One of the key questions for a blog owner is how to "Block Spam Comments on Your Blog". As the realisation that backlinks are the life blood of high search engine ranking spreads across the web many unscrupulous marketers are attempting to use links in spam blog comments to boost their results. This article will examine how you can respond to such issues.
Whilst considering responses it is important to take into account the balance that must be struck - on one hand comments are important to your blog and should be encouraged, on the other hand nobody wants to read a blog that is little more than a collection of spammy comments.
There are 6 possible methods of filtering out spam comments:-
1) Manual Moderation (approval) of comments - the most basic approach is that the blog owner reviews each comment and approves (or otherwise) it prior to publication. Time consuming but very effective.
2) Use of Captcha codes prior to posting - this requires a random number or word to be entered prior to a comment being submitted. Whilst this will be effective against spam comments posted by software tools it will not stop a determined manual poster. Captcha codes can be implemented via various plugins.
3) Use of blacklists - there are plugins available that will examine the source of comments and automatically bar them if they originate from known spam addresses.
4) Word based filtering - again tools are available that examine the content of the post and look for trigger words (e.g. sexual, pharmaceutical etc) and then bar the content if they are found.
5) Heuristic - there are "artificial intelligence" tools that look at user behaviour, content of post etc and "decide" if a post is spam or not.
6) Implement "no follow" attributes on your blog - whilst this does not prevent comment spam it discourages spammers as they do not get the backlinks they are looking for.
Whilst there are many approaches and tools available there is no real substitute and the overall recommendation is the combined use of the above tools but always backed up by a final manual moderation.