Written on July 9th, 2007 at 09:07 pm by Darren Rowse
Buy Blog Comments – A Sick New Comment Spam Service Launches
I just had a rather disturbing email from a company advertising a new service called Buy Blog Comments (no follow tags used) promoting a new service offering to leave comment spam on blogs for those wanting to increase their SEO ranking.
The service offers to leave spam comments at a rate of 100 comments for $19.99, 500 comments for $99.99 and 1000 comments for $199.99.
They explain their service like this:
“Blog comments help your site rank better in the SERPs. We hired a few people who go through a list of blogs in a database we set up and pick out blogs that are in your niche. They then read through blog posts and leave a comment that has to do with the blog post they read, that way it wont get deleted. Your backlink will then be on a targeted blog, giving you more weight in the search engines. ”
The person behind the service is a guy called Jon Waraas (Jonwaraas.com) – a guy who owns a company called Developer Hut and a blog network called BuzzBums.
I think it’s one of the worst business ideas I’ve heard for a long time and something that bloggers should stand up against. I know that there are other services and tools that do this type of comment spam but this type of thing only weakens blogging.
I know that some comment spammers have done OK out of the practice but in most cases that I’ve heard about they don’t just leave a few hundred comment spams, they leave tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of them. I’ve also heard from a couple of people who know comment spammers that it’s becoming less and less effective as more bloggers use tools like Akismet and as so many bloggers use no follow tags in their comments sections.
Those buying such a service would also risk some potential downsides if they are caught out. I know I add anyone spamming my blogs to Akismets blacklist and have been known to expose companies who do it. Perhaps it’s time that bloggers stood up a little more aggressive to such blatant attacks?
I’d like to hear from those with a legal background comment on the legality of such a business. I know that of late spammers have been getting taken to court for sending unsolicited emails – I’d be interested to know what the legal standing would be of a company who so openly offers to leave spam comments on someone else’s web property.
Update: Comments have been closed on this post.
204 Responses to “Buy Blog Comments – A Sick New Comment Spam Service Launches” - Add Yours
Alister Cameron // Blogologist
July 9th, 2007 10:07 pm
Here here, Darren.
I think there are valid ways to outsource some aspects of our “social media marketing” but this is definitely not one of them.
And with this guy, you have to imagine that at $20 for 100 comments… it’s either automated (yuk city) or it’s outsourced to a “mechanical turk”-like human-monkey system in some third-world country… either way no good at all.
I notice that on my blog some people manage to “manually” get through my “captcha”-style spam blocker, and yet the content is still so completely spammy, you wonder why they bothered!
I just don’t get it.
-Alister
tejvan
July 9th, 2007 10:07 pm
I guess there will always be some people will think it is money worth spending. But I doubt the comments left will be of any decent quality. The problem is it might be difficult to distinguish between legitimate comments and “paid for comments”
Jason
July 9th, 2007 10:09 pm
That’s pretty sorry if you ask me.
No follow, huh… I’m going to have to research that.
BlueSheep
July 9th, 2007 10:20 pm
I use to work as a shop-asistent in an art-galerry and i was surprised to se that everything with a price eventualy fit for a buyer. it is just a matter of time to find each-other. it may probably work, i’m shure the guy will find some clients. sad !
( pls excuse my english, i’m not very good at it )
vijay
July 9th, 2007 10:23 pm
Daren,
By reading your first 2-3 paras I thought that you are doing some kind of marketing of such a spam comment idea.
But when i read the line “I think it’s one of the worst business ideas I’ve heard” then this discussion took a quick turn!
I am always against such a spammers whichever the way you get spammed.
Lets help Daren to burry monkey spammers before they spread and poise whole blogosphere!
Hate spam and spammers!
MillionDollarJourney.com
July 9th, 2007 10:38 pm
Looks like my Spam Karma 2 plugin is going to face more spams! For those of you trying to fight spam on your blog, I find Spam Karma 2 to be much more effective than Akismet.
FT
Mike Goad
July 9th, 2007 10:41 pm
The comment quality would have to be really good for it not to be recognized as spam. For the prices quoted, it may actually rise above the normal level of comment spam, especially if they’re hiring third-world spammers with some education.
I looked at the guy’s blog. He is definitely not a nice guy.
Jon Waraas
July 9th, 2007 10:45 pm
The quality will be great. You wont even know its a paid comment. Hell this could even be one…
Mike – Im a nice guy.. Im just not very ethical..
Meg
July 9th, 2007 10:45 pm
I don’t have any input on the legalities, but that’s bad news – definitely bad karma. Thanks for the warning.
Chris Cree
July 9th, 2007 10:47 pm
I wonder how the folks at Google would feel about a business that’s primary function is spamming. I bet they might just come up with an effective “solution”, especially since the primary intention of the business is to game their search results.
Terra Andersen
July 9th, 2007 10:47 pm
Yup.. I’ve already gotten some of these blog spam comments from this company advertising for other companies. And so it starts…
Chris Cree
July 9th, 2007 10:55 pm
And the guy says right on his blog that it’s
Beyond dumb! I suspect folks will be reporting him to Google before too long.
Mark Boudreau
July 9th, 2007 10:57 pm
Wonderful! Another reason to consider turning comments off. I suppose this was inevitable but I will stick with legitimate comments on The Rock and Roll Report thank you very much. There might not be many of them but at least those who comment are actually reading the site.
Avinash
July 9th, 2007 10:58 pm
This has to be the worst black-search-marketing trick I’ve ever come across. Spam Promoter services like this must be banned ASAP.
Vijay Teach Me
July 9th, 2007 11:07 pm
Comments going on sale, Dude whats next, Only ppl using it will be totally out of sync of blogging.
Vijay
Patrick Altoft
July 9th, 2007 11:08 pm
I don’t know whats worse, the fact he is making a living from spamming blogs or the fact he is taking money for a service that has no chance in hell of actually working.
Its the same as people paying to submit to 500,000 search engines, total rubbish that gives legitimate internet marketers cold shivers.
I dugg this story to make people aware of it.
Simonne
July 9th, 2007 11:19 pm
I wouldn’t hire such services, because I don’t want my name to be linked with spam comments. I don’t imagine any serious blogger who would do that. This is rather a service for splogs, and at those prices, I can’t imagine there will be any good quality comments in the package. Too bad we will have some more spam to delete each morning (as if it was not enough already).
Barby
July 9th, 2007 11:28 pm
here’s a suggestion – lets all go over to Jon’s personal blog Jonwaraas.com and start leaving random comments on it promoting our sites.
ProBlogger has 25,000 or so readers…. if we all left 5 a day – that’s 125,000 per day…. or 45,625,000 per year.
Of course he has no-follow tags in his comments, but the section addressing that on ‘Buy Blog Comments’ says that that doesn’t really matter – so lets all go spam the sucker and see how he enjoys that process…..
Then lets start using a few other Black hat strategies (he seems to like those) to google bomb him with ’spammer’ and perhaps even start reporting him and his blog network to Google.
On a serious note – and I’m almost serious about the above, Jon’s just made a real mistake. He’s not only put himself in a legal predicament according to my lawyer husband, but he’s just destroyed his own personal brand and that of his other companies.
When anyone searches for Jon Waraas on Google in the future this post is going to come up – exposing him for the spammer that he is. His about page says he is only 20 years old – that leaves a long time to have a post like this coming up for a search for your name! Lets all link to this post with the words Jon Waraas. Perhaps that’s the better strategy.
Tim
July 9th, 2007 11:34 pm
Barby – that’s gold! Lets all link to this post with Jon Waraas as the anchor text!
Good idea on the Digging too. The link for it is here for anyone else wanting to join in.
J.S. Ranken
July 9th, 2007 11:37 pm
I agree completely, Darren.
But this (and much worse) is inevitable. I’ve been working online exclusively since 1982. Every income-generating idea, service, or product has eventually been gamed into either non-existence or total crap. Whether it was the simple functionality of “Chat” on the Source, or CB on CompuServe, or SIGs (later spun into “Forums,” and then into oblivion), or Usenet, or online auctions, the vultures descended and ultimately wrecked it for everyone but other vultures.
Blogging will soon become unprofitable for all but the spammers, the SEO-gamers, and perhaps a few media professionals (e.g., Arianna). The rest of us will move on to something else, and then something else, and then….
Because you’re a new guy — and one of the good ones, at that — I figured I’d hip you to The Way Things Work Online. :-)
SmallFuel Marketing Blog
July 9th, 2007 11:38 pm
The really unfortunate thing in my mind is that services like Akismet will have a harder and harder time automatically removing spam comments if there are spammers who are actually human.
If spam and actual human comments get any similar looking, we’re all going to have some trouble.
Good luck to all spam-fighters,
– Mason
Peter Cooper
July 9th, 2007 11:42 pm
Of course he has no-follow tags in his comments, but the section addressing that on ‘Buy Blog Comments’ says that that doesn’t really matter – so lets all go spam the sucker and see how he enjoys that process…..
Of course, vigilantism is far better than offering a service that people can choose whether or not to use.. not :)
It says on his site that “We try to not post comments on blogs with the nofollow tag on the sites” .. and you should be doing that already. If you have nofollow on your links, and if this guy’s comments are as high a quality as he claims, then even if it /does/ post on your blog, for a start it won’t matter, and secondly it might even resolve the “empty page” syndrome and provoke your other readers to comment.
What this guy’s suggesting is definitely shady, but it’s not the Web-destroying atom bomb most people here seem to think it is. Similar complaints were made about PayPerPost, TextLinkAds (which a lot of Problogger readers use!), and even Adwords back in the day. Just be prepared and then ignore these shady schemes and they’ll seem far less evil in a few months.
jhay
July 9th, 2007 11:43 pm
Definitely one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.
If they ever try this sick spamming service on my blog, I’ll definitely mark it as spam since I just moderated comments based mainly on the links they supply as their website.
Dave
July 9th, 2007 11:47 pm
How is this different from all of you that go and promote your blog on forums, in forum sigs etc?
How many of you went and looked at the actual website, not just his blog? If the comments contribute to the original post and at the same time bring a link back to your site, how is it different from you going and doing it yourself? Are you not spamming?
The point is, they are not called “blog spammers” they are a blog “commenting” service. They are leaving valid comments related to the post and joining them up with the blog post that they are “promoting”. My guess is that this is why the nofollow does not matter, as people reading the original blog post would be interested in the site linked from the “comment”.
We are not talking viagra and sex links here, we are talking about someone doing your commenting for you.
If the quality is high, and the comments are relevant, I think this will be an ace service as it helps you interact with bloggers. If it turns out to be a way to just blits a million blogs with a million crap sex links then he should be pushed to hell… but honestly, lets see some of the quality before we flame this guy?
I am REALLY suprised at this post from you today, totally out of character. You are normally fair and go with the “proof is in the pudding” method, but in this case you just went all out on this guy. Not nice considering the “weight” you have in the community.
I hate spam and spammers as much as the next person, but this guy could actually be providing a quality valuable time saving service. Perhaps you could engage in some direct discussion and pull up some examples before you spout off? :)
Dave
Darren Rowse
July 9th, 2007 11:50 pm
Peter Cooper – I think the difference between TLA and PPP is that they were something that blogger ran on their own blog and the blogger was compensated for it. This SEO strategy is something that bloggers have no real choice in – someone else decides to pay money to have their links appear on a site in an underhanded way. The middle man takes the cash that systems like TLA and PPP at least share with the bloggers.
While both are controversial – they are different in my mind.
Peter Cooper
July 9th, 2007 11:58 pm
Darren: You are right, but quite a few of the complaints here are about the black-hat SEO side of it, rather than the inconvenience of dealing with spam comments. TLA has just as much an SEO factor as this (probably more, since TLA goes on high PR pages, whereas blog comments are nearly always on low PR pages).
All that said, I get the impression the level of comments this guy’s company will generate will be a drop in the ocean compared to the many blog posts I find in search results nowadays with hundreds or thousands of unmoderated junk comments attached.. so I don’t think he’s anything to be too scared of, no matter how nefarious his scheme (this is starting to sound like a comic-book story, I know!)
Rhys
July 10th, 2007 12:00 am
I fear it could be a success. I run dofollow on my comments, but moderate every comment that comes in. If – like what Dave says – they do provide relevant comments, what’s to say I won’t get caught out?
I like the googlebombing his name. Only time will tell how successful he will be.
Darren Rowse
July 10th, 2007 12:02 am
Dave – good comments, however I think there is a difference.
Promoting links in forums signatures. As a forum owner I expect people to promote their link their signature. That’s why I enable the option. I’m willing for people to do that as a thank you for them participating in the forum. If I didn’t want them to do it I’d turn that feature off. I guess the difference is that the owner of the website allows it.
You write – “The point is, they are not called “blog spammers” they are a blog “commenting” service. They are leaving valid comments related to the post and joining them up with the blog post that they are “promoting”.”
Sure they call themselves a commenting service – but they also point out that they are offering the service to black hat seo types. The whole purpose of it is to do something that they think is untrackable to manipulate search results – not to add value to anyone’s blog.
In terms of quality – lets do some sums.
At $19.99 for 100 posts you’re paying them 19 cents per comment. For someone living in the US or Canada to make a decent living at 19 cents per comment (he says they are US/Canadian citizens that make the comments) how many comments would they need to leave in a day? To make $100 they’d have to leave 526 comments….
An 8 hour day has 480 minutes in it. They’d need to be leaving comments at over 1 per minute. Now to make a comment genuine and add to the conversation they’d need to read the post before making the comment….. The site says they also hand pick blogs from relevant niches (more time)…. I guess then that Jon needs to take his cut before sharing it with the people who work for him…. I can’t see how it adds up. Those working on this scheme need some fast way of posting comments – I’d suspect that they’d need to do at least two comments per minute.
How many comments do you think you could leave a day that would add value to a conversation? I don’t think it adds up as these comments being genuine. I suspect at the very least that they’d be copy and pasted and at the worst automated.
I’m sorry – but I can’t see how this benefits bloggers. I can’t see how they could promise high quality comments. This is being marketed at black hatters – that should be warning enough.
Alister Cameron // Blogologist
July 10th, 2007 12:06 am
@Dave from two comments up…
I think you’ve missed the point. What good (real) bloggers are trying to protect here is the truly relational nature of blogging and commenting. See, the point of a comment is to participate in a conversation. And what exactly is that “part” of the conversation you’re having if you’ve delegating it to someone you don’t know, saying who-knows-what on your behalf.
He says his service is for SEP/SERPS purposes. I assume you know, then, that his customer is someone who wants no REAL part in that conversation; no real part in the relational dynamic at play in blog comment “threads”. No, it’s all about a link, and the text only needs to be good enough to avoid the spam trap.
I think the onus here is on you to explain to the rest of us how you turn this guy into a quality service when he says himself – in comment #8 – that he’s not very ethical…
I (and other “good” bloggers”) use comments to engage in meaningful conversation with other people. That’s not something that anyone one of us would want to delegate.
But are you saying you would?!
Niamh
July 10th, 2007 12:10 am
Hi,
I hate spam and wish it did not happen. However, I wonder if this guy is really doing something awful or are there possibly companies out there quietly employing people to blog on their behalf and that may include visiting other sites and leaving comments?
Niamh
Chris
July 10th, 2007 12:12 am
How are the honest bloggers meant to compete with this? Others will copy this method of comment spam, now that the ball is rolling and the idea is out there.
I am hopeless at networking, but chug along doing my best to get my pages in Google and around the web, getting nowhere fast, each day giving me a couple more hits. This is very disheartening to know that people can play the system, and the world revolves around money etc.
thebassman
July 10th, 2007 12:12 am
What if the price was 10x as much, and he didn’t mention any blackhat stuff? Would that change your perception, Darren?
Dom
July 10th, 2007 12:14 am
Completely agree, Darren.
This is nothing more than comment spam, and makes it all the more difficult for those of us who work hard trying to make a living from blogging.
Darren Rowse
July 10th, 2007 12:21 am
thebassman – two comments.
firstly – the price isn’t 10xs as much and it does mention the blackhat stuff and that it’s all about SEO – so all i can really comment on is what it’s being promoted as.
Having said that – I think I’d still have a problem with it – even if it was pitched more as an ‘outsourcing of comments’ type deal.
I guess I’m with Alister (comment #29) when he talks about the comments section of a blog being a relational space where real conversations happen. While these conversations can open up opportunity for people to discover where each other blogs and does business I think that it’s the personal nature of it all that I’d want to protect.
Blogging is built on transparency and relationships – I guess I don’t see anything in this sort of service that builds on these things.
Brennan Ryan
July 10th, 2007 12:27 am
Yuk.
I tried a few paid posters when our forum was young.
What a waste of time and money, I’d have been better just letting the forum grow naturally (it has and now has a core group of quality posters) but i was keen to have lots of people around
I think like paid forum posters, advertisers are going to get what they pay for, poor quality, irrelevant comments.
Question, we can manually report comment spammers through Askimet? it is great software that gets most of the bots, and my understanding is that those bots are then automatically reported
How do you manually report? please point me to some instructions someone, i would gladly manually report comment spammers.
Thanks
Bren
Mirta
July 10th, 2007 12:36 am
Some might compare this to ghostwriting, provided that there are truly people behind those comments, and that these people actually do take time and attention to write relevant comment. And they actually might be beneficial re SERP’s, like any blackhatting… until the anti-spam mechanisms get the grip. (Note that the service provider targeted this service to blackhatters in the first place.)
For those willing to take an additional thought or two into consideration:
While this and any other blackhatting might reap benefits, compared to others, at the beginning, on the other hand, however these comments might be produced, the ones who do hire commenters in order to increase their blog ranking, are actually loosers (and they even paid for it) in the long run, because they have missed the whole point of commenting, and thus the effects.
* They know they cannot rely on numbers (because they’ve paid for, not drawn the visitors), in order to measure (natural) atractiveness of their pages.
* The issue of quality, or at least reliability of the content, althought promised, remains.
* And what about link building and new contacts? They seem to be the part of the package as well, but they are paid – will they remain once you stop cashing out, and would they be linking to you anyway?
The comments, along with many other elements, should not only provide popularity, but also a valuable feedback (favorable or not) from real people – an insight, new ideas, etc., and serve as an element towards building a better idea on real popularity and value of the content that enticed the people to comment (blog, article, software, etc.)… and thus help building a better, more targeted content.
While such a reminder might be enough for some, there will probably be many of those willing to pay, disinterested to look further. I am not sure whether something can be done about that in the terms of regulations. Stronger anti-spam weapons are on call, as well as (perhaps) genuine bloggers’ brainstorming on bolder actions (e.g. direct mailing to the search engine- and ISP- anti-spam services, etc., stronger support for fellow bloggers, etc.).
The SEO/SEM history teaches us: like in the turtle and rabbit tale – black hat, paid testimonies services, paid this-and-that – all elements that should be genuine (but sometimes are ordered or artificially produced), in order to be fair towards customers and/or providers, should – and will – ultimately loose its face and pace over original and truly genuine (produced by interested reader or blog writer).
MentalKindling
July 10th, 2007 12:41 am
That is one of the main problems with the inclusiveness of the Internet – it gives license to people with the “path of least resistance” or “cast a wide net” strategies. If the cost per effort is low enough, which it always seems to be – it encourages people to fish with dynamite.
I am sure it won’t last long, but sad to say the least.
- Scott
Dave
July 10th, 2007 12:54 am
I agree with what you say.
I agree with protecting the relational space.
But, still, no one has shown some examples of the comments.
Forget the mention of blackhat for a moment.
Show me some examples of the comments they provide, then pass judgement. At the moment there are no facts about these comments or what they provide… :)
Cheers
Dave
Brad Isaac
July 10th, 2007 1:02 am
I sense that there will be a plugin created whereby you can block all IPs associated with that network. It can even be done manually once the IPs are known – these should be easy to figure out and here’s why.
People are lazy. The commenter will go from one niche site to the next to the next posting the exact same comment to similar posts.
Once we have a list of IPs blocking will make sure it doesn’t happen for long.
Dave
July 10th, 2007 1:04 am
“I think the onus here is on you to explain to the rest of us how you turn this guy into a quality service when he says himself – in comment #8 – that he’s not very ethical…”
Why is it on me? :) I don’t care about his service, I am not going to be using it. I was just trying to do us all a favour and try to look at it with an open mind from both angles rather than jumping in on the “mob mentality” that I could see. :)
The quality may be rubbish, but where is the proof? I have seen none so far.
Also, regarding the comment about being “ethical” it could mean about anything. Drink, paid links, forum spamming, building link farms, who knows. Just because someone is not ethical doesnt mean the new product is not valuable in some way :)
I am not having a go, and I don’t normally comment on here as I love Darrens posts (hell he is on my msn) but I suddenly saw red when Darren decided to scream “murderer” at this guy without even speaking to him or digging out some proof of the comment style etc that they use and the potential value it may (or may not) provide. :)
Cheers
Dave
Dave
July 10th, 2007 1:12 am
Also
“the ones who do hire commenters in order to increase their blog ranking, are actually loosers (and they even paid for it) in the long run, because they have missed the whole point of commenting, and thus the effects.”
Why would it matter if I go and make the comment, or another author from my site goes and makes the comment, or someone else goes and makes the comment? The community is still in tact as everything relates, you would be none the wiser as to if it was me or not. I may not personally have the time to get into the community, but you would not know that it wasn’t me making those posts etc. Surely this has been happening for years? :)
Say I came here to problogger and on an article about using gmail and the chance they may have ads, I link to another site that is not mine, talking about ads within gmail? It is relevant and on topic…. :)
This is a fun discussion :)
Thomas M. Schmitz
July 10th, 2007 1:15 am
Darren,
OMFG WWTTON? I hope this will be a flash in the pan, but once someone tries it others will follow. And after Mikkel’s performence at SMX I can only see this becoming more and more sophisticated. I imagine the people who will truly benefit are those behind services like TypeKey.
Stropp
July 10th, 2007 1:19 am
Isn’t this whole scheme fraudulent anyway?
This guy promises to add x number of comments to various blogs of which many will be quickly deleted by the blog owner. How are the advertisers going to track this?
Does he give them a report with links on who he has spammed?
And what will they do when they go to those sites and aren’t able to find the comments?
It seems to me that there is no way he can promise lasting links that will affect the serps.
Chris Cree
July 10th, 2007 1:29 am
OR perhaps this is just a nefarious scheme by this guy to stir the pot and get noticed by some big names. I had a friend in the Navy once that said getting chewed out by the skipper wasn’t all bad. “Negative face time is still face time.” was his philosophy.
Doesn’t make it any less dumb. But who can say what’s in the mind of someone that would rather game the system than do legitimate work?
Jen / domestika
July 10th, 2007 1:34 am
When I put a ‘dofollow’ plugin on my blog, the amount of spam comments exploded. Askimet caught most of them. What few get by, I’m using a combination of that ‘dofollow’ plugin that allows you to set a time delay, plus the wordpress comment moderation set so that even one url in the comment will hold the comment in queue and send me an email notice to approve/deny.
So far it’s effective.
And the moderation is not a huge job, not for the moderate amount of traffic that my blog gets, but clearly not a solution for the A-listers who get thousands of comments a day. I can see that a ‘human’ spam-comment service could make the blogger’s moderation job all the more time-consuming and challenging. Frankly, I’d rather be writing…
If this kind of sleasy spam service is a sign of the future, it may also be signalling the end of the ‘dofollow’ trend.
Bret
July 10th, 2007 1:45 am
Thanks for the informative post. I don’t have a legal background so I can’t address the legal specifics you wanted. I can, however, comment from a basic understanding perspective.
If the comment spam is slightly relevant or slightly on-topic, then I think it will be very difficult to “prove” the comment is absolutely spam. For example, how many times have we seen comments that simply say, “Great post. Thanks for the information.” The comment is very generic and may or may not be actual spam. If this new company leaves such comments, then proving that the comments are absolutely spam will be difficult. Of course, if this new company leaves the easy to spot annoying comment-spam (replica stuff, dirty pictures, ring tones, etc), then proving that they are leaving unsolicited spam is much easier. And proving the act is half the battle. The other half, I think, is proving that your site clearly states such comment participation is in violation of your site’s comment code of conduct — then, you might have a legal leg to stand on.
The legal question is a good one, but it’s a difficult topic; however, I’m sure there are an army of lawyers more than happy to take on the topic in order to build/extend their own business (sorry, I’m just not a fan of lawyers).
whitney
July 10th, 2007 2:03 am
I am a lawyer, and I’ll tell you the legalities will take a while to catch up with the technologies- in part, because people only sue over money (predominantly) and tracking this guy down and putting a stop to it may cost more than anyone is willing to invest, outside of governmental agencies. And I wouldn’t trust his service regardless based on the fact he can’t spell or construct a useful sentence to begin with…
That said, isn’t there someone clever amoung us who can beat this guy at his own game? Spam him to death as a courtesy call? Seems only fair….
Alex
July 10th, 2007 2:08 am
You can truly tell a lot from the website by just reading a paragraph or two. There are misspellings and grammatical errors everywhere. By the way, Jon has already been banned from Google Adwords. However, what Google should do is ban any website that Jon owns. That would be the right thing to do.
As far as his latest scheme, I’m sure he’ll make some money but karma can be fierce. I’m sure it will knock him to the ground when he least expects it.
In order to bury this service, one only needs to require email authentication before each comment is posted. This will add one more tedious process to the mix. Also, captcha could be added too. The problem is that you’ll receive less comments overall because users won’t want to go through that many steps to voice their opinions.
Alex
July 10th, 2007 2:08 am
Correction, Google Adsense.
OpenSourceMarketer
July 10th, 2007 2:18 am
Darren,
You said: “I add anyone spamming my blogs to Akismets blacklist and have been known to expose companies who do it.” As with anything industry there are opportunities that develop between the cracks. This fellow is trying to capitalize on the worst parts, maybe there is an opportunity to start a service that does out people who are caught using the spamming service. The pressure to color within the social lines might be enough of a reason to keep people from subscribing to a comment spamming service.
Charles
1916home.net
July 10th, 2007 2:28 am
What this all reminds me of is the stories in the papers when you read about a firefighter starting their own fires. Or an alarm company burglarizing a block of homes or businesses, only to have everyone in the surrounding area buy alarm systems soon after.
I think it sucks!
Michael Martine
July 10th, 2007 2:29 am
All comments are solicited. Spam email is unsolicited. By allowing comments, you are soliciting comments. The thinking behind this is that ends justify means. That is the path to cheating, lying, and stealing. Better bloggers know that means justify ends. The point of this “service” is to make it look as though people like your blog and so they’ll leave comments, therefore it isn’t spam by any means. He’s not indiscriminately commenting any old blog, he’s commenting on yours. He’s basically a comment prostitute, a fake friend. Only a loser blogger would hire this guy.
Michael
July 10th, 2007 2:32 am
This isn’t new. Months ago people started offering their comment services in forums.
The way I see it if the comments aren’t real, they don’t help anyone.
Michael
roundandround
July 10th, 2007 2:45 am
I don’t see what your problem is.
Thousands of people write comments just to get some publicity to their site (probably like 90% of the commenters here did) – otherwise you wouldn’t even be typing your URL in the comments’ form.
The site says the comments are relevant, so who cares whether you write it yourself or you outsource it to somebody else.
They are not talking of spam comments which would not get through the spam plugins and would cost crap anyway…
Wendy Piersall
July 10th, 2007 2:48 am
In early June, I wrote a post called “Is the DoFollow Movement Getting Exploited?”
I got a lot of comments on the post, with a lot of people agreeing that it was probable, but with an overall sentiment of “it can’t really be that bad”.
I knew this was happening – but I have to say I’m surprised that this is such an in-your-face approach. Certainly a way to both kill the “acceptability” of the practice (even with black hatters) with bad PR AND kill the NoFollow movement in one fell swoop.
Liz Strauss
July 10th, 2007 3:01 am
Here’s what I can say. . . .
I wrote for a corporate blog. I did the research on topics behind the products they made and wrote posts. After a few months, I was asked if I might be willing to comment on blogs in the niche. I thought, “why not?” But when I went out, I realized I didn’t know enough about the product they made . . . it is a food that I buy and consume. Still I’m not a foodie and I didn’t feel qualified to comment on behalf of the company without thinking I would too often not know what I was saying.
Imagine someone who knows nothing about your niche commenting for you. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, have someone comment on behalf of my blog unless I knew that person. End of story.
Paid to comment? Andy Sernovitz says it best, “It’s not good to mix love and money.”
thebassman
July 10th, 2007 3:51 am
Thanks for the response, Darren (comment #34). What if the cost was paid hourly instead of on a per post basis? So you’re basically hiring someone to comment and interact on blogs on your behalf? You’re a busy guy, I’m sure. Say you hired me, a professional photographer, to interact on your behalf on 300 photography blogs and you paid me by the hour. Not to just post to get a back link or whatever, but to interact on your behalf. Would that (rather significant) business model change your perception of the product?
Just to clarify, I would never use this guy for his services as he has them set out now, but I do find the concept to be an interesting one. Thanks for letting us explore them via your comments. ;)
Adam Snider
July 10th, 2007 4:31 am
On the plus side, this guy doesn’t rank well in Google for the phase [buy blog comments]. I checked both Google.ca and Google.com, and he doesn’t rank above 20 other either one.
The fact that he’s not coming up in the first to pages of the SERPs is some consolation, as it may mean that fewer people find his site. And, once he starts using the black hat techniques that he is likely going to use to get to the top of the rankings, well, someone will notice and he’ll be blacklisted (I hope).
Chuck
July 10th, 2007 4:41 am
This loser isn’t worth commenting on (although I couldn’t resist doing so on his own blog).
I still say that Akismet and moderation are the key to keeping out the infidels. I have used this exclusively for the past several months and have no problems, despite the fact that I use and highly recommend the DoFollow model:
http://chuckbrown.com/no-nofollow-logo.html
Akismet does the heavy lifting, and I do the rest.
As to Jen’s comment…”moderation is not a huge job…but clearly not a solution for the A-listers who get thousands of comments a day.”…I can’t remember seeing anyone getting thousands of blog comments a day. Even Digg averages less than 50 comments per post. If someone is getting thousands of comments a day, they’re making plenty of money, and can hire out the blog moderation.
I believe in the blog as a legitimate publishing tool. I believe in rewarding the commenters who help build and vet the content of my blog with their comments. I think it’s silly not to acknowledge their contribution with a link back to their base of operations.
Webomatica
July 10th, 2007 4:46 am
Yeah I really don’t like comment spam so this is not service I am happy to read about. Second – if I hypothetically paid money for comments, I would only pay for ones that got through a spam filter. What is the point in paying for comments that just end up getting deleted by the blog owner?
Sue
July 10th, 2007 4:56 am
Chris Cree Says:
I wonder how the folks at Google would feel about a business that’s primary function is spamming. I bet they might just come up with an effective “solution”, especially since the primary intention of the business is to game their search results.
From Google:
“Help us maintain the quality of Google search results.
We work hard to return the most relevant results for every search we conduct. To that end, we encourage site managers to make their content straightforward and easily understood by users and search engines alike. Unfortunately, not all websites have users’ best interests at heart. Some site owners attempt to “buy PageRank™” in the form of paid links to their sites. Buying links to improve PageRank violates our quality guidelines.
Google uses a number of methods to detect paid links, including algorithmic techniques. We also welcome information from our users. If you know of a site that buys or sells links, please tell us by filling out the fields below. We’ll investigate your submissions, and we’ll use your data to improve our algorithmic detection of paid links.”
Here is the URI to Google’s report buying and selling of links:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/paidlinks
Between that and places like Digg, he’ll go down.
Griffin
July 10th, 2007 5:11 am
Instead of trying to figure out which are spam (sometimes it can be really hard to distinguish) and flag every comment that might be spam, I would prefer to keep them all and just use “nofollow.” I don’t use nofollow because I think it’s silly and doesn’t really work, plus I don’t have much issue with people leaving covert spam comments. On top of that, there is some debate as to whether nofollow really works all that well. Also as Chuck said above, I believe in rewarding visitors any way I can — and a small link is not a big deal to me.
Not that it really matters. At the end of the day, I think that both commenter and blogger get something out of that situation. The commenter gets money or publicity and the blogger is showing that they have a wide audience (which is social proof that their site is popular and can reduce the bounce rate somewhat). And if they add to the conversation, all the better! Lemons into lemonade, I say.
In the end, I would say not to mess with *automatic* comment moderation. I’ve done it in the past, and had my comments die off instantly (of course I state when I do it). When I moderate, I prune them after-the-fact now. I don’t lose a lot to spam, and generally I only spend about 1-4 minutes a day looking over the comments.
I hear people complain every day about people who have services like these available. When I was using Elance for freelance work, there were daily posts from bloggers looking for people to both blog on their blogs/forums and comment about their blog on other blogs/forums. Services like these would not exist if the demand didn’t exist.
Griffin
July 10th, 2007 5:14 am
Also, everyone should make sure to check their spam filters before deleting/reporting everything. I recently went through and had some comments that were two months old that had been flagged (for no apparent reason). So be on the lookout!!
Paul Stamatiou
July 10th, 2007 6:23 am
It has probably been mentioned in the comments above but don’t most blogs use nofollow for any link in the comments? At least that’s how my blog is setup, so if somehow a comment got past my radar it won’t have any value with search engines. As for my radar though, I get emails with each new comment and I read every comment on my site, so it’d be pretty hard to get past me.
TextAdSearch
July 10th, 2007 6:39 am
Whilst not the best idea I don’t think it will have the impact everyone thinks it could.
If people want to get mobilised against something evil why not sort out email spam which is now worse than ever.
Davis
July 10th, 2007 6:53 am
Thanks for the great post – I believe that if the comments are relevant and the client site offers the reader value, there is no harm done.
Chris Nielsen
July 10th, 2007 7:36 am
Thanks for the tip! I just paid $20 for 100 comments so I can give it a try. Unlike most people I am going to ask them to look at the site and make 100% honest comments. I think PayPerPost sucks because they don’t seem to insist that the posts are 100% honest. I think if they are it’s ok and so are comments.
Bloggers may not like it because they don’t get paid. Oh well, it the comments are good it’s still content so put some adsense on that blog and shut up! :-)
Darren Rowse
July 10th, 2007 7:50 am
thebassman – you write – “What if the cost was paid hourly instead of on a per post basis? So you’re basically hiring someone to comment and interact on blogs on your behalf?”
I still wouldn’t go for it. The closest I’d probably go to what you were talking about is to hire someone to be a co-author of my blog and encourage them to interact with other blogs and bloggers as part of that job – but as themselves. ie they use their real name but might use the URL of the blog that they are co-authoring.
Wendy
July 10th, 2007 8:14 am
I wanted to point out the quality of the comments (from the Buy Blogs front page):”We currently have 6 people working with me (Jon waraas) that speak english really well”
My point: This guy couldn’t spell his way out of a wet paper bag (on his blog he’s waiting for “hait (sic) mail”) I doubt that his 6 people are going to be any better with the grammar and syntax of the English language.
As a side note I use a plugin for wp called linklove that takes the nofollow off of comments of a new user after 10 comments. Since I’ve started using the plugin I’ve had no spam comments so I’m comfortable recommending it.
Bloggrrl
July 10th, 2007 8:29 am
The thing that gets me about this is that we are turning into such a fakey fake society. Not just the US…it is a virus that seems to be spreading. Deception is the order of the day. It’s depressing. Bye, authenticity.
Chuck
July 10th, 2007 8:57 am
Thanks for the tip on LinkLove, Wendy. I hadn’t heard of that before. I don’t need it, as I manually approve everything…but if I was going a more automated route, that sounds like an interesting solution…although it seems to me that 3 would be a better number than 10.
By the way, i LOVE the name of your blog: YarnPorn….very cute! ;-)
next STEPH
July 10th, 2007 9:36 am
Its sad to think that commenting is turning into the “new paid inclusion”.
It takes the “community” out of blogging. Hopefully, fellow bloggers will get wise and be able to tell the difference between a genuine comment and a fluff piece.
Wendy Piersall
July 10th, 2007 9:51 am
Let me add that there CAN be much harm to come from this kind of practice, contrary to what some commenters have suggested.
Some of the people here in this comment thread are saying that as long as the comment added value they would leave it. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, found that a few comments left on his blog were redirecting a few weeks later to very ‘questionable’ sites.
Now, whether or not this would get you banned by Google is one thing (and I’m not sure if it would or not).
But we are talking black hat here – once you open the door to a black-hatter, you have NO IDEA how they will exploit you – whether it’s generosity or naivete is moot – you WILL be explioted.
Why risk it for a comment link (which Google devalues no matter what)? Like I said, find better ways to reward those who really add value – like with the Top Commentators plugin or a featured commenter post, or hey – how about a Commenter Appreciation Day? :)
Bes Zain
July 10th, 2007 10:06 am
I think in court, such a service is legal as it claims to post normal, useful comments. People post comments all the time to get attention, and thus, this service can get away with it. This service is completely legal as long as the commentor or those people posting such commercial advertising comments do it by posting something useful in their comment too, like actually commenting on the post in question with useful feedback. Like “Dave” said above, this service calls itself a commenting service, and not a spamming service, and even though Bes and Darren might think it is spam in disguise, legally, it is all right, which is very unfortunate. Maybe the model needs to be tinkered a bit to add more value to it?
I have a tip for you Darren below, but first:
Unfortunately, it is services like these which take away authenticity, like Bloggrrl said above, and actual value of posting something because one wants to, and instead moves people towards a feeling of “I want to post a comment because I want more visitors, and nothing else.”
I have lately been getting comments where people will add keywords to their names. Some comments are from people who are actually humans and wanting to promote their own site, while others seem a bit weird. I wonder if it is services like these going around posting supposedly-useful comments and adding a keyword to the comment name to get a link back? The guy on the site also says that nofollow doesn’t work. Surprisingly, he is right. Even with the nofollow tag added, links are seen and clicked by people. So simply adding a nofollow tag won’t help; what you did in your post was nice, though I wonder if more steps can be taken somehow to combat such practices that are going to be, unfortunately, a growing trend?
Of course, this raises an issue: how is this different than the normal commenting where everyone wants their link to be mentioned so people can visit their sites? The only difference here is that customers pay someone else to post a useful comment and a link to certain sites. The main problems is that it can be hard to figure out the actual intent of a commentor: did he/she post a comment to actually add value to a post, or to simply advertise their own url? A person may have a very useful comment, but now, because of services like these, we cannot know if some people are posting useful comments simply to advertise someone else’s url for which they are paid for.
I agree with you: bloggers need to unite more and be more active against obvious bad commercial habits. Even if bloggers do not unite, each individual can do something on their own to make a difference.
Summary & a tip: Completely legal, unless you have a commenting policy prohibiting such services from ever commenting on your site. If they do comment and do it repeatedly and you find out and have proof, you can take them to court to see what the judge can award as a punishment to those people for deliberately ignoring your commenting policy, which they must have read, or should be able to, from the page they comment on [and nothing else]. Be prepared, in such a case, to show to court why such a business should be singled out from commenting on your blog whereas the rest of the world is allowed to freely comment on your site.
Summary: We’re screwed legally, unless you have proof as I mentioned above.
Summary: We need to take action on the blog front, whether as a group, or individually.
Mark Shead - Productivity501
July 10th, 2007 10:21 am
I guess I’m in the minority here, but this really doesn’t seem like that big of deal. Most likely the comments will be rubbish and they will get deleted just like other rubbish comments. It isn’t going to be that difficult to see if someone is just posting a verbose “me to” comment.
Of course it is possible that the comments will be very high quality, well thought out and helpful to your readers. It is possible that they will be so well written that you will be more likely to mark one of your normal reader’s comments as spam before one of these paid comments. If that happens, what is the problem? Is it just the fact someone was paid to make the comment? Good comments can be hard to come by and if they are truly good, it probably won’t matter if they are paid or not.
P.S. If you don’t agree with me then consider this comment. If someone was paid to leave this comment on Darren’s blog, how would it be any different from a real comment? Would it somehow hurt Problogger? Would make for a less fulfilling experience for the readers?
However, it is extremely unlikely that you are going to be able to pay someone $20 to get 100 comments like this–at least in the US.
Mark Shead - Productivity501
July 10th, 2007 10:24 am
@Wendy (72) — Yes, but that is possible regardless of wether the comment was paid or not. It could even happen if someone were to sell their blog and the new owner put something different in its place.
Trent Hamm
July 10th, 2007 11:49 am
I think this is a potential business model. Let’s say you have a person in China who can read basic English five cents for an on-topic blog comment (compare this to gold farming rates on World of Warcraft). I can write a one sentence comment, roughly on topic after glancing at a blog post, in about thirty seconds. That ends up being about $6 an hour – great money for an intro worker in China, actually. If you can sell these comments for twenty cents a pop, you make fifteen cents profit per comment.
Wendy Piersall
July 10th, 2007 1:20 pm
Mark – points well taken, but this service is actually advertising to black-hat marketers, which means that the liklihood of a comment link turned into porn redirect is far more likely than with just a comment from someone else.
Novice SEO
July 10th, 2007 1:25 pm
Has anyone really taken a close look at this websites opening page?
Look at paragraph 3 in the blue section. I see numerous grammatical errors including:
Switching from second person to first person in the first sentence. Does not capitalize english three different places. Uses dont instead of don’t and wont instead of won’t. Doesn’t even capitalize his own last name!!!
I certainly do not anyone posting comments in my name that does not know how to write correctly.
What do you think?
Eric
Vaibhav
July 10th, 2007 1:26 pm
Some people might opt for it, but i doubt on the quality.
Pretty amazing that this king of stuff can also be in action, but can survive.
Marc
July 10th, 2007 1:53 pm
If the comment is a good comment then what’s the difference?. Do you ever know the true motivation of your commenters? Would you want to? Also… Is it any of your business?
I think you can only judge a comment on it’s own merit. As soon as you try to second guess motivations behind them as a method of spam control, then you’ve really lost the plot haven’t you.
Jermayn Parker
July 10th, 2007 2:08 pm
sounds dodgy to me and reaks of black hat seo-ing..
Do it properly and write good content and you will get people visiting etc
David Krug
July 10th, 2007 2:21 pm
” I just can’t wait to go out and buy 2k comments and use my competitors anchor text. then I will report them to The Google. ”
I swear that was the first thought that came into my head. Does that me eviler than this evil guy? Although since when did everyone get all ethical in blogging? And Darren arent’ you somewhat promoting a guy none of us would have heard of by poking at him like this?
Just my take….
Jim Kukral
July 10th, 2007 3:03 pm
This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of.
Rose DesRochers
July 10th, 2007 3:47 pm
Darren, I could not believe this when I read it.
If comment spam was not already bad enough, we now have buyblogpomments.com. This is one more reason to use comment moderation and make sure that you have Akismet installed on your blog.
adie
July 10th, 2007 10:01 pm
The comments on here are very hypercritical and ignorant to a certain extent as most of you state that you condemn a service like this. Why? as you post on this blog and others for your own value, am I right? just like visiting and posting in a forum to get a Free link back to your site…you’re not doing it for fun are you??
Yes, you’re adding value for the blog owner but you’re in turn obtaining a follow through for the SERPs.
Before I get hit hard…
I’m very ethical in business but if I can see an ethical way to alleviate some of my time (Marketing) for money I will usually take it (if I can afford too). This is exactly the same as asking a group of friends to DIGG a post at Digg.com. It’s not right, but people do it to be seen, get promotion, build traffic. If he can also prove the posts are unique, targeted and of good quality there will no reason not to use this service.
I own a blog and If I see what looks like a great comment posted (even detrimental) that is related and of some substance to my content, it stays and adds value. Period!
It will depend on the person I’m sure…shame he uses the word BlackHat in his sales text, as I think it could have been marketed as very ethical way to build good organic back links (just like Text Link Ads). Text Link Ads is marginally the same service (business model) marketed as a professional service.
I’m very ethical in business and if I can see way to alleviate some of my time for money I will usually take it (if I can afford too). This is exactly the same as asking a group of friends to DIGG a post at Digg.com. It’s not right but people do it…why? to be seen, get promotion, build traffic. As least it will also be targeted. If he can prove the posts are unique, targeted
Mr ProBlogger has given a very reader biased (l cannot write and even state that this service has any substance) article. It seems as though Darren is now in a position not to have a controversial opinion because it could harm his own brand the name he has built up.
Live by the Sword, die by the sword…
Bushido
July 11th, 2007 12:48 am
I’ve already reported them to Google. They should be out of the SERPs in no time!
Dave
July 11th, 2007 12:50 am
Hey Darren,
You should not have posted about Jon’s service, doing so has only given him free promotion….I bet he has gotten some orders from people who read this post.
The way I see it, this is going to turn out one of two ways. Either he has found people in a third world country with a good grasp of English who can post on topic comments and we’ll never know the comments on our blogs are bought…or the quality won’t be there and the service will collapse in on itself.
It’s easy to complain about so-called spam comments when you own a blog that commands such a huge reach and every post garners tons of comments. When you’re running a small insignificant blog, getting people to discuss your posts is very very difficult. To be honest, if someone was posting relevant on-topic comments on my blog, I don’t know if I would care that they were paid for as long as the quality is there.
I honestly don’t see why people are getting their panties in such a bunch over this service, there are already large high profile companies that are well respected who basically more or less game social media and other sites for their clients. Why can they get away with this? Because they don’t spam, they provide interesting unique content. Either the quality will be there and we’ll never know or it won’t and the service won’t last.
I don’t really see a problem either way, but it looks like I am a minority in this. However, if you’re fundamentally against this service, don’t talk about it, don’t promote it to page one of digg and just try to forget about it. Otherwise, you’re only going to help Jon…and he’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.
Thilak
July 11th, 2007 1:43 am
I wonder if there is a way to track these spam commentators on our blog. Since these comments are relevant to the topic discussed in the post, we’ll be having a hard time differentiating!
Somebody needs to put an end to this service!
TLB
July 11th, 2007 1:45 am
61: Almost all of the links at youtube are nofollowed. Oddly enough, some are not:
youtube.com/t/studio_article_05
Is there a quid pro quo there? Should you report Youtube to Google?
Jenny
July 11th, 2007 1:47 am
That’s retarded. Someone should shut them down.
Jen / domestika
July 11th, 2007 2:17 am
Oops, sorry Chuck, I should have said “thousands of visitors a day” – you can tell my comments are sincere and spontaneous by the number of errors I make!
Agreed that Askimet + moderation should do the job.
I’m curious about something, though – and maybe someone with more knowledge of such things can shed some light –
Say that Askimet “learns” the IPs of the paid commenters whose comments are reported to it by bloggers who’ve been targeted, who is it that will end up getting slapped?
If those commenters were mere contract workers of this JW guy, working from their own home computers – because I can’t really see him setting up some physicial sweatshop somewhere to do this – wouldn’t it be the employees’ IPs that get blacklisted, not JW’s business? Or whatever anonymizer service or proxy they use?
David Bradley
July 11th, 2007 2:24 am
I’ve never understood the point of comment spam, at least as far as SEO goes. Google basically ignores links on pages that are below about PR4, so a comment on a typical blog post is worthless in terms of draining PR juice from a site.
In contrast, multiple comments on a site like Sciencebase.com that runs the Top Commentators Plugin will allow a dedicated commenter to get their link right on to the blog homepage (which is a PR7). Now, if you were unethical that plugin would be the way to go to game sites like that.
Of course, Akismet and a wary and sharp-eyed moderator will see right through the cr*p-flood, anyway.
db
shortans
July 11th, 2007 3:04 am
It is totally unethical business model. I am not sure if this can be stopped though. It would be another long battle similar to email spam. Such services should be banned by internet governing body, but I don’t think there such an universal authority established yet to oversee internet frauds.
BC
July 11th, 2007 6:15 am
What a lot of the “what’s the big deal?” crowd are evidently missing is that at bottom, Waraas is essentially stealing disk space and bandwidth from third parties to advertise on behalf of his clients. It does not matter that the comments are “relevant” or “high-quality”, any more than it matters that email spam is “relevant” or “high-quality”: spam is spam is spam.
Yes, it’s hard for a new blogger to attract traffic. This doesn’t justify you wiping your ass on my blog.
Ros
July 11th, 2007 6:35 am
I just wanted to chime in and add that while it doesn’t sound like a lot of money here in the States, $20 = about R120 (South African Rand). South Africa is considered a third world country, however residents are generally able to speak at least 2 of the 11 official languages — 1 of them being English. While R120 isn’t exactly a livable a weekly wage in South Africa, it equates to about 3 times the hourly wage that the average clerk/secretary will make there, (R30-R40/hour).
While I totally dislike the idea of fake comments and hope that this venture fails before it gets off the ground, I just wanted to say that it IS possible to find educated, English speaking people to work for the fees he is quoting and that there is a (slight) chance that these comments will be all he says they will be.
Sam
July 11th, 2007 8:15 am
Anybody know this guy’s IP address? Let’s ban him before he even starts…
I personally take the nofollows off of comments on my blog after someone has left ten comments. If I haven’t banned them by then, they can have legit links…
Anna
July 11th, 2007 9:21 am
I have heard of this Jon Waraas before but I can’t remember where. I’m thinking it was on one of the webmaster forums but for the life of me I just can’t place the name.
At any rate, I hope the people he hires have better spelling and grammar skills then he. His grammar is awful.
Jay Thompson
July 11th, 2007 10:08 am
This is about the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a long while….
Warass says his spam comments will be well written.
Like this quote from his website?
“In fact, most blogger will like the free comments to help with their with there community..”
Moron.
ryan
July 11th, 2007 10:18 am
life is just to easy for us creative people isn’t it
Presell Page Man
July 11th, 2007 10:27 am
Wow… amazing… this shows that there are still a lot of people out there believing in sheer QUANTITY of links vs. QUALITY (and trust) of links to build.
I’m sure these 19.99 packages sell like hot cake, just because it’s *500 links*
And worst, I bet most of those 19.99 clients are not aware that there is software out there that does all that comment writing, content permutating (of the comment text) and even fancy stuff like captch cracking or spam challenge solving automatically…
but still, it’s bad bad bad quality links that people buy
and it’s unethical.
best regards
presell page man
Sonny!
July 11th, 2007 10:42 am
Your guys and girls are JERKS! Jon is my friend and your just jeleous that you didn’t think of that Genious Idea first! You know its a smart way to make money. There’s no law against it and won’t be. My dad’s a lawyer and said its a legit company whether your sore losers want to believe it or not. Theres far worse things going around online (like porn spam) for instance.
YOU ALL NEED TO GROW UP AND STOP CRYING.
thats all i have to say..
Jay Tea
July 11th, 2007 2:12 pm
I am the main page editor for one of the bigger blogs (www.wizbangblog.com), and I am appalled by this — and we have already had some similar instances. In those cases, there was one sentence that was vaguely germane to the topic, then a link to a “buy real estate” page. Since I didn’t know about this latest scam, I deleted the link and replaced it with a warning to the author.
I won’t make that mistake again.
I just pre-emptively banned waraas’ IP from posting anything at Wizbang (if you’re curious, it’s 75.126.35.50) and have a piece discussing this matter and linking to this article slated to publish at 5:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday.
The main ethical issue here, at least to me, has been addressed by only BC (as far as I noticed): the spammers here are making money by using other people’s blogs for commercial benefit without the owners of those blogs benefiting or being compensated. I’m no lawyer, but it seems awfully similar to the legal concepts of “theft by conversion” and trespass to chattel” — the use of another’s property for your own benefit without their permission. Even if there is no verifiable harm to the owner, it is still illegal.
Here’s an analogy: you live near a college. Your neighbor leaves home around dawn every day, and comes home late in the evening. You start renting out his driveway to college students who commute to class. They show up after he departs, and leave before he returns. He is in no way inconvenienced by your use of his driveway, and there is no damage done to it by the college students. But it’s still illegal, and he can sue you over it — and he’d win.
It’s much the same here.
J.
Jay Tea
Main Page Editor
http://www.wizbangblog.com
melo villareal
July 11th, 2007 2:15 pm
I just wish Google can read this right now… Please ban “BuyBlogComments.com” now for us to prevent this spammers to succeed.. Thank you Darrenor this great post…
Chris Nielsen
July 11th, 2007 4:21 pm
Well, I paid for my 100 comments and have exchanged a couple of emails with Jon. He has not contacted me yet for the info about my site. I suggest you take a look at his network of sites and his blog (Of course you HAVE to leave a comment or two…) and he has a bio that lets you get to know who he is then things start to make some sense.
Anyway, I thought that the comments were going to have my links, and the posters would be making comments that were on topic and give my site as a good or bad example (I did insist on honesty) of the topic.
But I was told that the comment will be on topic but not mention my site at all. Rather the URL field that is filled out would be for my site. Ok, that’s not exactly what I wanted, but it may be ok I guess.
Anyway, I see most comments here want to burn Jon at the stake and I told him if nothing else all the protests would be publicity that money cannot buy. I just registered a domain something like payperpost.com to take advantage of this new and growing demand (or outrage) for the service. Say, did all of you that are so offended make any noise over payperpost? I’m guessing not. And how many are in that program? A few I’m thinking…
Anyway, I’m not a spammer, but I am a marketing person and things are either against the law or they are not. If these posts are not junk then I might hire them to post comments to MY 30+ blogs! I would love to get some on topic comments instead of the JUNK and offensive crap that I get now. I don’t speal too gud either and if that pisses you off then you need to get out more. Jeez…
Anyway, I have told Jon that he can do this white hat and not black if he wants to. If the comments are good, you’re going to benefit from the content as much or more than the person benefits from the link, in my opinion. I hope he takes my advice.
Jay Tea
July 11th, 2007 7:27 pm
Radical suggestion for you, Chris:
BUY ADS.
Most blogs (ours included) offer advertising space to pretty much anyone who wants to.
Oh, that’s right. Those cost money, and involve compensating the owners of the blog you’re advertising on. Those two concepts are foreign to most “marketing” people.
J.
Jay Tea
Main Page Editor
http://www.wizbangblog.com
Info4beingrich
July 11th, 2007 10:22 pm
Darren – I agree with you. Spam comments should not be allowed at all. And the people providing such services can be compared to goons who use somebody else’s property for their benefit.
Louis
July 12th, 2007 12:14 am
Ok, scenario, spam guru hires college students in India or the Philippines for $5 to $7 a day. It takes about 3 minutes to write a halfway thoughtful comment that relates to the article. Not hard for someone to do by hand and make it unique everytime. And not hard to make it look at worst like a low quality comment.
Example:
“Spam comments suck, I really hate them, it sure makes my work on my site more difficult. I really hope they nail this guy for coming up with the company idea.”
It looks like a legit comment so you approve it. 20 comments per hour, in an 8 hour day, 160 comments. Revenue for the spammer of $32 minus wages of $7=profit of $25 per worker. Put up 4 workers and you got $100 a day in income.
There’s benefits for the blog as well, extra traffic, comments that make the site look more active, poor college students in a 3rd world country make extra income they wouldn’t otherwise, spam company owner makes money.
Who loses? Why the reader of your blog of course and that’s reason enough to, at least for me, to detest this. I want legitimate comments that my readers can interact with, not some drivel posted by someone doing it for money.
Jon Waraas
July 12th, 2007 12:18 am
LOL, I just have to chime in and say that 75.126.35.50 is not my IP. Thats my server’s IP.. I wont be doing any the comments myself, so no need to ban my IP. But you can ban it if you would like, it probably is already banned :)
Jay Tea
July 12th, 2007 12:57 am
Feel free to list any and all IPs you have, Jon. Our banning list has plenty of room, and if it doesn’t bother you, it won’t bother us, either.
J.
Vlad
July 12th, 2007 4:31 am
I wonder how the client will be assure that at the end of the day there are 100 comments made out there. What about those bloggers who moderate their comments and will delete them as soon as the feel the comments were paid for?
I don’t get it.
Harvey
July 12th, 2007 8:08 pm
Well, at least they read the article. It will make a nice change being spammed by humans instead of bots.
JoLynn Braley
July 13th, 2007 1:22 am
The problem I see with this is IF the individuals writing the comments are intelligent, they COULD actually read a blog article, process it in their brain, and spit out an intelligent response. If they are writing the comment for a blog that is relevant to the niche of the blog they are being paid to comment on, then the blog owner might not be able to tell that it’s spam. It would look like a “normal” reader’s comment.
That’s a lot of “IFs” I know, and you would think that anyone who would take a job for this person wouldn’t be a morale, ethical, much less very intelligent individual. Why would you want to mess up your own personal karma by working for this type of business? But, someone who would do this most likely wouldn’t be thinking like that.
Additionally, looking at this from a customer stand-point, there is no way that I would pay money and then trust anyone else to leave comments on blogs with my name and url. Who knows what they would write, or how they would spell?!
It’s all a big bag of low energy as far as I’m concerned. I do appreciate the info though Darren, otherwise I wouldn’t have even been aware that this type of thing was going on.
thebassman
July 13th, 2007 1:57 am
“there is no way that I would pay money and then trust anyone else to leave comments on blogs with my name and url. Who knows what they would write, or how they would spell?!” – comment 113
That would be my biggest concern – how can I trust someone else with my name and sites with such a personal means of advertising? It’s like asking a complete stranger to disguise themselves as you and go to a party or on a date.
JoLynn Braley
July 13th, 2007 3:27 am
“It’s like asking a complete stranger to disguise themselves as you and go to a party or on a date.” ….Great analogy! Also, once those comments are posted, you can’t edit them. It’s not like posting on your own blog where you can edit your posts (i.e.: for typos or mistakes)… when those comments are approved and have your name and url on them, they are there for keeps. You would be leaving tracks all over the blogosphere, wouldn’t you want to know what “you” said?
The more I think about that, I personally couldn’t do it. And… if you are trying to create a successful blogging business, how about in the future when you’re well-known, and it comes out that you paid someone to leave 100’s or 1000’s of comments around the blogosphere for you? Yeah, I know this isn’t Hollywood here, but imagine some of the big names in blogging right now….if you found out that they used a system like this when they started out, how would that affect their credibility with you? It would turn me off to them and I’d stop reading their blog….
Sucker
July 13th, 2007 8:44 am
As you may expect from my blog’s name, I hate this new service. I hated it before I knew it was around even…
Earlier today I got a comment on my blog about golf. It was a decent comment, but I said nothing about golf, so the comment was completely irrelevant.
I have a feeling it was this service. (Not saying it was, but it seems to fit the mold.) If it was, a seemingly popular golf store is wasting money…
Tom
July 13th, 2007 12:03 pm
If you look at his network, it’s filled with useless garbage. I’ve never heard of this guy until now. It’s fun reading on all of his unethical ideas and how he makes money.
Karma will come around and jack-offs like this won’t exist on the internet.
Teli Adlam
July 14th, 2007 4:27 am
Authenticity has been one of my concerns with a company like this, or with outsourcing comments in general.
However, with the open nature of comments as they are, it would be wholly possible for someone else to assume your identity and go on a comment spree. Though I have faith in human beings, in general, it would be a simple way for someone to try and destroy your reputation (especially if the blog author didn’t know you or your writing style).
Of course, that’s getting a bit off-topic.
Basically, it’s something that could happen anyway. Granted, if you’re trying to build a reputation for yourself, the last thing you want is to pay someone to be you.
~ Teli
The Piker
July 14th, 2007 5:18 pm
I believe the only option then would be to force people to be logged in to comment. And you will obviously have the list of users with you. So, this way you could delete the dubious ones. Anyway, this whole business plain sucks.
CatherineL
July 16th, 2007 3:44 pm
Thanks for the info Darren. I’m going to install Askimet right now. One of my blogs gets 30 plus spam comments a day. Some don’t appear on the blog immediately anyway, as they are of the type with about ten url’s but it is still a big timewaster moderating them all. One of the most annoying things is that when you are deleting so many spam comments, it is easily to accidentally delete some genuine comments too.
Aziz
July 16th, 2007 6:47 pm
That’s absolutely ridiculous!
Is there a way to identify such spam comments?
Matt Larson
July 17th, 2007 5:35 am
If the comments are on-topic, there is no problem unless you are a person that likes to argue principals over practical application.
If the comments are on-topic, you would never know it’s a paid comment.
If the comments are on-topic, they’ll actually extend the conversation further and add value to the web. Why? See #2.
The faulty logic of most of the comments on this post are that the comments are junk. Have you seen the comments? Then 99% of the comments here are just gossip, hearsay, and ill-informed.
If they are junk though, then I’ll be back to burn this dude to the ground, because I bought some a few days ago for one of my sites to test it out. I know that it doesn’t take me long to read an article and come up with a half-witted opinion just as good as anyone else. Of course I value my time too much to persue going after nofollow blogs as a linking mechanism, but if there is a pretty intelligent person who doesn’t value their time (or just likes reading blog posts and “Hey, I can get paid, too? Bonus!” This could be a win-win-win.
Win – for the blog owner since they get a good comment from a reader. (Just because it’s paid doesn’t mean they’re not a reader).
Win – for the blog comment poster because they’re getting paid to screw around on the web.
Win – for me. More links.
P. from Weston MA
July 18th, 2007 6:05 am
How is this any different than a Nascar driver putting a logo on the car? Except instead of drive a car, these guys chat on the internet.
Vince
July 18th, 2007 7:11 pm
Some of them doing these automatically and also some of them doing it manually. Just activate your akismet plugins and also make sure that your blog comment is not on auto-approved mode. This one works for me.
Angela Booth
July 20th, 2007 9:10 am
Now I know why my blog spam’s gone up recently.
On their site, they say that the spammers they hire: “… then read through blog posts and leave a comment that has to do with the blog post they read, that way it won’t get deleted.”
Heh. With comments like “Nice blog, keep it up!” I delete them instantly. So if you’re reading this and thinking of hiring this company to spam the blogosphere, don’t bother. The comments are easily identified as junk, and they’re treated like junk.
Cheers
Angela
Teli Adlam
July 21st, 2007 6:38 am
@Matt Larson,
I’d be inclined to agree with your logic. Only problem is: the comments aren’t relevant or good. Anyone who gives two wits about their blog will delete them before they see the light of day. And yes, I’ve seen some of the actual comments and they’re along the same lines of many auto-generated spam comments.
~ Teli
Mark
July 21st, 2007 9:31 am
I don’t see what the problem is. If the comment is good enough to add value to the post, why do you care what the anchortext/link is? If you’re that bothered, just nofollow your links for christ sake..
Anyone that writes “according to my lawyer husband” just makes me laugh. It’s not even technically spam, because it is done personally. Is it spam if a lawyer has his assistant write his letters? Jeez.
Tom
July 25th, 2007 2:52 pm
You can minimize the impact of the paid comment services by policing the anchor text. There should be a blog plugin that only allows legitimate names, thereby greatly reducing benefit of the backlink.
In the end, if the post has even modest value and the backlink is to a legitimate, related site, it does bring some value to the blog. If the blog owner doesn’t like it, they can just moderate comments. If they don’t have time to moderate comments and/or the comment volume is too high, then it doesn’t really matter anyways. This is the reality of a high volume blog… just like on any message forum or mailing list you get low value or marginal value posts all the time. Readers learn to ignore it.
Paul Woodhouse
July 27th, 2007 2:53 am
This has about as much chance of getting off the ground as an incredibly chubby chicken.
It’s beyond stupid.
Could you imagine be so desperate for cash that you’d have to resort to doing this nonsense as a service?
There isn’t a chance the comments will be of any worth unless it’s one generic comment regurgitated wherever he can lay his hat.
It won’t last a week.
Auto Parts for Brains
July 30th, 2007 6:22 pm
Just went over this kid’s site and it looks like he is just inexperienced in what he does. He has mentioned that he is not spamming , and I found that funny. I find it an irony that he mentioned how well he and his companions speak English, when the context of his comments just made it look like he is digging his own grave.
Here are the reason’s why their business is bound to fail in the long term.
Though he argues that nofollow does not work, it will take hundreds of these to actually make any difference in one’s ranking.
Finding a blog, reading its content, and writing a “long” sound comment takes a lot of hard work. I feel that they will soon tire of doing these over and over again. Blogging is also about relationships and about making friends and acquaintances. I for one will appreciate a long honest comment on my blog, and with my nofollow tags all over my blog, I wont mind them reading my posts and writing some useful comment. Still, I feel sorry for their clients, because it will benefit them nothing.
Links earned this way does not even give traffic and with the low click rate on comment links, again it is a waste of time.
Mentioning the word blackhat, admitting to doing it and inviting fellow BHatters is just the same as saying “ban me guys”.
And lastly, I think that Jon Waraas owe you Darren a lot of thanks. I imagine his site getting more visitors from this article than from any other.
Iantrepreneur
July 31st, 2007 1:47 am
curious to see if anyone received an email about john new website freeblogcomments – I want to know if he has targeted an audience that wrote negative feedback or just in general about his ’service’
and yes this comment buying is just sick
Darren Rowse
July 31st, 2007 7:46 am
got the same thing Iantrepreneur – he’s just trying to get some more publicity – not from me though.
Philip Davis
July 31st, 2007 4:42 pm
SEO is important, but social networking, done honestly, is much more powerful. My stats show that search engines bring 17% of my total visitors while social networking brings over 60%. But more importantly, my social networking brings the “right” people to my blog. Maybe other people have other goals and driving fake numbers adds value to them, but I’m looking for authors who want to print books without getting ripped off and who want to learn about promoting online. I’d rather have one “good” number than 100 “fake” numbers.
Leena65
August 12th, 2007 6:24 am
Some comments are from people who are actually humans and wanting to promote their own site, while others seem a bit weird. if you found out that they used a system like this when they started out, how would that affect their credibility with you. I wonder if it is services like these going around posting supposedly-useful comments and adding a keyword to the comment name to get a link back? The guy on the site also says that nofollow doesn’t work. Surprisingly
Alex
August 16th, 2007 7:25 am
i wouldn’t call this spam. Spam is automated and often is unrelated to the actual content of the blog/site. Also its generally some sort of obnoxious ad for another site.
Buyblogcomments actually has real people that read your blog (thought im not sure how for such a cheap price) and they post relevant comments. It’s more outsourcing than spam.
As long as the comments are not of the spammy nature ‘COME TO MY SITE IF YOU LIKE PROBLOGGER’ , ‘FREE TSHIRTS’ or something disruptive the comments this service post will fit in nicely with your article and in my opinion dont seem to be a big deal.
Alex
August 16th, 2007 7:28 am
Also, I agree with Phillip Davis in the scheme of things its more important to focus on your social network community than your SEO if your a blogger. i likewise get around 70% of my loyal visitors from social networking sites rather than searches
Dana
August 20th, 2007 8:16 am
If his commenters spell as well as he does, they’ll get picked up quickly enough. And how you could read a post and make a relevant comment on enough sites to even make minimum wage I don’t know.
If you are paying attention to your comments at all, I don’t see how they will sneak by very often.
I delete all the “nice post” garbage, too, unless I know who is leaving the comment and it either doesn’t contain a link or links back to a blog in my little “clique.”
If they do manage a reasonable comment and don’t link to anything objectionable, I don’t see it as the biggest deal. Companies pay people to comment in their forums to give the appearance of activity. Commenters here have mentioned the temptation to fake their own comments.
I am surprised there isn’t a service to pay for people to comment on your own site.
But I guess you can save the money if other people are paying to have comments left for them.
Oyun
September 8th, 2007 2:08 am
Correction, Google Adsense.
Resim
September 10th, 2007 3:25 pm
The thing that gets me about this is that we are turning into such a fakey fake society. Not just the US…it is a virus that seems to be spreading. Deception is the order of the day. It’s depressing. Bye, authenticity
SEO guru
September 20th, 2007 11:37 pm
Now we have one more stupid program. Terrible.
firma
September 21st, 2007 6:40 pm
got the same thing Iantrepreneur – he’s just trying to get some more publicity – not from me though.
Komik
September 22nd, 2007 11:50 am
i wouldn’t call this spam. Spam is automated and often is unrelated to the actual content of the blog/site. Also its generally some sort of obnoxious ad for another site.
Buyblogcomments actually has real people that read your blog (thought im not sure how for such a cheap price) and they post relevant comments. It’s more outsourcing than spam.
As long as the comments are not of the spammy nature ‘COME TO MY SITE IF YOU LIKE PROBLOGGER’ , ‘FREE TSHIRTS’ or something disruptive the comments this service post will fit in nicely with your article and in my opinion dont seem to be a big deal.
Leon
September 25th, 2007 7:55 am
That bastard! Let’s spam his website and see how he likes it!
Bape
September 28th, 2007 7:34 am
Umh, this service seems awesome I bought a test order, waiting for the result
mark
September 30th, 2007 8:09 pm
Just a thought.
I have read with interest all the comments about adding comment to blogs – the thing is if you put your site on line and invite comments then you will get them good or bad – and will you will be prone to this sort of thing.
The reason people can use a site to promote theirs is by exploting a weekness in the way the posted information is stored and filtered and displayed – a lot of off the shelf blog software does not strip out any tags or scripts or http references embedded in the post so if your blog is reated highly in search engine when a search engine indexes the page it follows the link – if the site also has a link somewhere on the site back to yours then the page ranking can be increased – basically the way to stop it is to filter posted data and strip out link and html – i think from you comments you are doing this by hand.
On the plus side is that you are also getting a link back from these sites so if they are moving up in the page rank that should also reflect on you – the other thing is if these people target the correct content then you will be getting added content as well.
I am not in agreement with these tactics just expressing my point of view – rather than a knee jerk reaction to spam them all as suggested on ealier posts just limit the damage.
Mark
Eric
October 2nd, 2007 8:46 am
I read blogs often and I also read the comments on blogs/forums. There are many instances where I come across content spammers and the information posted in their posts add information to the topic. The businesses being promoted are viable, honest, and valid and are trying to sell their product to the correct crowd.
For example, I once saw a soy milk company commenting on a lactose intolerant forum discussion. Sure, they were selling their product but they were in the right place, offering up their goods to the proper potential customers – customers who may appreciate the knowledge the comment spammer is giving.
I guess I’m just curious about the whole thing. Maybe we can put “tags” on comments that have links imbedded in them so the reader can see which comments are advertising something pertinent to the topic and which comments are form uniformed american citizens who spout uneducated opinions. Just a thought.
SpeedYeoh
October 4th, 2007 6:21 pm
I receive tone of spam comment every day. Until I have tiring to read those comment that are spamming in. I was finding a way to filter them out of my list. Do you anyone have solution like spam filter or software to solve this problem?? I need helps.
free firefox
October 11th, 2007 4:42 am
it is a virus that seems to be spreading. Deception is the order of the day. It’s depressing. Bye, authenticity
Michael
October 18th, 2007 1:07 pm
If the comment is a good comment then what’s the difference?. Do you ever know the true motivation of your commenters? Would you want to? Also… Is it any of your business?
I think you can only judge a comment on it’s own merit. As soon as you try to second guess motivations behind them as a method of spam control, then you’ve really lost the plot haven’t you.
fx 初心者
October 24th, 2007 12:41 pm
Those buying such a service would also risk some potential downsides if they are caught out.
This is the point
haberler
October 26th, 2007 9:11 pm
I guess I’m just curious about the whole thing. Maybe we can put “tags” on comments that have links imbedded in them so the reader can see which comments are advertising something pertinent to the topic and which comments are form uniformed american citizens who spout uneducated opinions. Just a thought.
Chris Stein
October 29th, 2007 12:04 pm
Designing a filter would be great, or a script that would change a no-follow to follow after a certain period of time say like 90 days. The spammers are short term thinkers so this might deter those. Long term thinkers and people trying to add valuable info would still follow through
Alfred Malveo
November 7th, 2007 10:43 am
Spam’s direct effects include the consumption of computer and network resources, and the cost in human time and attention of dismissing unwanted messages. Spammers have also subscribed to discussion mailing lists for the purpose of gathering the addresses of posters.
Jack
November 20th, 2007 3:50 am
I know it’s not a good thing but I have turned my comments off on my blog. I was getting about 200 comment spam messages every day. I’m sick of going threw every comment.
Devils Advocate
November 30th, 2007 4:10 am
Is it really so bad? As it stands, there are 154 comments to this post and even if 150 of them are doctored comments, the result is the same–who really cares? After having to look at all the ads and surveys and feeds, etc., a few errant postings won’t make a blog any worse off. Yes, it is an interesting topic, but I only read about 5 comments before losing interest.
seo yarışması
December 7th, 2007 6:11 am
Designing a filter would be great, or a script that would change a no-follow to follow after a certain period of time say like 90 days. The spammers are short term thinkers so this might deter those. Long term thinkers and people trying to add valuable info would still follow through
Ryan Peter
December 12th, 2007 12:56 am
@ Darren
If the comments WERE totally valid (and I have no reason to believe so, but I’ll explain why below) is the service so bad? What I mean, is if the comments are viable and producing conversation on the original post, then I see nothing wrong with the comments. Do you agree? It’s the same then as you or any of the bloggers who comment on each others blogs, not just to add conversation, but to also network and gain a rep for yourself. I see even less reason to see it as shady if the comments are also pointing to websites that fit the niche well, such as what Jon Waraas promises. Whether he is ethical with his promises (and he has posted here to say that he doesn’t view himself as ethical) is the real question here.
From a basic theoretical perspective, the service he is offering isn’t so unethical – relevant comments posted on relevant blogs at a fee. Theoretically, he is basically asking people to pay him so that he can do some of their networking for them. That’s not a bad business idea.
Now, that is not necessarily what he is REALLY offering, but theoretically the idea seems to be fine by me.
Personally, I don’t see how Jon Waraas can do things at that price. No respectable person will post comments at 19c a comment! Not even if he outsources to India or another country. I doubt he is doing the commenting himself, as well. But if he is outsourcing copywriters to do it for him, he is paying them so little that his ethics would still be under question.
So, for me, the basic theoretical idea is good, but Jon’s presentation and his package are questionable. As a copywriter, I would happily do comment posting for people provided it fits the above ethics. I’d be interested in seeing if people think the above ethics are actually unethical, or still black hat SEO?
jeremy
January 18th, 2008 6:29 pm
when does a blog comment become spam. is it to do with the quantity of comments in a certain period of time or must the commenter read the blog article through its entire length. I normally think of spam as being bulk and undirected, ie, spam email, but if the comment is specific to a blog, and the writer of the comment has at least paid a cursory glance to the text of the article and made a reasonably intelligent post then surely it is a valid comment>?
Wilson
February 11th, 2008 9:17 am
Thats terrible and you are right we bloggers should stand up against things like this
Qrock
February 11th, 2008 9:39 am
That’s pretty horrible, you’d think comment moderation would kill some of this though, or maybe i’m mis-reading.
Chris
February 11th, 2008 9:56 pm
It’s a double edged sword really. If this kid Jon waraas and his “boys” actually leave a valuable comment then its valuable. It adds to the discussion. If he want to get paid for adding comments then that’s fine by me, as long as the comments are valuable.
But most likely the comments are just spam. Like another reader pointed out, if he has to make 500 comments a day then he’s leaving junk comments-spam. This is a real pain in the you-know-what! Moderating that junk takes time.
So in my opinion it all comes down to value, despite the intentions of spammer.
ultimatum
March 8th, 2008 2:51 am
I’ve done spamming long time ago and from my experience I can tell you that this is a software that will bypass most confirmation codes. Typically, one person would write a general comment that does not touch a single topic specificly but in general summarize something that every blog contains and the spam using proxy servers. Its been done and still keeps going.
20 bucks for 100 comments is a large number of comments and link backs, there is not a single person that would agree to do that unless its for their own website and then its for free. Just my thought.
fx15
March 17th, 2008 7:29 am
I know it’s not a good thing but I have turned my comments off on my blog. I was getting about 200 comment spam messages every day. I’m sick of going threw every comment ….
Güzel Resimler
March 18th, 2008 8:08 pm
That’s retarded. Someone should shut them down..
iddaa
March 29th, 2008 11:35 am
I could not believe this when I read it.
If comment spam was not already bad enough, we now have buyblogpomments.com. This is one more reason to use comment moderation and make sure that you have Akismet installed on your blog.
Victoria's Secret Models
March 30th, 2008 8:29 am
If they read the articles and then write a related comment I can’t see what’s the problem?
ilahiler
April 3rd, 2008 9:16 pm
That’s retarded. Someone should shut them down..s
Money Making Blog
April 9th, 2008 10:03 am
Honestly, I like how this is actually an article and has so much response. You all realize you are helping his business ?? Seriously, wake up!
Paradise
April 15th, 2008 10:48 pm
Personally, no respectable person will post comments at that price. Comments writen by other people can be related to posts but the quality of the comment will not be good…
Kaszub
April 19th, 2008 11:37 pm
Sooner or later, SERPs will show their weak power. I do not understand spamcomments on different subjest articles than the own site itself. Of course, sometimes people do that but to pay money for that…stupidity. I would like to see a person who bought such service.
D PEX
April 22nd, 2008 6:01 am
Such services will exist as long as the SEO exists. And a LOT of people will apply to these services for their lack of information. The more protective methods will be found the more methods to crack them will appear. It is an endlees war. But I think there is one “guy” who can change everything or at least something. It is Google with its algorythms. What do you think?
kadinca
April 22nd, 2008 7:09 pm
Personally, no respectable person will post comments at that price. Comments writen by other people can be related to posts but the quality of the comment will not be good…
Arizona Chef
April 24th, 2008 12:23 am
These types of services are destroying the great new free speech channels that are changing the way big business is forced to listen to us the little guys. I am trying to start a simple ArizonaChef.com site and was told I have to pick a service like Akismet or be caught in a 5000 to 1 ratio of spam to true comments. This is ridiculous, Akismet and services like them need to combine their efforts working together to stop this slim from growing. Its about taking responsibility, especially on the part of GOOGLE who at the time of this writing was accepting GOOGLE Adsense on behalf of for mentioned spammers.
mark.ed
April 24th, 2008 7:33 am
While it’s legal, it will continue. It could be argued that a website owner is actually inviting content to their site when they allow comments.
Ida
April 30th, 2008 9:37 am
I hate spam, so I would never buy that. I just wish real people, not computers, out there would read my news blog. It is called The Ida Express. My life is pretty shit right now, so if anyone out there would like to encourage me a little bit, please read my blog and feel free to disagree with anything I write. I am constantly updating it, I have been really sick with a brain tumor for a long time, so I have a lot of free time at home.
Cathetel
May 1st, 2008 3:21 am
There’s a sucker born every minute, so good luck to him and his enterprise. Just remember that where ever and opportunity exists, somebody will find a way in.
Jimmy Hennessey
May 3rd, 2008 3:16 am
Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever see the total death of spamming. They’ll always find a way, its just the way it is. I do though, have faith that with the speed technology moves, they’ll make it extremely difficult and consequential. Bad enough that most give up on spamming cause it just won’t be worth it anymore. At least sufficient enough so they don’t totally ruin things for us legit bloggers.
Jimmy
firmalar
May 4th, 2008 4:10 am
Umh, this service seems awesome I bought a test order, waiting for the result
firmalar
May 4th, 2008 4:16 am
I could not believe this when I read it.
If comment spam was not already bad enough, we now have buyblogpomments.com. This is one more reason to use comment moderation and make sure that you have Akismet installed on your blog.
zayıflama hapı
May 28th, 2008 5:00 pm
Looks like my Spam Karma 2 plugin is going to face more spams! For those of you trying to fight spam on your blog, I find Spam Karma 2 to be much more effective than Akismet.
singapore stock market
June 3rd, 2008 11:46 am
Yup.. I’ve already gotten some of these blog spam comments from this company advertising for other companies. And so it starts…
Web design
June 8th, 2008 8:10 pm
I am blown over by how upset this guy has got you.
But you can add me to the list of supporters.
Added is my Delicious Tag (because I can’t link from a site)
oyunu
June 10th, 2008 7:12 pm
Comments going on sale, Dude whats next, Only ppl using it will be totally out of sync of blogging.
Oyunu
iddaa
June 11th, 2008 11:29 pm
That’s retarded. Someone should shut them down !
TRmerkezi
June 13th, 2008 6:05 am
Comments going on sale, Dude whats next, Only ppl using it will be totally out of sync of blogging.
futbol
June 13th, 2008 6:10 am
Yup.. I’ve already gotten some of these blog spam comments from this company advertising for other companies. And so it start
FGC
June 14th, 2008 6:30 am
I love all the people complaining about the service yet we have people with comment post months later with anchor text as their name. Go figure..
tatil
June 15th, 2008 10:39 am
Comments going on sale, Dude whats next, Only ppl using it will be totally out of sync of blogging.
anket
June 15th, 2008 10:39 am
Looks like my Spam Karma 2 plugin is going to face more spams! For those of you trying to fight spam on your blog, I find Spam Karma 2 to be much more effective than Akismet.
Student Accommodation in Newcastle
June 26th, 2008 6:30 pm
I wonder if there is a way to track these spam commentators on our blog. Since these comments are relevant to the topic discussed in the post, we’ll be having a hard time differentiating!
Somebody needs to put an end to this service!
Crunch Now Dot com
July 3rd, 2008 6:50 am
This is crazy I would rather leave one or two good comments on blogs I read everyday,that has a good page rank so on.
Crunch Now
http://www.crunchnow.com
Matthijs Enschede
July 3rd, 2008 6:36 pm
Ok it is wrong to spam and it is not a good idea to leave comments just for the backlink.
But if the guy tells the truth on his site (he probally isn’t) it would be a bargain.
From the website:
We have a database of hundreds of thousands of blogs, mostly of dofollow, that we will post your blog comments on when you purchase. When you order our blog comment experts will find blogs related to your niche, they will than read over the blog post and post a comment on the blog post, with your website and url in the commentators field. That way the comments will stick and you will have a quality backlink on a quality website about your niche. We do not use automated spamming in anyway. Once your comments are done you will get a txt file with all the blog posts with your comments. Its that simple. You cant get that from any other backlink building service!
I guess if he is telling the truth this service would be much more expensive.
Black Betty
July 4th, 2008 12:40 am
Honesty, I think if a person wants to increase traffic to his/her site, there’s still ways of doing it w/o having to resort to such black hat tactics and/or services. What happened to old-school ways of advertising:
- posting an ad in the paper
- making fliers and hiring kids to distribute them in high-traffic areas during rush hour like Ashbury Heights in San Francisco or The Miracle Mile in Chicago).
- Faxing local businesses
- Using “word-of-mouth”
From a legal standpoint, I think it’s border-line criminal for a business to exist who’s sole purpose is to inflate a website’s “ranking.” It’s literally disgusting. Yet again, people like Scott Richter out of the Denver Metro area makes millions from it after, of course, he purged the MSN database and had to settle out for 7 million to Microsoft. Pfft!
reverse auctions
July 16th, 2008 12:10 pm
Whatever happen to the human element of things? I cannot see any real quality in these comments either but if it were to even the slightest degree it would be huge and have great benefits to its paying subscriber.
anil can
July 25th, 2008 5:21 am
Looks like my Spam Karma 2 plugin is going to face more spams! For those of you trying to fight spam on your blog, I find Spam Karma 2 to be much more effective than Akismet.
komik
August 3rd, 2008 7:54 pm
Whatever happen to the human element of things? I cannot see any real quality in these comments either but if it were to even the slightest degree it would be huge and have great benefits to its paying subscriber.
shemer
August 12th, 2008 12:46 am
Wow, thanks for this interesting article and I totally agree, I currently use spamwow, which stops those pesty spammers
john
August 13th, 2008 11:27 pm
when does a blog comment become spam. is it to do with the quantity of comments in a certain period of time or must the commenter read the blog article through its entire length. I normally think of spam as being bulk and undirected, ie, spam email, but if the comment is specific to a blog, and the writer of the comment has at least paid a cursory glance to the text of the article and made a reasonably intelligent post then surely it is a valid comment>?
___________________________
http://all-about-drugs.com/?article=3
http://on-line-drugstore.com/
Australian Web Directory
August 16th, 2008 8:29 pm
I guess if the blog owner is vigilant to the comments left then it is less of a problem. Comments like “nice post” are a dead give-away.
The other option is for Wordpress and other blog platform developers to develop a plug-in that allows moderators to “no-follow” some comments and “follow” others.
Maybe they have such a plug-in but I have not seen it yet.
av videoları
August 22nd, 2008 9:05 am
Looks like my Spam Karma 2 plugin is going to face more spams! For those of you trying to fight spam on your blog, I find Spam Karma 2 to be much more effective than Akismet.
Wedding hair Brisbane
August 22nd, 2008 10:45 pm
That would be a nice Wordpress plugin – a comment filter that filters by keyword, country of origin or a look-up to the most frequent comments on other blogs.
moda
August 28th, 2008 5:39 am
That’s retarded. Someone should shut them down!!!
Oliver Carding
September 2nd, 2008 5:59 pm
Though I do disagree with this type of service, with giving him a backlink there you have allowed him to go straight to the top when searching “buying blog comments” !
Oliver Carding
September 2nd, 2008 10:35 pm
apologies.. just noticed you had set the no follow :)
Comments will be closed off on this post 90 days after it is published. Apologies to those this impacts but it's a regrettable and temporary measure to combat a growing comment spam problem. See our most recent posts where you can comment here.