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“Anybody know how we get an RSS feed for this blog?”

That was a comment left on a post just a few hours ago. Don’t look for it, though. It’s been nuked because it was spam.

How did I know it was spam? It sounds good, doesn’t it? And it was left on a post about RSS.

Well, here are a few things that tipped me off:

1. Lack of a real name
   While that alone isn’t enough to indicate a spammer, it’s one clue. Especially when the name is the name of a popular medication that lots of people would like to get without a prescription. D’oh! But sometimes, as in this case, it’s not quite that obvious, so I wouldn’t nuke a comment based just on not having a real person’s name.
2. Links to a dubious looking web site
   When you comment on this blog, you have the chance to put in the URL (web address) of your website. I always check those links. If you’re checking a dubious link in your referrer log, here’s an Important tip: Never just click on the link! Copy the address and paste it into the address bar of your browser. If you click on the link, it will show up in the linked-to website’s referrer log. This log shows the web address of the site which contains the link. So the spammer will know he or she’s found a sucker, and will be encouraged to continue. Another tip: Run a program such as AdAware afterwards, to make sure you didn’t pick up any “diseases.” Make sure you have up-to-date anti-virus software, and don’t use Internet Explorer as your browser.

   When a website is nothing but links and ads, that’s a sign of a spammer. It’s not always that obvious, however. Some spammers are good at putting in the minimum of content. So, again, this alone isn’t enough to make me delete a comment as spam. But it’s another strike against it.

3. Short, non-specific statements
   “Great blog! Thanks!” “I love your stuff!” Short, one or two sentence comments are another indication of spam. These types of comments could apply to any post, on any blog, so it’s a nice, safe comment that might not arouse your suspicion. Until now, that is. Right? But some commenters are shy, so it’s not a 100% certain indication.
4. The exact same comment appears elsewhere
   Spammers certainly understand how anti-spam software works, so they’re always working on ways to outsmart the system by making the post sound as genuine as possible. But they tend to leave the same comment everywhere, because they’re going for volume. They don’t have time to leave custom-tailored comments on every blog. At least, not yet, although that day will probably come.

   When I got the comment above, I finally figured the quickest test for when a comment just dosn’t feel right: copy and paste into Google. For example, check out the Google search on this sentence: Anybody know how we get an RSS feed for this blog? It’s a real eye-opener. Don’t forget to use quotation marks around the sentence when you do this, and don’t paste in more than one sentence.

The reason spammers do this is because many bloggers aren’t deleting the spam, or aren’t realizing that a comment is spam. That means more links on the web to their sites. Spammers are predatory animals in many ways; they try to subvert your voice to their rotten agenda, and they take advantage of helpful, unsuspecting bloggers.

Right now there are 323 links with that comment. I’m going to try to inject this post into that comment stream and hope that some of the bloggers in those results catch on and nuke the spam. Some of the blogs look abandoned, however, so that’s probably a forlorn hope.

It is sometimes a bit of extra work to eliminate spam from your comments, but if you’re a small business blogger, you need to do this or find someone to help you do this. After all, would you allow graffiti on your storefront?

Update 5/3/06:
Darren Rowse, of Problogger, has some good posts on this:

• The cost of comment spam
• Comment Spammers Harvesting Genuine Commenter’s Details

Update 5/23/06:
Google’s page count for the spam is now down to 186! I wonder — is it because people are cleaning up their spam, or because Google is recognizing it as spam and not displaying it? By the way, my post is the #4 item on the page.