subject: Blog Commenting Is Getting More Creative And Harmful [print this page] Blog commenting used to be a great way to start a discussion with internet traffics. In any way, due to spam, a great number blogs are unable to activate this feature. Why is blog commenting becoming more and more harmful? Is there a solution to this trouble? Let's explore.
Blog commenting in the good old days.
Just several years ago, blog comments make the blogosphere a more vibrant space for everyone. When a blogger publishes a post, everyone can join in and say their piece just by leaving a comment before exiting the site. This is done by using a comment form that is at the end of every blog post. If the commenting feature is enabled, traffics will be able to leave comments on each and every post.
Inconveniently, the default settings for most blogs allow traffics to leave their URLs. When a comment is approved, the entire comment plus the URL is published on the blog. Soon, a great number site owners discover that this is a great way to looking back links from established web sites - for free! All they need to do is to leave a couple of lines, and they looking free back links!
In fact, this method of acquiring links worked so well that a little people need even developed custom tools just to send in comments to looking links. This type of practice is harmful to the Internet community because the comments are often irrelevant. Quite often, due to thousands of spam comments left by these automated tools, bloggers are forced to disable the commenting feature. Our webhostingpadreview.org website for example are getting ten of thousand spam each month, and this slow down the database and server. We are left with no choice but to disable the commenting service.
Site owners who do not know what they are doing use these very same tools to try and build back links. As a result, they started acquiring thousands of links in a very short space of time. The google search engines soon caught on with what is happening and started to ban sites that use this method.
Is there no way to combat this trouble then?
Fortunately, developers need come up with solutions to help keep the situation under control.
1) Plugins - There are special plugins that bloggers can install on their own blogs to catch nonsensical comments. These comments will either be quarantined, or deleted immediately.
2) Captcha - This is a great way to stop automated tools. Software cannot solution questions like human beings. So a question is asked at the end of the form to ensure that whoever is submitting the comment is a human being. No bots allowed!
3) Moderated comments - Bloggers can choose to moderate all comments so that only legitimate comments appear on the blogs.
4) Closed discussions - After X number of days, the blog can be set to automatically disable discussions. That will eliminate the chances of having spam comments on older blog posts. A plugin is installed to achieve this.
As a final word of advice, do not use blog commenting as a means to looking back links. There are other proper ways to do so.
