For all comment spammers - this is how it's done!

[madoctopus]

So, the script kiddie buys scrapebox and starts blasting. Aside from getting really bad acceptance rate (all moderated sites will not accept the generic spammy content), it also pisses those webmasters. Since you're left with comments on autoapprove, heavily spammed sites, doesn't really help you that much.

The thing is, many of you do it wrong. You don't think! You just blast away hoping something sticks. That is not the way to do it.

Ok, let me give you an idea.

Example comment message:

Hi. I just want to warn you about something. I have been using the same WP theme as yours for quite a while and a week ago while not being logged in as admin I saw this link in my blog's footer. It only appeared when I visited my blog without being logged in. Also, it appeared only on some pages, not all. Never on homepage or category pages. Only on post pages. It was pointing to a digital camera reviews site. I knew I didn't put it there so I was a bit surprised. Then to my surprise, 3 days ago, that link disappeared and in its place there was a different one, with different text pointing to a penis enlargement site like this - Buy Penis Enlargement Pills (http://penis.com). I have no idea how I missed this when i installed first, actually i am pretty sure it wasn't there. My friend said my site could have been hacked, so he took a look at the code. What he discovered was that the theme was calling a file from some other site from where every week it took a list of URLs and keywords and inserted 1-3 into the footer. This is really lame. Obviously I changed the theme to something else. Just wanted to give you a heads up in case your theme is doing the same thing. Now I am using ZinFolio theme as you can see if u look at my site. Sorry for posting an offtopic message here but i thought you should know about this. I wish somebody told me.

Then, after 2 days post again as a different person and from a different IP post a comment with same idea but written differently.

DO NOT POST IT AS IS. Just use this example to get some inspiration. For fucks sake, think outside the box. Write something that though it isn't on topic, will strike a cord with that webmaster so he accepts it. If you take this idea and implement the same concept - telling the guy his theme is nasty, guess what?!? In 5 days from now, every webmaster will know this type of message is spam because all morons with scrapebox will blast the same thing. If you get 2 messages with this idea it's ok, if you get 15... will make you be suspicious. Also some webmasters are smarter or have custom themes so don't expect this to work great (though it probbaly works better than your lame "your rss feed isn't working" comments).

Think outside the box and ask yourself if you'd be a blog owner, what reason would you have to accept an offtopic comment?

 

[kez1000]

There funny thing is that now that comment you have just shared with the forum
will now be blasted as is to every WP blog known to man LOL

 

[Monrox]

The "second person" should mention that in his case the link appeared only after he deleted his cookies. The better hacks do indeed try to identify the owner this way. It was rampant during a recent cPanel exploit.

 

[madoctopus]

There funny thing is that now that comment you have just shared with the forum
will now be blasted as is to every WP blog known to man LOL

That's why I intentionally made it less effective in the way I wrote it. Plus, I don't do comment spamming so I don't really care.

 

[Kickflip]

Well, it could just be me, but I would NEVER approve something like that on my site. I am not really seeing what that adds to my sites value. Am I completely missing something here? I read it over 10 times, and that message will never be approved on any of my blogs.

 

[Monrox]

Well, it could just be me, but I would NEVER approve something like that on my site. I am not really seeing what that adds to my sites value. Am I completely missing something here? I read it over 10 times, and that message will never be approved on any of my blogs.

Maybe you wouldn't but in auto commenting any idea that increases the success % is valuable. And the suggestion here has that potential (imao).

 

[DustinX]

nice post i have bookmarked your page

 

[Kickflip]

Maybe you wouldn't but in auto commenting any idea that increases the success % is valuable. And the suggestion here has that potential (imao).

But I don't understand WHY a webmaster would approve that? I am looking for an explanation. If I saw a message like that, I think:

A) He is a hacker trying to access my blog.
B) He is trying to sell me a new theme.
C) He is trying to sell me security software.
D) He is an auto-comment spammer posting weird messages.

The only way I would ever approve the message, is if I actually saw the "flaw" he was talking about, and I wanted to warn others. But I wouldn't see any problem with my theme, so I would mark it as spam.

 

[madoctopus]

But I don't understand WHY a webmaster would approve that? I am looking for an explanation. If I saw a message like that, I think:

A) He is a hacker trying to access my blog.
B) He is trying to sell me a new theme.
C) He is trying to sell me security software.
D) He is an auto-comment spammer posting weird messages.

The only way I would ever approve the message, is if I actually saw the "flaw" he was talking about, and I wanted to warn others. But I wouldn't see any problem with my theme, so I would mark it as spam.

The idea was to think outside the box, not necessarily to post that specific comment and get awesome results. Also, that specific comment will get the average blogger worried. He will probably check the site but he won't see the nasty links. However, unless he's got good technical knowledge he will be unsure. Most webmasters don't understand PHP code enough to understand a theme's code. Also, I told him it doesn't appear on all pages so he could think that if he has 100 posts maybe the links appear only on a few that he didn't checked. He might approve or not. That is not important. On a large scale however this comment will perform better than one that is already known as being spam because the webmaster saw it 1000 times before.

 

[Radog]

Blogs with decent pr/traffic reject comments if they do not increase their keyword percentages, they don't want their adsense ads displaying the wrong advertisers.

The time it takes to write meaningful comment, i could have "paid my script kiddie" to hit up 100,000 sites and get them to stick with a short positive message. It sounds like your more angry at seeing the same comment spam on your blog, since you stated you don't care about comment spammers in the first place.

 

[eloquenceeee]

When I blast I get backlinks. Why fix what isn't broken?

 

[Kickflip]

The idea was to think outside the box, not necessarily to post that specific comment and get awesome results. He might approve or not. That is not important. On a large scale however this comment will perform better than one that is already known as being spam because the webmaster saw it 1000 times before.

That's a pretty odd statement to make. Its not important whether the comments get approved or not? Isn't that the whole point here? Do you have any proof that this comment will perform better than a short, generic "great post, love your blog! when will you do a new update?" comment.

I don't see how many blog owners these days have time to actually read such a long message. When I am manually approving comments, if I dont see spam blatantly in the comment, I approve it. When I see a link in the comment, I delete it. If I ever saw the word "hacker" or "virus" or "spam" or anything like that in the comment, I would mark as spam.

To make such a general claim that an original comment will perform better than a generic overused comment is ridiculous on several levels.

1) There are certain words that will set off spam alarms, hack is one of them, and trying to be too unique will likely mean you will stumble upon other one.
2) Most blog owners don't have time to read long comments and will simply ignore it for now, and "try" to read it another day when they have more time. They never have more time.
3) If your comment is short/generic/positive, it will inspire positive thoughts in other visitors, and encourage them to bookmark the site to return at a later time. Blog owners understand this, and blog owners love positive comments.

I am saying as a blog owner, I would never let a comment like this go to my sites pages. It adds absolutely no value to my blog. It doesn't boost my ego. It doesn't encourage my visitors to return to my website. It doesn't boost my keyword saturation. It isn't ontopic. It scares the crap out of me.

Sometimes thinking too far out of the box gets you in more trouble than sticking with tried and true methods.

 

[eskimo]

This kind of thing doesn't work
I have hundreds of WP blogs and if i see any shit like "great theme man, where did you get it?" or "thanks, great post" , or anything even remotely off topic spam it

Most webmasters aren't stupid. For me, the best way with backlinks is quantity

 

[sammy12]

I agree, Kickflip.. I might see the comment as someone who is trying to contact me, to warn me about something, but I would then reject the comment.. why would I want it on my site? Actually, I would definitely reject it.. I wouldn't want any of my visitors to think my site has something wrong with it!

Also, you might as well blast away with spammy messages, anyways, because even if you somehow got a link, it would be from an off topic site, so the weight wouldn't be there.. lots of work for maybe 1 or 2 links that get approved, imho.

Now, the only thing I could think of working similar, is if you were blasting at least sort of on topic sites, then you might say something like "Hey, I was reading something just like this over at the Dog Collars blog (www:dogcollarsprofits:com), and was happy to see you expand on the idea. Thanks!".