It was just a matter of time before Google started cracking down on comment spam on blogs. We have all see the threads in the forums selling lists of Do Follow blogs etc.. But Google has issued a stearn warning with a possible penalty for both the blog and the spammer. The warning is don’t do it or you may get a penalty.

Here is a quote from Google on the subject.

It has probably happened to you: you’re reading articles or watching videos on the web, and you come across some unrelated, gibberish comments. You may wonder what this is all about. Some webmasters abuse other sites by exploiting their comment fields, posting tons of links that point back to the poster’s site in an attempt to boost their site’s ranking. Others might tweak this approach a bit by posting a generic comment (like “Nice site!”) with a commercial user name linking to their site.

Why is it bad?

FACT: Abusing comment fields of innocent sites is a bad and risky way of getting links to your site. If you choose to do so, you are tarnishing other people’s hard work and lowering the quality of the web, transforming a potentially good resource of additional information into a list of nonsense keywords.

FACT:Comment spammers are often trying to improve their site’s organic search ranking by creating dubious inbound links to their site. Google has an understanding of the link graph of the web, and has algorithmic ways of discovering those alterations and tackling them. At best, a link spammer might spend hours doing spammy linkdrops which would count for little or nothing because Google is pretty good at devaluing these types of links. Think of all the more productive things one could do with that time and energy that would provide much more value for one’s site in the long run.

So what can you do if you have been comment spamming or allowing this to happen on your blog?

My site is full of comment spam, what should I do?
It’s never too late! Don’t let spammers ruin the experience for others. Adopt security measures discussed above to stop the spam activity, then invest some time to clean up the spammy comments and ban the spammers from your site. Depending on you site’s system, you may be able to save time by banning spammers and removing their comments all at once, rather than one by one.

If I spammed comment fields of third party sites, what should I do?

If you used this approach in the past and you want to solve this issue, you should have a look at your incoming links in Webmaster Tools. To do so, go to the Your site on the web section and click on Links to your site. If you see suspicious links coming from blogs or other platforms allowing comments, you should check these URLs. If you see a spammy link you created, try to delete it, else contact the webmaster to ask to remove the link. Once you’ve cleared the spammy inbound links you made, you can file a reconsideration request.

For more information about this topic and to discuss it with others, join us in the Webmaster Help Forum. (But don’t leave spammy comments!

Have a nice Thanksgiving

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