Written on September 10th, 2005 at 12:09 pm by Darren Rowse
Signatures in Blog Comments
Miscellaneous Blog Tips
Has anyone else noticed recently that a lot of people leaving genuine comments on blogs have also started leaving ’signature like’ links to their own blogs at the bottom of their comments? (NB: I’m not talking about links within comments that are relevant to the conversation happening in the comment thread).
I’ve noticed it happening more and more on my own blogs but also others. I’m a little torn on how to respond.
On one hand the comments are definitely genuine, on topic and from regular readers - something I love and want to encourage. On the other hand they have an opportunity to leave their link in URL field of the blog and to leave two is doubling up.
I have no follow tags on most of my blogs so doing it has no SEO benefits - but I still find it a bit spammy and have started emailing people who do it - politely asking them to refrain from doing so but I’d be interested to see what others think of it?
Share This
.
Selling homemade video is prerecorded media sold or rented for home viewing the sell homemade video. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray with sell homemade videos. In a different usage, "home video" refers to selling homemade video recordings, also known as home movies and selling homemade videos.
The selling homemade videos business distributes films, television series, telefilms and other audiovisual media in the form of selling homemade video in various formats to the public. Selling homemade videos are either bought or rented, and then watched privately in purchasers' homes. Most theatrically released films are now released on digital media, both optical and download-based, replacing the largely obsolete videotape medium. The selling homemade video format remains popular in many countries, although DVDs are gradually losing popularity since the late 2010 and early 2020s, when streaming media became mainstream. The island neighbors to the south beach resort free stock video with postcard-perfect beaches, tropical-chic rooms with soothing beach landscape free stock video. Where a beach and the surf is the primary focus for tourists we like to call it out own beach resort.
And,
I want the new big block crate motor along with the get paid and earn money online app and the big block crate motor at the mall. I want the new edelbrock 1406 carburetor along with the free stock video with the edelbrock 1406 carburetor at the auto parts place.
I have a iphone 4s battery case and got a earning money online app and ordered another one later. I bought the battery case and free stock videos and I bought more than one.
and chemise sleepwear hawaiian shoe
90 Responses to “Signatures in Blog Comments”
Tris Hussey
September 10th, 2005 12:40 pm
Yeah I’ve started doing it when I leave comments on people’s blogs about Qumana. Give the readers my e-mail address to contact me as well. But that’s the only place I do it.
T
Paul Short
September 10th, 2005 12:45 pm
Personally, I think you’re right on the money by doing so. The link under a persons name in the comment, to me, is like the blog owner saying “thanks for your contribution and sharing your thoughts. I appreciate your input, and here’s a link to your blog in return.”
Leaving a sig in blog comments is sort of like an annoying insurance salesman handing out a bunch of business cards at his wife’s friends wedding or something. Kinda cheesy.
Comments like that don’t last long on my blogs, or, if the comment is substantial, I edit out the sig.
Yes, it seems idealistic, but when the day comes where it becomes an accepted practice (and it probably will) I’ll be turning comments off.
Paul Short
September 10th, 2005 12:49 pm
Hi Tris, we must have commented at the same time. Would it not be more appropriate to send the blog owner an email, or refer him/her (and his/her readers) to a post on your own site addressing the issue?
Jon
September 10th, 2005 12:59 pm
I don’t do it but I can fully understand why it is done.
Since the name field becomes a link, it doesn’t provide any real description or clue to the owner’s blog [I’ve tried putting “Smart Money Daily” in the name field but it just seems silly] if you put your actual name in there.
The other reason is that the value of the nofollow tag is highly debatable. Yahoo, for certain, gives SEO juice to links despite the nofollow tag and MSN may as well. So it is a chance to grab a keyword link from a hot site like enternetusers!
Stuart
September 10th, 2005 1:01 pm
Tris - surely the benefit (such as it is) is already there from the link attached to the poster’s name.
Why do you think that it’s important to post it a second time?
Paul
September 10th, 2005 1:07 pm
Darren, I feel this is alright as long as like you said, they leave some comment of value to other readers, but if they just slap and link or bunch of links in the comments section with out contributing then this is just spam.
Paul
james
September 10th, 2005 1:13 pm
It’s pseudospam. Most site comments include a website link anyway - If you have anything of note to say, people can find you. Most don’t.
Darren Rowse
September 10th, 2005 1:22 pm
Maybe I’m being a bit precious - happy to be told I am.
I guess I’m just wondering what the benefit would be to do it - don’t most blog readers know that if they want to read more from a commenter that they just click their name?
I’d also avoid it myself for fear as being seen to be a spammer. The context we’re all blogging in at the moment is one where bloggers are sooo sensitive about comment spam that I’d personally avoid anything that might even resemble it as it has the potential to bring the reputation of your blog down.
Still interested in others thoughts…
Angela
September 10th, 2005 1:29 pm
You have quite a substantial following Darren - and for good reason!
Here’s what I do on my blogs:
If the comment is clearly spam I delete the entire entry.
If somebody leaves a comment that is relevant to what is being discussed and they happen to incorporate a link to a recent posting on their own blog that fits with the posting thread - then I leave it up.
As far as signatures in comments go - I check to see if they are part of my blog swap and if they aren’t I invite them to participate that way instead of cluttering up the comments section with a signature.
The LAST thing you want to do is alienate a Pro-Blogger fan who brings traffic to your blog via theirs - right?
The Zero Boss
September 10th, 2005 1:32 pm
The only time I ever do this is in LiveJournal or other blogs, where I can’t leave a URL without creating an account, signing in, etc. Otherwise I agree - just use the Website or URL field provided in the comment form.
DrDel
September 10th, 2005 1:32 pm
I don’t know.. I kind of disagree
I like reading signatures, even if they include web links…
so long as it isn’t shameless promotion and doesn’t devalue the site then so be it…
Darren Rowse
September 10th, 2005 1:40 pm
Nice process Angela.
the other thing to factor in is that too many outbound links can actually have a detrimental impact upon your blog’s rank in Search engines….probably not a problem for most of us with small amounts of comments on blogs - but maybe it has an impact….
maybe I’m clutching at straws and should just let readers do what they want. :-)
Jon
September 10th, 2005 1:50 pm
You could just turn off html in your comments but, I’d say there are better battles to fight, especially if they’re leaving relevant comments.
LcF
September 10th, 2005 2:02 pm
I agree with Angela.
Darren Rowse
September 10th, 2005 2:03 pm
Another factor - when people leave signatures with links on some of my blogs my spam detectors pick it up and either delete it automatically or queue it for moderation. This means a lot of such comments just don’t make it to the blog or are very delayed in getting up.
Netwalker
September 10th, 2005 2:04 pm
My thought about that is that with the explosive grow that the blogs are having, most of the people are trying to promote their blogs in other blogs.
In particular I rotate the blogs that I put in the website field on the comments, and as Zero Boss, I live only one link as a signature in the places I have to sign.
Darren Rowse
September 10th, 2005 2:05 pm
LcF - yeah - I agree. links which are relevant to the thread of conversation are totally fine with me. If they add to the discussion I don’t have a problem. Its when they are purely self promotional that I start to get concerned. Comments are not a place to advertise yourself.
Mike Sigers
September 10th, 2005 2:17 pm
I’m probably not going to win this debate, BUT….
I’m kinda getting tired of bloggers looking for reasons to stop comments, links, sig lines, etc.
In the offline world, as a salesman for 20 years or so, I’ve had and still have some VERY aggravating customers. They have to be coddled, held by the hand and have their arses kissed. Without the troublesome one’s, I wouldn’t make as nice a living. If all I have are perfect customers, life’s gonna be nice, but I’ll be eating a lot of wish sandwiches.
Same thing with commenters. If all you want are perfect readers, life will be nice, but you’ll be preachin’ to the choir.
Now Hear This - This comment was not aimed directly at Darren, he just happened to write this post at about the same time I got fed up with bloggers who don’t want readers, interaction or people available to click on their ads or buy their latest book, course, CD, etc.
I have something like 96 blogs that I read fairly regularly, so his post was not the first I’ve read. I just figured that the clientele here was mature enough to debate without crying and whining, so I might as well make the analogy here, between customers and commenters.
How do we know that those who leave sig lines aren’t the very one’s who actually click on ads and but our products ? Maybe the regular readers who are ad blind should be the ones we go after, not the sig-line-commenters. Maybe we should go after the ones who take up bandwidth by reading and never clicking or commenting.
Is this perfect logic ? No. Just playing “dummies” advocate. Your turn.
I’d love to have comments or even readers on any of our 11 blogs.
Maybe it’s just commenter envy coming out ;-)
Be gentle with me, I’m sensitive.
Christopher Sharpe
September 10th, 2005 2:18 pm
I actually like signatures for the most part. And yeah, I know you can click on the persons name, but sometimes signatures catch my attention. Like everything, they can be overdone. But for the most part, it adds a little more personality to the comments. But maybe that’s just me.
Darren Rowse
September 10th, 2005 2:30 pm
Nice comment Mike - I’m enjoying seeing the variety of opinion here. You make some interesting points.
Jim Kukral
September 10th, 2005 2:59 pm
A signature to me is no problem. Although, I had someone trying to leave his entire paragraph bio after each comment. That is totally unacceptable and was deleted. Blog owner rules should, well, rule.
Mike Sigers
September 10th, 2005 3:01 pm
Thanks for not crushing me, Blog Master.
I really do enjoy the community of commenters here, Darren. You are to be commended for developing such a diverse, mature and worldly group. The commenters here are willing to let opinions be voiced and then treat those that differ with respect. That’s not the case on 95% of the blogs I read. In fact, I don’t bother sharing with the community, until I figure out whether or not they are able to handle criticism, differing opinions and truth/facts.
As Christopher said, sure I can click on their name, but I seldom do, as I have way too many places to go, as it is.
Oh, and BTW - You sounded funny on the call with Andy. You got an accent or something ? Where the heck did you learn to talk like that ?
( And that comes from a Kentuckian who sounds like Ernest T. Bass. )
Darren Rowse
September 10th, 2005 3:07 pm
Funny accent hey…. ooh the comments I could make :-)
You gotta hang out with more Aussies mate :-)
Yzabel
September 10th, 2005 3:29 pm
I’ve never had to deal with this on my own blogs yet, but I must say I’m a ltitle torn on the issue. On the one hand, just a name and a URL as signature would probably be fine with me, albeit a little redundant due to the “website” field commenters already have the opportunity to fill in. On the other hand, it could quickly degenerate and fall into the same pits as forum signatures: after all, even if it’s not as convenient as an automated sig, what prevents a person who really wants to advertise her blog from preparing, say, a sig with a long description or even a banner, then copy & pasting the code at the bottom of each of her comments? Now this would be spammy and obnoxious. (I know, I’m probably a little paranoid on this example, but really, I wouldn’t be surprised.)
ChrisH
September 10th, 2005 4:00 pm
I am absolutely 100% okay with sigs in comments provided they’re not spamming and unless there’s some valid technical reason (such as it affecting search rankings).
Sure it might be a bit cheeky of the poster, but what is he/she trying to do? Give notice to their own blog. What is so wrong with that? Sure they’re “doubling up” but isn’t that just clever marketing?
What cheeky tricks do we ALL use to get people to click on our AdSense links? Hmm? Color them to match our websites so they are almost disguised as genuine links… Placing them in “hot spots”…
Sorry but on this one, I gotta say the pot is calling the kettle black.
Darren Rowse
September 10th, 2005 4:23 pm
True ChrisH - but the difference in tweaking Adsense ads and leaving two links instead of one on comments is that you can do what you like on your own blog in terms of Adsense - but leaving irrelevant doubling up links on another person’s webspace is probably another matter.
Arun Kumar
September 10th, 2005 4:29 pm
What do you think about adding a general FAQ page somewhere noticeable with some regulations and tips for submitting comments?
HART
September 10th, 2005 4:45 pm
If you click on my name HART, you go to my website.. but it might be any one of my five blog URLs, depending on the mood I feel or the blog post I am responding to. If you do a search for me on technorati.com … by my domain “1800HART.com” - you don’t see any of the posts that I have made in this blog or any other blog unless I added it as a signature or it was mentioned in the post or comment. If you search for “HART” you do see my comments - the only thing is that there are 94,167 other instances of HART to sift through to find these comments I made on enternetusers.net.
That means I’m okay with sig’s too! I can delete 12 lines (1 post) just as easily as I can for 10 lines - if warranted……..// HART
Yaro
September 10th, 2005 5:06 pm
I recently removed the nofollow tags from my wordpress blog so comments made pass on pagerank after reading a post from another blogger that also referenced this - http://www.nonofollow.net/index.php?title=Main_Page. In a nutshell I think provided the owner of a blog keeps on eye for obvious comment spam and the the blog system provides some reasonable moderation tools to prevent spam from going live then I have no problem exchanging comments for link credit.
I wish all bloggers would remove the nofollow tag. The beauty of the blogosphere is that bloggers help each other by linking back and forth and provided abusers are moderated away we can all work to help each other grow our blogs.
Athomemama
September 10th, 2005 5:39 pm
I like the links in sigs too. Shoot, I’ve probably done this here (I know I do it elsewhere), though never a para LOL
Darren, I used to worry about outbound links, but just a week or so ago I read one of your posts that gave me the impression you didn’t worry about that because it all would work out in the end (ie a good blog has lots of incoming and lots of outgoing)
Darren Rowse
September 10th, 2005 5:45 pm
True Arthomemama - I guess since writing that I’ve had a couple of people suggest that they’ve seen a little evidence of decreases in page rank on their blogs as a result of too many outbound links. It’s all speculation really and doesn’t worry me in the scheme of things.
Ben Helps
September 10th, 2005 5:56 pm
Like The Zero Boss I tend only to leave such sigs where comment systems don’t allow them in any other way.
Also whenever I *do* leave a sig link, it’s always plaintext only - no actual A tag - not only does it offend less, it’s more reliable.
–
Ben Helps (http://www.droplet.com.au/~zensei)
…who doesn’t normally leave a sig on enternetusers comments but just wanted to make a point.
Roger Johansson
September 10th, 2005 6:03 pm
I’ve never bothered adding rel=”nofollow” attributes to links in comments on 456 Berea Street. I use very tight spam filtering instead, and remove any spammy comments that slip through. Sometimes it’s a bit difficult where to draw the line though.
I haven’t had a lot of comments with signatures (yet). When someone does leave a signature in a comment I’ll take an extra look at any links in it.
If the comment is legitimate but the links are spammy, I just remove the links. If it’s a “me too” comment on an old post or completely irrelevant to the subject of the post, AND the signature (or comment) contains “spammy” links, I usually delete the comment and blacklist the URLs.
If the comment is legitimate and relevant, and no links in the signature are spammy, I’ll probably leave it. Signatures do look a bit annoying in comments, but like others have said it’s clever marketing.
Barry Welford
September 10th, 2005 10:34 pm
Clearly spam should be removed, but I think if someone adds a signature this may well work better for other readers of the comments. It’s a usability thing. I wouldn’t put only one link to an action page on say a home page since different visitors have different ways of looking at things. Some blogs have pretty cryptic ways of showing the blog reference of the commenter.
So I personally go along with the wishes of my ‘host’, but I think hosts should realize that other visitors may appreciate signatures.
Comic Strip Blogger
September 10th, 2005 10:36 pm
you should remove ref=nofollow from comment links. people who comment spent their time and effort to comment, so it is unfair. I removed ref=nofollow from comments in my blogs.
Lea
September 10th, 2005 10:41 pm
Its not something I have done, but the main reason for doing it is search engine optimisation - linking with one’s name is no where near as powerful as linking with your key words of choice.
Sometimes I have put my Name as ‘Lea from xxxxx’, where the xxxxx is the (brief) description of the site I am linking to in order to get those keywords in, but I hate it, it looks so dorky.
Putting a proper sig on the bottom of the comment would give your poster a more powerful link - and it gives your readers a better idea of what site I am from, should they want to see what I am all about.
Andy Wibbels
September 10th, 2005 10:50 pm
Drives my nutty. Do they not see the big NAME, MAIL and WEBSITE field? I usually edit out signatures from comments for this reason - I find it disrupts the conversational ‘read’ of a post’s comments.
Eoghann Irving
September 10th, 2005 11:52 pm
I would have no problem with people adding signatures to their posts if their comment had some signifcant depth to it. Writing two sentences that say, yes I agree and then 3 lines of signature strikes me as spamming.
On the other hand a 4 paragraph essay has earned a few lines of self promotion at the end I think. ;)
This is a battle that’s been fought in forums for years and there never seems to have been a real standard. Personally even when I use a signature (email and forums usually) I try to keep it to a 3 line max. I hate signatures that are longer than the post itself.
Baz L
September 11th, 2005 1:55 am
I personally don’t see the big deal. Sometimes people have 2 or more websites to show off and they put it in a sig. You no follow tags on, so everybody know that they don’t benifit from this from the SEs. It’s simply for the other users.
As a reader I find that the website name and/or URL intriguing sometimes. I’m going to go about hovering over everybody’s name just to see what their site is about. And like Brad said, for me (at least at first) it was not obvious that the name was the link.
Again, everything in moderation right? 3+ lines does seem excessive. But I don’t see the big deal with 1 or 2 lines with a short description and a URL.
Again, I’m taking a page out of Brad’s Book:
http://www.deletemyspam.com - basically on spam related issues. And yes, I will be doing an article about this.
Stuart Bruce
September 11th, 2005 2:16 am
I don’t include a signature but I have started to sometimes put “Stuart Bruce, PR Consultant” in the name field. Darren says “don’t most blog readers know that if they want to read more from a commenter that they just click their name?”. I think you’d be surprised how few do.
And that is one of the best things about blogs at the moment, they are becoming more mainstream and we’ve got to start making things easier for people. We’re all very short of time and a sig is a benefit to me as a reader, it gives me an extra clue as to if it is worth following the link.
If the comment is relevant and adds to the post then a sig is fine. It is a good example of how blogs are becoming more useful.
The test should be does is benefit your readers, don’t get precious about what it does for either you or the commenter.
LA
September 11th, 2005 3:25 am
it doesn’t bother me but it really bothers my regular readers. they always jump up to my defense and call out anyone who promotes their site in my comments. it’s kind of cool, actually.
Elisa Camahort
September 11th, 2005 3:48 am
I don’t have a problem with sigs, as long as, as everyone agrees, the comment is for real. In fact, I find it surprising you have an issue, Darren. I mean if you were a personal blogger, I might understand this concern for pure and promotion-free commenting. But you host a business blog, full of ads and self-promotional posts and links. It’s a very uni-directonal attitude.
Plus I was going to say exactly what Brad already said here:
“And sorry, it is NOT clear, or even intuitive to everyone that the poster’s name is a link back to their site. To the blogsphere majority maybe, but that’s a small percentage of the entire internet, especially if you get a lot of newbie SE traffic.”
The Y Logs - Writing, books, stories » Blog Archive » What About Signatures in Blog Comments?
September 11th, 2005 3:53 am
[…] Here’s an interesting post—wielding quite an amount of questions— that I picked on Darren’s blog: signatures in blog comments. […]
HART
September 11th, 2005 4:09 am
This “rel=nofollow” was complete news to me, and I see it on all my blogs. I’m actually disappointed that it’s defaulting this way and hidden in the wordpress templates instead of an option. I have to read up on this.
Gone Away
September 11th, 2005 8:34 am
Is it safe to come out now? Darren’s anti-spam program hates me anyway so I wouldn’t dare leave a signature on the end of a comment. As it is, the only way I can open my mouth here is to put my pointer blogspot (spit) blog in the website field. But it does lead to problems when I have a legitimate and relevant post to point to regarding something that Darren posts - as in the recent series on better blogging. I know if I put the link in the comment, the anti-spam will pounce on it - so what do I do?
Darren Rowse
September 11th, 2005 9:27 am
Brad - thanks for your comment. I am sorry this rubbed you up the wrong way. It’s not my intention to anger people - rather my intention was to start a discussion to see what people think on this issue. As I said in my initial post I feel torn by this.
As far as I can tell - signatures in comments is a pretty new development, I’ve only started getting them in the last month or two and so as a new phenomenum I thought it’d be good to have a discussion on them.
As a result of the discussion I’m starting to see that perhaps I’ve been wrong in my opinion on signatures in comments. I’m still not won over - but I can see some arguements for why they might be legitimate.
However I’m not convinced completely and am still uncomfortable with them for a number of reasons. One of these reasons is that I wonder where this will all end up? Comment Signatures are a pretty new thing as far as I can tell - or at least they are only just starting to be more widely used. My concern is that if they continue to be used that we’ll begin to see more and more elaborate signatures that actually have the potential to take something away from the blog posts that they appear on. We’ve probably all see discussion forums where participants have used all kinds of ugly tactics to highlight their signatures including colours, pictures, >>>>>>>##### FORMATTING######Do you consider tasteful text signatures in forums to be spam too?? - I don’t have a problem with this in forums if the forum participants add their signature in accordance with the rules for doing so. Forums have an inbuilt method for leaving signatures and if people use this then that’s fine. Blogs are a different medium and perhaps its not good to compare them - but if we do they too have an in built method for leaving a URL which I always thought was the acceptable way of highlighting your own blog.
- Do you consider signatures at the end of free articles spam? - No - again it’s a different medium and again signatures at the end of free articles are a widely acceptable thing - the difference between them and blog comment signatures is that the blogger using the free article has control over whether they post the article and thereby the link where as in comments they don’t.
- When someone replies to your email and has a sig file, is that Spam?? - Of course not. This is probably the point you make which is closest to blog comments and is most convincing to me - however my main reaction is that the difference is that a blog is someone else’s property. If they’ve given you a way to leave a link and then you take things one step further and leave another is this overstepping the mark? My approach to leaving comments on blogs is that I’m visiting someone else’s property and that I need to be a good guest. This means using their blog in the way its designed to be used - if I don’t I run the risk of angering them and ending a potential blog buddy friendship.
As I say above - I’m moving in my position on comment signatures but I remain unconvinced to this point. I’m enjoying the discussion and am open to being moved further by someone who has a great argument as to why comment signatures are a necessary and should be allowed on blogs.
Nick
September 11th, 2005 11:16 am
I usually remove signature links in comments on my blogs. After all, that’s why there is a field for someone to put in their URL.
I agree with some of the others about the nofollow tag. It does absolutely nothing to stop spam and it hurts legitimate commenters. Still don’t understand why it’s turned on by default in WP, but I guess that’s why we have plugins.
Paul Short
September 11th, 2005 1:40 pm
Hi all, it’s me again. Here’s something no one seems to have mentioned yet: I own about a dozen blogs and just spent the past 40 minutes or so moderating out a rash of autosubmitted comments, all of which appear to be coming from actual people.
These comments are a sentence or two long and contain one or two urls and links at the end, just like if they were sigs.
If this keeps up like it’s been for the last 2-3 days I will have to set my automatic comment moderation a little higher to automatically blackhole any comments containing links within the body of the actual comment itself, which means comments containing sigs will go too.
Now, here’s something I’ve said before and will say again: If you are genuinely interested in a blog enough to comment and contribute to the conversation you are welcome to do so on my blogs with open arms. If you don’t comment because you’re not getting the promotion, other than what’s provided in the comment form where you’re url and name is linked, don’t comment at all.
Want to advertise on my blogs? You can buy an ad.
Got something to contribute? Your contribution is welcome and you get the free link.
Steve Johnson
September 11th, 2005 2:22 pm
Linking is what makes the web. So what if someone is trying to get traffic? If you have a good website, with good content, what you are concerned about?
Mike Sigers
September 11th, 2005 2:26 pm
I’ll add some more fuel to the fire.
If it’s a commercial blog, it’s the same as the business I work in offline.
If you’re gonna sell a product, advertising or a service, you’re gonna have to deal with ” dog ” customer’s, as we call them.
My friend Paul say’s he just spent 40 minutes getting rid of ” dog ” tracks, well, I spend more than that EVERY day, not once in a while, EVERY day, on ” dogs “. It’s part of the ” cost of doing business “.
Would I be more productive without them ? Absolutely. Can I rid the world of them ? Absolutely not. So I deal with them as best I can and try to learn a lesson or two, when I can.
You can set your defenses to cull as many ” customers ” as you want, but if you do it to the point of running away ALL of them, or even MOST of them, it won’t really matter how ” clean ” your blog is.
I fight every day with my customer service reps and those that answer the phones, reminding them that without those people on the other end, we have no reason to come to the office.
I don’t want to deal with this either, but it’s simply part of being a business versus being an hourly employee.
Can you still make a living, while culling out the ” dogs ” ? I hope so, because it seems that this will be the next problematic part of allowing comments.
Comments are people, too. Remember that. Think about it. People. The kind of people who buy, click, subscribe, etc.
Paul Short
September 11th, 2005 2:37 pm
Unfortunately Mike, some of the ‘People’ commenting on my blogs lately have been using autosubmission software.
Also, it’s not 40 minutes once in a while, it’s a constant bombardment, 24 hours a day. In the past 24 hours, I’ve deleted about 350-400 ‘customer’ comments and my stats aren’t showing any extra pageviews, or extra ad revenue, or contributions to the conversation over there.
Real people are welcome to comment on my blogs. Always have been.
Christian Connett
September 11th, 2005 2:57 pm
Alright, I have to comment again…
To highlight, I have, and do, place at least my name and designation in my comment posts. This is simply to highlight WHO had left the post. As you look at comments in posts, many people use psuedonames, as opposed to their real names. I always use my real name. I fell that a signature is a great way to reveal, even if seemingly redundant) WHO left the post. Call it self promotion or whatever.
I do agree that maybe a link in the comment is not necessary, simply because the name is linked, but I believe that leaving your name is simply a sign of integrity, that YOU YOURSELF left that comment, so the whole world can see that Christian Connett left the comment, not - j8675309 -
I do not have anything against psuedonames, but I leave my name to make the statement, that I proudly, and honorably left that comment.
Maybe the point about leaving a URL is a valid one as well. I began ReciprocityBlog.com to promote OTHER blogs. Not just my own. Yes, I have AdSense and Amazon on there, so don’t click them… I want to spotlight influential blogs, and I would hope the receive a reciprocal link back to ReciprocityBlog ( notice I left out the.com that time)…
Reciprocation is a great thing, until it gets abused. We simply have to monitor our Blogs, and maybe define a ‘Comment Standard’ that states, you get a TWO LINE signature, your name, your web address, that’s it. Maybe even SHOW the link WITHOUT an A HREF…?
Just thoughts for the masses.
To forward thinking…
J Christian Connett, CPM
Ben Helps
September 11th, 2005 4:01 pm
Hmm, just another 2c.
A few people have been mentioning that to the uninformed it would not be obvious that one’s name is a clickable link.
Now while there are undoubtedly people who do not realise what it means to “click” on something, for those a little more advanced the traditional link format is an *underlined* word/phrase. *hint*hint*
A quick google search’n’sift gives this article, which I tend to agree with, although I’m less fussed with links being standard colours all the time.
Poll of the Week - Signatures in Blog Comments?: Blog Tips - enternetusers
September 11th, 2005 4:05 pm
[…] Poll of the Week Should Comment Signatures be Allowed? Yes No Undecided […]
Lea
September 11th, 2005 4:05 pm
I must say, this is tempting me to write a hack for wordpress to allow a fourth field for the poster - URL label.
So the comment poster will be able to supply
- commment
- name
- url
- label for url
This does several things:
- allows people to include a more meaningful label for their link
- restricts that link to a single line, so it doesn’t become overkill
- encourages to use of meaningful links.
To my mind, my name does not add anything to the link to my various blogs, but I’d still like my name on my comment. Posting an appropriately named link to my blog does me more good and is better for the potential click through; they have a better idea of what is on the other side.
IMHO
Anon E. Mouse
September 11th, 2005 9:22 pm
Anon-e-mouse because I don’t want to inflame a flame war. But I have to say it.
Adults share. The complaint is trivial. I think y’all should stop behaving like children.
If it bugs you, disable comments. See what happens to your traffic when you prevent people from leaving their effort and valuable contributions on your site.
It’s just a blog.
Mike Sigers
September 12th, 2005 12:27 am
Paul,
I’m not saying I’m right, just offering an angle that might not get voiced.
I feel your pain, my friend, but I’m always looking at things from the standpoint of sales and customer service.
Doesn’t make me right, I don’t have a solution ( now I do, see the end of this post ) and I’m not looking forward to fighting this battle, when my turn comes. I just don’t want people to jump into stopping the interaction, which they need, without thinking about it from several angles.
A LOT of the people who read Darren’s comments, which is what even the original post is, will blindly do whatever he says, without even thinking. It’s human nature to follow a leader, it’s not like he’s doing anything wrong. They look for people to tell them what to do and will do it without thought.
As for them using auto-submission software, well, people will ruin everything, given the chance. They always have and always will. You can’t have a business without idiots getting in your way.
Why don’t we have a plugin for WP that makes people copy the image from a box to the form before they can submit their comment ? Wouldn’t that stop the auto-submission ?
Can you come up with that before my blogs get bombarded ?
I don’t want to go thru this hell, if I don’t have to.
Mike Sigers
September 12th, 2005 12:35 am
Gee,
I just submitted the above comment and had to get my comment approved by the old image in a box trick.
Darren will not have any auto-submission problems and neither will you or I when he tells us how or what he used to do that.
Thanks for thinking along the same lines, Darren. Makes me feel almost Austrailian !
Mark Wade
September 12th, 2005 12:50 am
Darren et al,
And this is just my 2 cents… because of what happened with Aaron Wall, I decided to take a suggestion.
Make a decision about how you’ll allow comments, post a permanent comments disclaimer. A policy. Make it clear, concise and to the point. And then be firm, fair and consistent with it.
Something like the sign at the front door of a retail establishment - No Food or Drink etc. That is their policy. Unmistakable.
A customer who cannot comply with a store’s policy isn’t much of a valued customer. A reader who cannot comply with your policy isn’t that valued a reader.
Other customers see that you value their business and respect yourself. When you respect yourself you’ll earn the respect of others and those that don’t respect you, well, they have a problem and its not your problem.
Mark
Darren Rowse
September 12th, 2005 12:52 am
I use the ‘Spam Karma 2′ plugin which if it considers a comment suspect for some reason (many factors are considered) it gives the commenter a chance to prove their comment to be not spam by solving a captcha (the image thing you refer to).
raj
September 12th, 2005 8:41 am
Personally, I don’t mind a comment sig. But lately, several of my blogs are getting spam comments. (Maybe it has something to do with being on blogger.com.) They’ll usually be something like “Awesome blog! I have an awesome blog too. It’s at …”. Sorry, but your comment, if it’s legitimate, is presumably about a particular posting or even an entire blog. It’s NOT a vehicle to tell people how great your own blog is (most of the links end up being splogs). But if you leave a link, I’ll go visit your site and decide for myself whether your blog is “also awesome”. Presumably, readers of my blog(s) will see your comment, maybe link, and decide for themselves.
Since these could potentially be innocent comments, I gauge whether they are so by what kind of blog the commentor has. Who the heck am I to do that? Well, i’s usually pretty obvious whether a blog is a legitimate blog or a splog.
The most brazen commenter left a long list of hyperlinks to their own sites. This list must have been 3 or 4 browser screens. Wow. The sheer gonads some people have. I AM an opinionated S.O.B. (though still open-minded), but I believe in some etiquette and decorum.
raj
Michael Moncur
September 12th, 2005 9:26 am
Mark Wade (#60 above) pegged what I think is the only answer to this:
Allow signatures, or don’t allow them, but the important thing is to have a clear policy one way or the other. Then you’re not emailing people to ask them to stop doing something they had no idea was wrong—it’s either right or wrong, and if the policy is made clear, most people will obey it.
I think it’s bound to happen from time to time since some people spend time in communities (message boards, email lists) where signatures are commonplace and encouraged.
HeartlandOutdoorsman.Com
September 12th, 2005 9:42 am
I’ve never had a problem with links, and allow them in our forum signatures.
My Blog doesn’t typically generate many comments- si it isn’t an issue.
It really is in issue of whether the comments are big part of your site’s draw.
In a forum, it is my belief that the more people post, the more they get their sig link viewed.
The more they post, the more content we get.
Oh- and the fact that nobody can be everything to everyone.
Links are what makes the internet what it is.
If, for instance, Darren was the only one doing this shtick then I’d have no need for a favorites button…HA
Granted, this site is at the top and in bold with flashing arrows and auto-generated on roll-over- but hey, we all need a little diversity in our lives.
Besides, we don’t need to create a signature in a comment box that doesn’t have one- our usernames serve that purpose just fine, and I’ve seen some very good sites becuase of it.
Go ahead- test mine to see how it works! ; )
LOL!!
Phillip Molly Malone
September 12th, 2005 9:59 am
I know myself I have done it in the past, and I can confirm that Darren did write a very polite email asking me to stop doing it for his blog (which I have). Personally I do it as I don’t want to have to remember which blogs have it where your blog address is in the title and those it isn’t. I find it easier just to add it to the bottom of the email and be done with.
If people have a problem with that, and ask me nicely to not do it anymore, thats fine by me.
JMTC
Molly
Martin (HomeOfficeVoice)
September 12th, 2005 1:50 pm
I see it this way: I want to participtate at a good, quality blog like enternetusers (as well as a handful of others). I do this by commenting not on every post Darren makes but ones that I’m interested in. Hopefully people will see over time that I make useful comments and not just “Me Too” ones - I actually try to add my 2 cents worth.
And, as well, I see it as branding myself. As you see I use - Martin (HomeOfficeVoice) - in the name field. People can either click on it or hopefully remember my brand name.
BTW, Darren, what’s your view on how I use the name field as I do - it’s your blog so out of respect I’d be willing to change.
Having a sig, I’m with Darren here a little. I can see it getting out of hand pretty quickly. Can you imagine the “Me Too” or one line comments just so a sig shows up.
But then, the last thing you want to do is to turn people away. If you over-regulate then poeple might get shitty and just leave. There has to be a little give-and-take here. We’re here to comment on a post (add our 2 cents worth) but we are also here to promote ourselves, lets not beat around the bush here … it’s a win/win for all: Darren gets the accolades of having this extremely popular blog (as seen by the constant commenting) and we get our 15 seconds of comment fame.
I’d say lets give the sig thing a try but only 2 lines: the URL and a one line tag.
Andy Beard
September 13th, 2005 1:08 am
Hi Darren
What an interesting read.
I have a few thoughts that will stir up the conversation a little
From what I have seen, the blackhat SEO guys who are doing the most obnoxious spam, are targetting the most successful blogs, with the best traffic and PR. It is a major problem for you, and I fully respect that. You also attract a lot of people who pop by your blog to leave a short comment almost daily, just to get a backlink.
Now for some time I have been monitoring the results of one marketing guy, using some automated comment software. It doesn’t target Wordpress at all, just Blogger.
I was doing it to learn a little about SEO, but I had absolutely no intention of using the software. I look on myself as an ethical blogger, even though some of my blogs are commercial, though many bloggers see any blog carrying an advert as polution.
Over the weeks, I saw increasing good results on Yahoo. Lesser so on MSN and Google, and it made me think.
The more I saw success the more I thought about a way to use such a piece of software in an ethical way.
You see it doesn’t just post a comment, it also pings the blog, thus keeping it fresh in the eyes of the search engines.
Because of the way that the person was using it, and the quality of his copywriting, bloggers were not deleting his posts, they were engaging him in conversation, and whilst the first post was automated, he followed thorugh with manual comments on those blogs that proved to be Active.
But I still wasn’t convinced it is something I would use.
Once there was finally proof that it could work on Google and MSN too, I had serious sleepless nights thinking of a way this could be used ethically.
Recently I posted one possible solution on my niche website blog, and since then I have been discussing it on Warrior Forum fairly extensively.
Whilst some people think of this as 100% blackhat, I was still hovering in the grey area. It was enough for me to write about it on my blog, and I made clear it was not for people purely with the intention of spamming. Everything is down to how it is used, it is just a tool after all.
You see here is my problem. I have some of my blogs hosted on Blogspot.
We all know that Blogspot offers very little in the way of features compared to Wordpress. You have no easy control of linking, no facility for contact forms etc.
I also thought if I was going to undertake a linking strategy with other blogs, I would do it in a similar way to submitting articles manually.
Pre-prepare some comments which are fairly generic, maybe even specific questions that would be suitable to ask on 20 or 30 expert blogs, and then use a set of bookmarks to visit the blogs and post comments.
At the same time I would encourage people to come and comment on my own blog.
I then argued that if what you did was then automated, there could be potentially an ethical method of doing it.
Now during the discussions on Warrior forum, it has been a fairly productive brainstorming session. That can happen during a prolonged discussion on a forum. It sparks all kinds of things in your head.
If I was to approach a link exchange with a Blogger hosting on blogsite, most likely the only form of contact available would be the comments.
So if I manually wrote the following in a comment, I would deem it ethical to make the following post.
“Would you like to swap links? Just post a comment somewhere on my blog, I won’t delete it, take care, Andy”
But I like to automate my business a little if I can, just like people use mail-merge in their autoresponders. We all know that the “Dear Andy” is automated, but we don’t mind, and it attracts our attention nontheless.
Thus if I used an automated tool to post the exact same comment to 20 or 30 blogs per day would that be ethical.
Remember you are using the preferred method of contact on the blogs. There are Captchas on email acconts now too remember - people then just don’t receive emails from your autoresponder that they requested.
So now we are getting to the whiter side of grey.
Ah but, they often will get more benefit than I do, my blog is PR4 and gaining, and I am using Haloscan which doesn’t have NO FOLLOW, so they get a greater benefit from the link on all search engines.
Even more so, I am pinging their blog after the comment, so if it had been dormant, it suddenly gets brought to life a little.
Now this still isn’t 100% resolved in my own mind. In the discussions people are still claiming that even a comment asking for a link exchange is “defacing blogs”.
What gets interesting is that my blog post is now 2 days old.
I used Technorati tags such as “splogging , blog spam , blogging , blogger” - I wanted people interested to read it and respond.
I haven’t yet received a single comment on the post, despite close to 200 visitors.
I am starting to draw some aditional conclusions from that. The average blogger whose blog is only read by a few people might actually welcome many of the comments, and might jump at a chance to exchange comments.
Maybe the professional blogging community is feeding their own fire. This is a problem for them, in the minority, and it could be said that is a penalty for success. Most are technical enough to at least install a plug-in that can help manage the spam.
So the pro-bloggers and seo experts are fighting it out with the blackhats, and the little guys are left with noone reading their blog.
Can proposing cross commenting be looked on as ethical?
If it can, then for a little guy to automate it might also be just as ethical
Hmm that is a long comment, I hope it gets through the filters
Take care
Andy
Angela
September 13th, 2005 2:45 am
Hi Darren ~
Earlier in this thread you stated:
“Nice process Angela.
the other thing to factor in is that too many outbound links can actually have a detrimental impact upon your blog’s rank in Search engines….probably not a problem for most of us with small amounts of comments on blogs - but maybe it has an impact….
maybe I am clutching at straws and should just let readers do what they want. :-)”
You are right ~ too many irrelevant outbound links can have a negative impact on your blog’s rank in Search Engines… but you have to remember that’s only part of the equation. There are so many other things that factor into the rank and in your case ~ I don’t think you have too much to worry about because you are clearly well established and have something good to offer.
On the other hand I do not feel you are clutching at straws and I don’t believe for a second you should just let readers do whatever they want to. You maintain and operate credible sites and if you allow them to become inundated with spammers, snake oil salesmen OR folks out to “self promote” at your expense then you may actually work at alienating good people that don’t want to wade through the mess.
What I do not understand is why people are not satisfied with the options that are given to them when they sign up on this site to leave a comment. Each person gets to fill out their name, e-mail address, and url of their own choosing. Why isn’t this enough?
Tyler
September 13th, 2005 3:25 am
Perhaps you should change the way your comments display:
68. Tyler (http://example.com) says
….
Displaying the URL (linked or not) would help those who don’t realize the name is a link. While it doesn’t ‘personalize’ the link with a targeted description it might be a sufficient compromise to signatures.
Tom Hanna
September 13th, 2005 6:34 pm
In email, forums, even the rabidly anti-commercial USENET newsgroups, having your URL in your signature has always been considered perfectly acceptable. My first experience with blogs left me wondering why no one used a signature in comments, though I did have the good sense to mostly refrain from commenting until I had a grasp of the medium. (It does seem a bit ironic that a blatantly pro-business website would be more anti-signature than the blatantly anti-commercial folks on USENET.)
For those coming from any of those other venues or even new to the internet completely, a signature URL is intuitive for the reader. Clicking on someone’s name when you see “Darren says…” is not intuitive. And since it’s for the readers and not the search engines, what’s intuitive for readers is what’s important.
Tom Hanna
September 13th, 2005 6:43 pm
Another minor point. Because the “website” form field in WordPress by default isn’t long enough to see the whole URL and because both Firefox and Internet Explorer autofill form fields, I keep leaving an RSS feed in the form by mistake. I would venture to say that I’ve probably been careless and left an address of someone else’s blog in comments on occasion at various places for that reason.
I could actually read a signature and see that I wasn’t doing that. :)
Leaving the Perfect Comment - OptiNiche: WordPress Optimization Blog
September 16th, 2005 12:55 pm
[…] I’ve been following the debate recently over using signatures in blogs and I’ve come to the following conclusion. […]
Thinking Home Business
September 16th, 2005 4:15 pm
Aussie bloggers roundup
In his state of Australian blogging post, Trevor Cook has produced what looks to me like an excellent overview of the Australian blogosphere. There are links to a number of notable bloggers and some great comments.
Entrepreneur's Journey
September 17th, 2005 3:30 pm
SEO Myth Busting - Does Rank Leak Exist And Are We Suffering From PageRank Paranoia?
Rank leak is an often speculated, rarely proven concept within the search engine optimization community. The premise is that if you load a page with too many outgoing links you will lower the PageRank of that page. It is a reasonable conclusion given …
Entrepreneur’s Journey » SEO Myth Busting - Does Rank Leak Exist And Are We Suffering From PageRank Paranoia?
September 17th, 2005 3:39 pm
[…] I believe speculation on things like rank leak is symptomatic of a problem within the SEO industry, and I certainly exhibit signs of the illness myself. I call this problem PageRank Paranoia - an obsessive compulsive disorder where webmasters pay so much attention to their PageRank and search engine optimization practices that they become paranoid and overwhelmed, paralysing their decision process. I understand there is a need for anti-SPAM measures and we all know that good SEO practices lead to a better performing website, but when people start to question every little link placed on a page I think there is a problem. Campaigns like the no nofollow and enternetusers Darren’s recent discussion of signatures in blog comments are further evidence of this potential epidemic. I am not saying that we shouldn’t be discussing the matters, but perhaps taking a step back and evaluating how much time we spend on certain activities is in order. […]
Fotki
September 29th, 2005 6:09 am
Signatures are ok if they are little and haven`t many links
Game Guy
September 29th, 2005 9:20 pm
I think that all aboth guys are said is true!
enternetusers Comments Policy: Blog Tips at enternetusers
November 3rd, 2005 10:58 am
[…] 1. I love comments on this blog - they are as important as anything I write myself. They add to the knowledge and community that we have here. If you want to comment then you’re more than welcome - whether you feel you are a beginner or an expert - feel free to have you say. 2. I delete spam - I have spam filters in place which automatically catch the majority of automated spam comments. I don’t put up with it and if any slip through the filters I delete it immediately. 3. Relevant links in comments are encouraged - if you’re leaving a comment on my blogs and want to point to a link on your own or someone else’s site that is relevant to the topic then please feel free to do so. This adds to the conversation and improves the blog. 4. Irrelevant links are not encouraged - if you leave a comment with a link in it that has no relevance to the post you’re commenting on it will be deleted. This is a trend that I see happening increasingly on this blog. If you really want to annoy me then the way to do it is to do this on multiple posts. If you engage in this practice I would encourage you to think about the impact that such an approach has upon your reputation. Build your blog’s profile through genuine interactions and participation in the community here by all means - but spammy linking in comments could do more damage to your reputation than it is worth. 5. I allow signatures in comments - we had a debate over this a few months ago. My gut reaction to signatures in comments is that I don’t really see the need for them and see them as verging on the spammy end of comments. However after seeing the debate that came out of expressing this opinion I decided not to delete comments with signatures as long as the comments were relevant and added something to the conversation. ie if you write a comment that says ‘nice’ or ‘good post’ or ‘great blog’ or ‘try viagra’ and then leave a signature on your comment then it could well be deleted. […]
Des Walsh
November 23rd, 2005 10:39 am
I meant to comment on this item way back when, but I seem somehow to have posted another comment, irrelevant to this discussion, for which I apologize.
Fascinating discussion, especially in what it shows about various assumptions about what the blogosphere is or should be, what annoys some people intensely and washes over others.
I actually like the idea of people being able to visit the blog of a commenter - any other attitude in my view indicates a disengagement from the concept of the blogosphere as a conversation.
I hink multiline sigs are inappropriate for blog comments but it seems to me we have a category problem here, in lumping in a linked url with a multi-line sig. And there is an underlying assumption which is contradicted by the system on at least one blogging platform, and maybe on others.
On Blogware which I and many others use through one or other reseller such as BlogHarbor, the link from the commenter’s name is not directed to the commenter’s url. It actually links the name to the commenter’s *profile* which they had the opportunity to complete - and include their url - when they opened a reader account or blogger account for Blogware sites. And guess what, not everyone completes their profile!
So I actually get frustrated for the commenter, especially when that person is a more dedicated blogger, when there is no way for me or my readers to find out who they are or where their blog is. So I am in the process of posting a request to people to *include* a url if they don’t want to go to the trouble of filling out their profile.
BlogHarbor are looking at whether there is a better way to manage all this.
Even so, I do not feel that the link from the commenter’s name is intuitively evident to the reader new to the world of blogging. Steve Krug wrote a great book about web design, called Don’t Make Me Think. I’m all for making it simple for people to follow through and not have to think about some insider knowledge about blog navigation. And if it is one of those “Awesome blog! Like mine at ….” I have a delete key which I use without compunction.
Thinking Home Business
November 23rd, 2005 10:59 am
Help Me to Help You: Leave a URL Link in Your Comments
I’d be surprised to find a blogger who doesn’t like the idea of someone finding their site via a link …
david
December 26th, 2005 12:41 pm
Sorry, but your comment, if it’s legitimate, is presumably about a particular posting or even an entire blog. It’s NOT a vehicle to tell people how great your own blog is (most of the links end up being splogs)
Will Barrette
January 7th, surf zone.8:20 pm
A LOT of the people who read Darren’s comments, which is what even the original post is, will blindly do whatever he says, without even thinking. It’s human nature to follow a leader, it’s not like he’s doing anything wrong. They look for people to tell them what to do and will do it without thought.
Des Walsh
January 8th, surf zone.2:37 pm
I thought the comment from “David” on 26th December might refer to my comments, so wondered who “David” might be - when I clicked on his linked name I found an online pills store with a picture of a pleasant looking man in a white coat but no indication of a blog or of whether the man in the white coat might be David :) No doubt “David” has a curious sense of humour? Or is it just comment spam? Darren?
Darren Rowse
January 8th, surf zone.5:03 pm
very amusing - not sure who David is - but I’m happy to leave the link mainly because his comment is relevant to the post. odd link to link to but in the scheme of things not too much of a worry to me as I have no follow tags in comments anyway.
mark catanzareti
January 10th, surf zone.1:52 pm
I think people shouldn’t be allowed to promote their own blogs simply by replying to similarly related blogs. If they have a non blog site, then they should be able to leave that link for their efforts in responding to your topic, as long as the response addresses the topic.
Mark C.
smith
May 15th, surf zone.5:03 pm
The bottom line is that I am feeling re-energized about blogging, more focused, and I am looking forward to the remainder of the month in this makeover process. At the end of that month, I am confident that I’ll know how to make my blog sizzle “ and I’ll proudly display that Blog Squad seal of approval!.
thanks
jo
January 27th, 2007 1:54 pm
I think people shouldn?t be allowed to promote their own blogs simply by replying to similarly related blogs. If they have
a non blog site, then they should be able to leave that link for their efforts in responding to your topic, as long as the
response addresses the topic.
costco
March 11th, 2007 8:18 am
Your website is beautifully decorated and easily navigated. I have enjoyed visiting this site today and hope to visit many more times in the future.
RadicalAndrew
March 14th, 2007 6:18 am
Will Memphis win it all? I doubt it. My money is going on Georgetown, Texas, or Kansas. But ya never know..
Somebody could come up and win it all from nowhere. But please enough of Florida already!
Shakopee
June 23rd, 2007 9:37 pm
I bet a lot of them don’t know about nofollow tags, so they just think they’re creating a bunch of backlinks.
Snoskred
August 10th, 2007 5:28 pm
Darren said - don’t most blog readers know that if they want to read more from a commenter that they just click their name?
No. Many blog readers don’t know that. I agree with a lot of the previous comment leavers who said it’s not intuitive, it’s not spelled out anywhere, and bloggers new to blogging aren’t going to know that, just like they’re not going to know a multitude of things we’ve all learnt and are still learning.
Also a lot of bloggers on “blogger” who comment, the link to their name leads to their profile if they are logged in to google when they comment. Considering I read blogs with google reader, I’m always logged into google when I’m commenting. ;) So I got into the habit of leaving a little cut and paste signature with my name and a link to my blog. People can copy and paste it if they want to, it doesn’t get turned into a link by blogger. I don’t use ahref to do it because some blogs don’t allow that.
At first most of the blogs I read were on blogger, but as I’ve branched out I’ve begun to read wordpress blogs, typepad blogs, blogs from many different platforms. Some of them were treating my comments as spam (akismet seems to be the major culprit) simply because of my signature.
Then I became a part of the no follow movement, and found out that some wordpress bloggers did not like me leaving the links because they were using akismet and it put me in the spam bin and they had to go to all the effort of digging me out. I felt like I needed to give them a tissue, just so they could get over it. ;) And guess what, I don’t visit those blogs or leave comments on them anymore.
I have now stopped putting the little link under my signature and I noticed an interesting thing - the search term snoskred has become the number one way people are finding my blog. I feel terrible that people have to google me to find my blog and wish I could go back to leaving that signature block on all blogs again.
It’s difficult for a blogger like me. It’s such a slap in the face when someone thinks I’m a spammer, I was just doing what I thought made sense. I even wrote a little thing about it and put it on my sidebar.
So just in case anyone is looking for me, you can find me at www dot snoskred dot org - and maybe that is the better solution for me long term. Nobody can accuse me of trying to get a link or be a spammer if I use that, right?
I won’t be surprised if I’m wrong on that one, too. :(
Snoskred.
Leave a Reply