When you have a blog (as I do), you get comment spam. There’s no way out of it. Some of it even gets through the filters, unless you have some genius hacker technology I’m not aware of. In that case, hook a buddy up.
Anyway, for your amusement, here are the five most innovative types of blog comment spam I see these days. Honestly, these approaches to link building may represent the future of marketing as we know it. Feel free to use these cutting-edge comment spamming techniques to create fascinating comments to post on your friends’ blogs.
1) The Featureless Wasteland of Links
This at first looks like a wash of random characters and code snippets. Upon closer inspection it appears to be an actual paragraph composed of BBCode links and English words seemingly ripped from their former (probably useful) context and displayed like dug up corpses. I don’t know how much I would pay a link building agency to employ this practice for me, but it would be a substantial figure.
2) The Strategic Headline
These represent a brilliant new innovation in spam comments: Since headlines receive clicks and incite interest, maybe they will bring a flood of new traffic and interested buyers! These comments usually consist of a headline (such as “buy [replica/facsimile/stolen brand name product]”) followed by a sentence or two, possibly in Russian or French, and if you’re lucky in Arabic or Chinese. Their succinctness is truly what makes them admirable.
3) The Indexed Academic Journal
These comments come in two parts: first, a vast body of well-researched discussion on high, scholarly topics ranging from backyard pools to yogurt recipes or dog food. This section may be discouraging for its length and complexity. Fortunately, the spammer thoughtfully includes part two, a long list of helpful links to help us understand where they are going with this diatribe. I have referenced a few of these in my school papers, they can be quite informative.
4) The Old School
Back in the day there were only a few kinds of spam comment – this was one of them, still kicking in its old age. The Old School is the ancestor of the Wasteland and the Academic Journal – that is to say, the latter two are innovations on the former. It consists of a simple, eloquent, potentially poetic statement followed by a single, useful link in standard HTML format. Its delivery is much like those skilled salesmen who walk up to you without context, rattle off a spiel and hand you something you don’t recognize. I reign in my urge to buy with every encounter.
5) The Veiled Compliment
Ah, these are the most humbling form of blog spam. It is an honor to receive one. They are quite literally a compliment, delivered to you by a loyal reader who has taken the time to read and ponder your post before remarking on its utility. Each time I read that a commenter found my “section of content” to be “attractive,” or that they like writers who “are not afraid to mention how they believe,” I choke up a little. More commenters should be so gracious.
Those are my favorites so far. What creativity have you encountered from friendly spammers? Tell me below (and please include a long list of links to your most helpful resources).
