they are moving beyond simple “Visit Spam Link” comments.
[Reply]
Brian Hawkins Reply:
August 12th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Hi Neemo, I hadn’t realized that. I’m glad I didn’t go with my first impulse and blast that site.
You’re probably right about testing a spam bot. Perhaps they’re waiting to see if there are any repercussions for the promoted site.
[Reply]
Good idea to do a search for the whole suspected comment string. Yeah, you could do that if you’re not sure if a comment is indeed spam or not. But more often than not, spam comments are so transparently obvious, I just simply delete it without second thought. And hey, that lowlifespammer webpage is another good idea I just might make use of that too.
BTW Brian, I can’t help but notice that cool looking canine with you in your pic. I just recently discovered how cool having pets would be when we got one due to the never-ending prodding of my 10-year-old son. I even made a post (‘Meet the Bandit’) about it on my blog.
Noel Moralde´s last blog ..Claiming Back Home Space
[Reply]
Brian Hawkins Reply:
August 18th, 2009 at 6:01 am
Hello Noel, Thankfully the vast majority of spam is blatantly obvious. That makes life a lot easier for us.
Bandit is very cute. It sound like she’s lucky finding a great home and family. She’s cute enough to enter the Cutest Dog Competition next week. I say next week because you will miss four days of voting if you go for this week plus Sadie needs your vote each day this week if you don’t mind. You can vote for her once a day.
It’s a huge coincidence but I just posted about Sadie for the contest yesterday. Check it out here.
[Reply]
Just voted for Sadie. That pic of her cuddling a cat like she’s her best friend is perfect.
Noel Moralde´s last blog ..Claiming Back Home Space
[Reply]
Brian Hawkins Reply:
August 19th, 2009 at 6:53 am
Thank you Noel, I appreciate that
[Reply]
Twitter: melvinblog
August 22, 2009 at 8:05 pm
Well before, its not really hard to determine if a comment is a spam or not but as things get more advanced, spammers have become wiser and hence its not as easy as it used to before.
Melvin´s last blog ..Ooops, Your Logo Might Suck!
[Reply]
Brian Hawkins Reply:
August 23rd, 2009 at 10:09 pm
It’s true Melvin, some of the comment spam is harder to catch nowadays.
[Reply]
That’s creepy, spammer getting more creative. I could have not distinguished it. We really need to be careful.
Glad to have read this.
[Reply]
Brian Hawkins Reply:
August 24th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
It really is creepy Walter, too bad we can’t ‘dumb down’ the comment spammers
[Reply]
Actually I think there are a couple of different people promoting different products.
maskuncoro.net/nothing-ventured-nothing-gained
check this blog out, the same comment is used by someone else too promoting another product. They must be using the same software to comment, it sucks!. And you’ve got a cheeky technique as well to find out either it’s a spam or real hehe.
[Reply]
Brian Hawkins Reply:
September 14th, 2009 at 6:04 am
Yep, I see that Audrey, it looks like some kind of auto insurance site. You’re probably right, the same software or something.
[Reply]
These people are still at it. Someone hit my wife’s personal blog with that same message today. I knew there was nothing wrong with her blog so I did a search for part that comment and your post came up.
Thanks for warning folks Brian.
Jay´s last blog ..Chef Knife Sets
[Reply]
Brian Hawkins Reply:
September 27th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Glad to help Jay, thanks for taking the time to let us know.
Brian Hawkins´s last blog ..Brian D. Hawkins – A Name You Can Trust
[Reply]
Wow, that’s crazy. I’ve seen some random seeming comments but never thought to check. I love the idea of editing their link – that just cracks me up. Fight the good fight!
Jeff´s last blog ..Beautiful Day in Bayview Idaho!!
[Reply]