Jul 10 2007
PSST – Want to buy Some Blog Comments
It’s a really sad state of affairs when a rogue (blackhat) search engine marketer decides to get entrepreneurial web 2.0 style and sets up a website selling blog comments.
You heard me right – coming soon to a blog near you, paid blog comments. So now that new visitor to your site, who seems to make a relevant comment or the one whose English is not so good, could in fact be a paid blog commentator spammer.
Of course those who purchase this service will be just as “dirty” as the service provider (or a naive novice, not knowing better), but the question is – will we be able to discern these bought comments from legitimate ones? Do we have to second guess every comment? It’s the potential violation of trust that is most sickening.
And to top it off, are those who subscribe to the “DoFollow” movement, going to be the first on the “hit list” of unsuspecting blogs? It would seem logical, as these are going to provide the most mileage – not necessarily in terms of traffic, but certainly in terms of search engine optimisation. Wendy Piersall from eMoms at Home writes about her reluctant decision to remove the DoFollow plugin from her blog. I am seriously considering following in her steps, and looking for other ways to be benevolent. In the meantime, as Wendy warns, “..be an educated, savvy and ruthless comment moderator”.
This concern has to be amplified on the most popular blogs. Indeed Darren Rowse has an interesting discussion at Problogger, which is where I first read about this new (dis) service. If you haven’t already, I’d encourage you to follow his discussion about buying blog comments. So too Liz Strauss has a bit of background on this disgraced blogger in her discussion about blog spamming.
(By the way, the disgraced blogger is Jon Waraas (jonwaraas.com). The offending site is buyblogcomments.com).
53 Responses to “PSST – Want to buy Some Blog Comments”
Idea good yes excellent blog.
Please visit site, my good product.
*ahem*
Die evil spammers/payperpost/paypercomment.
It seems much the same as what some companies are/were doing in hiring people to travel on public transport/hang out in public places and have fake phone conversations which were supposed to be overheard by other passengers.
eg: “Hi Mary, is the party still on tonight? Cool! Do you need me to bring anything? Some of those new spicy cheese Doritos, and a few bottles of Baccardi? Doesn’t Coles have them on special? Yeah, at the new store at {wherever}. Great, see you at 9.”
Subtle below the radar advertising, which if done correctly doesn’t seem to be any different from other conversations.
(Now, how do you know this wasn’t a paid advert? ;))
To be honest, I’ve seen the Dofollow thing and always thought it was slightly dubious. Naturally, all the people who’ve subscribed to it will feel that that is a personal statement against their decision. No – it’s not, that’s just my (unenlightened) opinion. And you’ve got to ask yourself then – if it’s what one person thinks, then others probably have too……
Hi Will
π
What you say is quite correct. You are quoting a seemingly legitimate example, yet strangely I feel compelled to go to Coles online to verify that spicy cheese Doritos and Baccardi are NOT on special.
Karen
That’s really interesting feedback.
What gives you the vibe that it’s “dubious” i.e. what’s YOUR perception of the DoFollow movement?
Just that it’s a obliged reciprocity re: comment making, and I barely have the time to respond to the comments made on my site, let alone then follow along to others.
If that makes sense
But as I said, I don’t *really* know how it works, so I could be all wrong
Karen
Whew! Thanks for clarifying that – and your notion makes a very important point.
As a brief explanation, most blogging software, by default, automatically inserts a piece of code before a commenter’s URL that tells a search engine spider (like Google) NOT to follow that link – that it’s a link that is irrelevant. I suppose it’s a way of protecting search engines from links to “spammy” sites.
What supporters of the DoFollow “movement” generally think, is that if you take the time to comment (and it’s not spam), then you should be rewarded by that link “counting” (and the spider can then follow it through to your site).
So we make the conscious decision to over-ride what is deemed irrelevant or worthwhile. Of course there are pros and cons of doing this – and there is potential for abuse if comments are not vigilantly moderated.
So there’s no obligation to reciprocate or reply to comments (which may be part of the “You comment, I Reply” philosophy).
I can entirely see how you perceived it as you have…
Ok, it seems weird to me… but, I can doubt any more, everything is possible, ethically wrong, but possible.
We have been in his blog and have found it very interesting, congratulations regards from Catalonia – Spain
I read something about this on John Chows blog today and then noticed that Jon Waraas listed under Friends & Family in John Chow’s blog roll.
Maybe some smart tech person could develop a wordpress plugin like akismet that can detect if the comment is a paid one! π
That John Chow actually thinks the service, per se, is a good idea except for the fact that it’s too highly priced, is testament to why I stopped visiting his blog months ago.
To actually advocate, and link to, alternative services offering cheaper rates and suggesting that someone in India can write 100 (quality) comments inside an hour, reflects what little regard he has for the art of blogging and the value in conversation.
John writes “LetΓ’β¬β’s face it, all blogs want more comments because it makes the blog look active. And if the comments are related to the post topic, do you really care if itΓ’β¬β’s being done by a hired gun instead of the true commentator?”
Yes John, I care, and if you had any ethics, so would you.
Sorry Pickles (didn’t mean to rant) a plugin like you suggest would be great – but I suspect impossible.
Well, I hate to say it but I could not write 100 blog comments in an hour. You remember I did that NaBloPoMo commenting challenge last year? The highest amount of blogs I managed to comment on in one day, and that was sitting here for 8 hours working at it non-stop, was 140.
That’s because I wasn’t just going to blogs and copying and pasting something – I was going there, reading them, and commenting on things relevant to the blog. π
I am confused about this “service” and whether he is offering for people to comment on *your* blog or if he is offering for people to comment on *other* blogs for you.
I agree with do follow being a good idea for most blogs, it means you tend to get a few drive by comments and then the people never return, but that’s the kind of traffic we bloggers might be able to inspire to return by our blogging being so interesting and all..
Snos
Darren did some calculations – assuming the commenter got 100% of the revenue (which of course they wouldn’t) that would average out at 19c (US) per comment. Now, even though you were on a challenge you took your time (as you would have to to make value added comments). You would have earned a princely sum of $26.60 for your 8 hours work – you’re not going to get too many qualified takers at that rate.
The “service” is paying for comments on other blogs, on your behalf. They claim they will find suitable blogs, related to your own, and comment on them.
I don’t like to think that someone was motivated to comment because of the DoFollow – I had the badge off my site until recently, and may well consider removing it again (if not the whole plugin). My intention is to “reward” the conversation, not be a red flag to wanna be comment spammers!
As always, it’s great to have your input.
Sad really. It’s an inevitable aspect of a text link based algorithm.
People are going top try and game it.
Search engines wanted bloggers to do them a big favour by diminishing the value of things such as this. The view no doubt being thjat bloggers would link out with integrity whilst commenters might just comment for the sake of the value derived from the link.
Which is where, IMO – good comment moderation comes into its own. If I decide a comment is a bit dubious and left for the sake of some value he or show hopes to glean, then I’ll delete it.
Anyways, I dont like things like this either Meg and I think they’ll be pretty obvious to spot too.
Hi Rob
“Which is where, IMO – good comment moderation comes into its own.”
Yes, it really is imperative. Relatively speaking, I’m not overwhelmed with comments – but I certainly don’t envy the task of bloggers that get dozens of comments per post.
I’m just not so convinced that they’re easy to spot. I found myself triple checking comments today – to the point where I messaged another blogger for a virtual “character reference”
Crazy, I know – it’s only a couple of comments on a blog, but I take it seriously.
Nice to hear from you again. I notice we still don’t seem to have any resolution from MBL.
why would you buy blog comments? just turn off your spam filters and you’ll have tons of them.
I think the focus is more paying someone to write comments on your behalf on other blogs, not paying for people to write comments on your on blog. But you certainly are right about the flood of comments that would come from turning off the spam filters (shudder at the thought).
oops. I didn’t realize that it’s for paying other people to comment for you! That’s just so bizarre. I understand now, but I don’t think I picked up on that because I couldn’t imagine paying someone to comment for me. But with the dofollow thing, I guess it is logical, just not something I would do.
Something to look forward to.. (more comment spam).
I bet the service takes off too as a lot of people don’t care where their links come from.
@ personal growth success – me either, not in a million
@ Art New Blog (nice to see you). I REALLY hope it doesn’t take off – but I was just looking on his blog where he maintains:
“I wont [sic] tell you how much I made or how many sales I got. But I do have my work cut out for me this week :)”
Chock block full of spelling & grammatical errors – hope it’s not indicative of the “quality spam” we’ll be seeing – note he says “my work”….
Meg, I think we can safely say that there will be a new fleet of underpaid people in random asian countries filling in blog comments Real Soon Now.
Perhaps it’s time we started expecting better quality spam from our spam-masters?
“Generic Pen*s Pill Advertisement, no imagination in the design or lure text. Try harder next time.
Price: 3/5
Design: 1/5
Spelling and grammar: 1/5
Overall: 2/5”
Sorry Will,
I had to censor your comment (can’t lose my “G” rating π )
π “Try harder next time”
Deleting the comment: “satisfaction guaranteed” π
Whaat… It’s the official medical term, not a swear word π Ohwell, it’s your blog!
Atleast this time you didn’t think to go check on Coles Online π
Will – Oh, I’m all too familiar with the “medical terms” – growing up in a medical family and all. Just don’t want to see the freaks arriving in droves looking for “paid pen*ses” or whatever!
Re Coles online – what do you mean “think to”…..? Nah, don’t ask π
Ah, I once had people arriving at my blog looking for our favourites par1s, br1tney and l1ndsay cr0tch shots. 2,000 hits over 24 hours, I think it was.. and it made me feel.. like I needed a shower.. π hehe
You’ll note I put numbers in those words, so you won’t get hits for them..
you can do the same with pen1s π rofl lol
I usually image search for that, so text ain’t gonna drag me in.. π darn, did I type that out loud?
Hehe rofl π
Hi Meg
Very interesting news in the blogosphere. What will they think of next in this web 2.0 age? Before I first started blogging I did my research for about 3 months. A saying that always came up was “content is king”. I applied this philosophy and slowly but surely I’m seeing the results. (those google spiders did find me!)
And thanks for explaining the “do follow” thing. (It’s something that always confused me).
I enjoy reading your posts and finding out what’s going on out here in blog land especially from an Aussie perspective.
Take care
cheers
John writes Γ’β¬ΕLetΓ’β¬β’s face it, all blogs want more comments because it makes the blog look active. And if the comments are related to the post topic, do you really care if itΓ’β¬β’s being done by a hired gun instead of the true commentator?Γ’β¬Β
I would prefer zero comments rather than 100 useless single line things. If you want to up the number of comments, hire a geek squad to develop a plugin (yes I have a plugin fixation lately!) that automatically generates comments for you. Think call center robot sort of thing. Geez I’m a thinker. π
I always question the validity of creating “traffic” on a blog just for the sake of saying that people who visit are interested. Now to pay for comments is totally ridiculous. I started my blog in 2004 and it was visited by a lot of people interested in my work. This is what should count unless someone is using a blog to communicate with others. Happy blogging.
@ Peter – thanks for your kind words
Glad to hear Souvlaki for the Soul is starting to see some “Google Love” and by the way, I think it’s one of the best looking blogs I’ve every seen – you obviously take a lot of pride in the presentation.
@swollenpickles – I’m with you 100% (about the zero comments, not the plugin!)
@ Marie-Louise – nice to meet you and thanks for dropping by. I agree with you saying in there’s not much point generating a whole lot of irrelevant traffic that’s not likely to return. I think a lot of people forget that it takes time to build up a steady, interested audience – it can take years. Wow, 3 years of blogging – that’s a long time!
Meg – I wasn’t serious about the second plugin. Although the plugin that can tell if a comment is paid or not, that could be a winner….
Hehe – I know that, you know that, but you never know how someone else is going to perceive it
Agreed, a plugin that could identify paid comments WOULD be one I would support.
Some thoughts for your consideration.
Has any one who has posted on this yet received a paid comment that they can definitively point to?
Does paid have to mean lesser in quality?
Do any of you really believe that no one has ever paid any one to comment on blogs? Or that no one has ever commented on one of your blogs and been paid for it?
For my part, I figure if someone wants to buy content for my niche blogs, the need to make sure they are buying quality. First it has to get past Spam Karma, then it has to be relevant to the post, next it has to link to a relevant page.
Meet those three requirements and I don’t care whose link you used, how mauch money you were paid or what “asian or unasian”, as the case may be, country you live in.
Maybe some of this will result in abuse. Probably some of this will result in abuse, but just maybe some one will buy you some quality content and give you a decent link to a relevant page that benefits your surfers. Stranger things have happened.
Are you really going to kill a *great* comment just because the commenter was paid? Most of the bloggers on most of the most popular blogs are paid and I’ll wager you welcome their comments.
Hi Dane
“Has any one who has posted on this yet received a paid comment that they can definitively point to?”
Not yet (unless this is the first one)!
“Does paid have to mean lesser in quality?”
No, it doesn’t have to mean lesser in quality, however at the price being quoted for the comments, I don’t see how they could possibly be “quality”.
“Do any of you really believe that no one has ever paid any one to comment on blogs?”
I think hiring an blog assistant, training that person, and ensuring that their opinions match your own that it *could* work. I wouldn’t necessarily think particularly highly of it, but if someone did that it’s his or her business.
What’s happening here is mass commenting pretty much solely for the purpose of backlinks.
I sincerely doubt anyone has been paid to comment here – but on high profile blogs, perhaps.
Dane, I respect your opinion, and that you’re voicing what appears to be a minority one. Perhaps you’re right – the quality may well surprise us all. And given the criteria you specify (and that we may well not be able to identify with certainty that a comment is paid), in the absence of proof, I probably would approve it.
I really doubt that the (paid) bloggers on popular blogs would be the one’s buying comments. I seriously doubt a blogger of that calibre would risk their reputation for a few (extra) back links.
PS If this was a paid comment, you got your money’s worth π
I must admit when I first heard of these paid comments I was pretty shocked by it. I at first agreed with the majority, but I’m now swinging towards the minority on this.
I think we bloggers are falling into a trap here – of shock, disapproval, and mass outrage. I can’t tell you how many posts I have seen on this topic over the last few days.
Whether someone is paid to comment or not on our blog is something we have so little control over. In fact we have none. And it becomes a situation where – how much work are you prepared to do in order to stop someone getting a backlink because they paid for it?
Don’t we all have better things to be worried about than researching every person who leaves a comment to see if it is legit or not? The actual payback for the commenter is not that huge. If someone wants to spend days commenting on all the do follow blogs, is that any worse than someone being paid to do it? How about those of us who do earn money from blogging, are we not allowed to comment anymore because it might be seen in the wrong light?
My thought for the day today says it all, I think.
No matter how outrageous or unfair others might appear to you, they do not, never did, and never will upset you. The bitter truth is that youΓ’β¬β’re the one whoΓ’β¬β’s creating every last ounce of the outrage you experience.
Dr David D Burns, Feeling Good – The New Mood Therapy
We should stop focusing on these people who really are doing this to get a rise, to get spoken about, to get “buzz” happening. This small boi, Jon whatever his name is, he’s gonna get a karma bite of his own. We don’t need to worry about it. π Instead we should focus on stuff like your blog karma posts and being good to each other as fellow bloggers. Like it says in Bill and Ted – Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes.
Who cares if a comment is paid or not? We will do the same thing we do now – if it feels spammy, delete it. If not, leave it. They get one tiny link. Congratulations to them! But congratulations to us for allowing our regular commenters to have those links all the time.
Snoskred
http://snoskred.blogspot.com/
Snoskred
“How much work are you prepared to do in order to stop someone getting a backlink because they paid for it?”
That’s very true. I hate deliberating over whether to approve comments or not – being a “comment nazi” as someone put it. I do feel that if I’m using a “dofollow” link, however, that it’s a responsibility to ensure the links are “quality” ones, but I suppose it’s not too hard to tell at a cursory glance….
Maybe you’re right – loosen up, “Be excellent to each other, and party on dudes.” Food for thought.
Thanks for the conversation
I think there’s a simple solution.
Either:
– Don’t allow links to ‘unknown’ commenters; or
– Put links in text, but not in anchor tags; or
– Take a look at the site?
The only issue is that the last option takes more effort.
As for the whole paying someone to put comments on other people’s sites – for me it goes in the same basket as buying in-game gold/items in World of Warcraft/etc and the vast majority of “SEO” or Search Engine Optimisation tactics. It’s cheating, deceptive, and/or dishonest as far as I’m concerned.
Oh, and to clarify my jab at “SEO”. Unless you’re actually optimising the way the site is coded, presented or structured so that it’s easier for a search engine to index – it’s not actually optimising. It’s gaming the system.
Hi Meg,
I must admit I expected a different response. π I guess where I’m really at is if someone posts something good to my blog I’m happy, and if some one posts something not good, I delete it and move on. I can’t see myself spending any effort in trying to determine whether the motives behind any of those posts we a bounty.
I really think it will be pretty much the same as before. Some comments will be good and some comments will be not good. And SpamKarma will continue to kill the huge majority of those that were not good. I’ll kill the rest.
I’m, also firmly commited to dofollow, and I do consider the links in comments, and I consider relevance. I welcome paid commenters so long as they stay on topic, post with relevance and link to relevance.
I tend to think some will and some won’t, but that’s already true of the commenters who aren’t being paid directly to comment for some one else.
No bounties were received in the crafting of this comment. π
Hi Will
I’d say 9.5 times out of 10 I look at a (new) site before I post a comment. Just lucky I’m not getting 100’s of (new) commenters a day. That’s where it would get really awkward.
You don’t want to penalise a new visitor to your site, by assuming the worst – and that’s where systems like this get me angry, because it makes one so much more paranoid….
I don’t know about the “vast majority” of SEO tactics – most of it’s just working to the “guidelines” – it’s the “black hat” stuff that brings it into disrepute.
eg is it wrong to submit a site to a reputable directory? Is that “gaming” because you know it will bring you a back link? According to your definition it has nothing to do with “coding, presentation or structure”. Why submit a site to dmoz.org? I doubt that many people actually search there, but it is a link from a very reputable, high ranking, human edited site – that’s not gaming.
But then where do you draw the line? Is a directory submission to 100 directories at once “gaming”. Probably. Sometimes it’s a fine line.
I don’t condone paid comments. I don’t like it and think that it’s bad for blogging in general. But I have to stop and think (as Snoskred says) – what lengths am I going to go to, to investigate a “suspect” comment. I can go to the site. I can get a quick overview. I can see whether the comment seems relevant and adds value, but apart from that, you can’t spend your life agonising over every new commenter. Life’s too short…
Hi Dane
Glad you were surprised π I do hear where you’re coming from and I won’t repeat my stance, but I guess you have to take a comment prima facie and not be caught up agonising over whether it’s a paid comment or not.
And I didn’t really think yours was a paid comment π and “crafting” was a very appropriate term. I know I can spend up to 15 minutes coming up with the right comment or response. My point is, how much quality do you think you’d get in a minute?
Will said – “ItΓ’β¬β’s gaming the system.”
Is that our fault, or the system’s fault?
It’s like you want to take the moral high ground on a playing field that we’re *all* on.
This is the system we have. If you’re not doing everything you can to win the game, are you cheating yourself?
There’s some stuff we should not stoop to. Buying comments is one among many of those. But as far as SEO is concerned, we all have to work with the system we have. I doubt google will be changing anything anytime soon and from what I read nobody really knows how google’s system even works.
It’s like Alexa. I think Alexa is a complete load of bollocks. I went to download the toolbar only to be completely astonished that they do not have one for firefox. Over 50% of the visitors to my blog use firefox. Sure, there’s other people who have made one that works with firefox but the fact is Alexa do not care to bother and what the heck is up with that? They don’t want to know those stats? They don’t care?
My site is being judged on the Alexa ranking as long as everyone else’s. They tell me Alexa can be manipulated, and that other people are doing it all the time. I have no intentions of doing it but other people are. How is that fair in any way?
I don’t pay anyone to put comments to sites, but you better believe I spend plenty of time writing them myself. I put the same signoff whether a blog is do follow or no follow. I’ve made a lot of good friends blogging, met a lot of really interesting people who I value greatly. I have even done commenting challenges before – challenged myself to comment.
And because of this dimwit who is now selling comments, I feel a bit like people are going to point fingers at *me* for all the hard work I put in just to play on the same field as everyone else.
If I go to a new blog, are they going to think I’m a spammer just because what they’ve written touched me enough for me to spend the time writing a comment? Are they going to sit there and analyse what I’ve written to see if it’s on topic enough? What if I dropped by their blog and just really liked the theme and wanted to say so? Do I need to put a little thing on the side of my blog to let people know I just like to comment a lot, I like to read new blogs, I like to get out there and meet new people? Do I need to APOLOGISE for commenting? Or do I go back into my little cave and stop getting out there because one bad apple has ruined it for us all?
No way. I’m going to comment until my fingers are bruised from typing. I’m going to participate in this game. I might not win, but at least I’ll have tried.. π
I think we need to stop with the judging and get on with the game, ya’all.. π
Snoskred
http://snoskred.blogspot.com/
You are 100% right. You dont need to appologise, nobody need to do it if you have something to say just say it.
[…] been having an interesting discussion (via the comments on a previous post), with Will and Snoskred about the “evils” of Search Engine Optimisation (which […]
Will, A billion blogs now exist because of the system, due to paid advertising ect. There is no discussing right or wrong, and an SEO’s job is to get the job done. Some methodes are much cleaner than others, but gaming the system=par for the course.
Oh and Hi Meg, and Hi PaydayLoans (???????????????????)
Meg, I’d say p*yd*ylo*ns is right up there with V1agra, Cruiseships and gambling sites these days.
Jewish T-Shirts
You’re absolutely right. Perhaps best to remove URLs from suspect visitors.
I guess that makes me a suspect visitor? Perhaps Jewish T-shirts are now on par with V1agra, Payday loans, and Cruiseships?
BTW, Will is DEFINITELY not a suspect visitor, but Personal Growth Success?
As far as I’m concerned, the easy rule should be contribution. So if you look at Personal Growth Success, or PayDayLoans, you’ll see the aw shucks routine, but absolutely nothing is said. Pro spammers.
Will and Jewish T-shirts both appear to be very real people, capable of intelligent discussion, who have obviously read both your post as well as the comments posted therein. Could you ask for better readers of your blog?
BTW, I’m Jewish T-shirts, but not Will.
Jewish T-Shirts
OK, so you’re listening π
1. re Personal Growth Success – yes, I ummmed about that one initially. But she actually posts using different anchor text (her prerogative) and goes into more detail elsewhere (as well as subscribing to comments). So at the end of the day, I am comfortable with that decision.
2. Agreed – Will is definitely NOT a suspect visitor. He choses to not link back to his blog (if, in fact, he has one).
3. There – you can have your link if it means so much π
Meg,
I appreciate the link, though it means less than the entire discussion. Emoticon Big Smile
J T-S
Hope to see you back π (colon big D)
yikes, that’s a bummer you thought I was a paid commenter.
I never used to leave anchor text. I actually just learned about it. I’ve seen it for a long time now on mine and other sites.
So does that mean it’s bad etiquette?
I read this article but I happened to understand it wrong at first. Sorry if that made me seem like a spammer.
AgentSully
As a new visitor to this blog, your timing and choice of post was probably unfortunate, as I was somewhat paranoid about being the recipient of a paid comment. It was also a very short comment, on top of the timing and choice of post.
Regarding the anchor link – I know that a lot of people are doing it. I doubt that I would, but I’m not entirely sure whether it’s perceived as bad etiquette. I’d say most visitors here don’t, but I see it a bit on other blogs.
It just seems to take the personalisation out of a comment – if I have to write “Hi Personal Growth Success” it all seems a little clinical.
Thanks for the response Meg.
Yeah, I guess it was bad timing. No worries, mate!
It feels funny using the anchor text anyway. And I forgot to sign my name which was my aim to do.
All the best to you!
Sully
I just delete comments that use anchor names, the comments section are a place to leave comments, not advertisements. π
I don’t really find buying comments on your OWN blog that bad though, it helps liven things up a bit as your site doesn’t seem that void of activity.
[…] (also known as “no nofollow” or “I follow”). After the paid comments furore, I installed Lucia’s Linky Love Plugin which means that after a certain amount of comments, […]