This is a little sad, but I had to turn on comment moderation for my blog. As of right now, I don't get many comments on posts here, but within the last week I had over half my posts, new and old, receive random comments. All filled with text about online casinos and hyperlinks to... I don't know, I didn't click the links.
I deleted the comments and felt it necessary to turn on comment moderation. This means that if you would like to comment on one of my posts, I will get an email and need to manually approve the comment. I am going to leave it like this for at least a month and then turn the moderation off to see if the spam stops. For now, if someone comments on a post I will get an email and need to manually approve the comment. I promise I will not block your comments unless they are spam. I love engagement and want people to comment.
So why is this happening? I have a feeling these spammers are trying to build their SEO by having random websites link back to their sites. What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization. I only am beginning to understand marketing and SEOs as I've taken a bunch of courses through LinkedIn Learning and HubSpot. The basics and what I believe the unfortunate purpose of these spam comments is that search engines such as Google and Bing rank sites based on their validity and popularity. Therefore, if more people link to a site it improves that site's ranking on the search engine. Links for ranking purposes must come from external sites. For example, if I link this post to a previous post, that won't affect either post's ranking because they are internal links. It's all automated with algorithms so the search engines can't tell the difference between a spam comment on a blog or a legit sharing of valid content.
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| Page 3 of a Google search |
Side note: While going to grab a screenshot of a Google Search, I discovered on page three of searching my name, I've finally been published. I wrote an essay almost two years ago and submitted it for an anthology on mentorship in education. I remember signing papers giving permission to publish it but I never heard anything after that so I forgot about it. I guess the lesson is sometimes it's worth going past page two of search results.
