Never Heard That One Before (A Blogging Tip)

As any blogger who's been writing for more than a year or so will tell you, I've seen my share of interesting comments.

But by far the most frustrating are those annoying spammers.

Most are just a bunch of links promising busty ladies or appendage enlargements (I am so gonna get killed by search engines for this!). But someone sunk to a new low last night when I received a comment that, roughly paraphrased, went something like this:

Help! I'm currently being held hostage by the Russian mafia (insert link with illicit wording here) and am being forced to post spam comments on blogs and forums! If you don't approve this, they will kill me. (insert link with more illicit wording here) They're coming back now! (bad link) Please send help! (more bad links)

Really.

Dear Anonymous Spammer Kidnapping Victim,
I believe you, and I am certain that the Russian mafia has branched out and set their sights on small blogs in a new plot to take over the world (or my Sony laptop). I will be more than happy to post a new 911 message on the Blogger help board that already contains 3,546,872 messages that Blogger has not read. Perhaps they will track you down with the help of the KGB in ten years or so. That should give the Russian mafia plenty of time to make money off of the spam comments they are forcing you to enter.

Dear Readers,
I hope it works out for Anonymous Spammer Kidnapping Victim. Really, I do. I hit delete.

And that's all you need to do.

Ask anyone who's been blogging for a year or more, and they'll tell you that word verification is a huge no-no if you are aiming for readers to comment on your work.

What is word verification?

It's when you've typed a nice, friendly comment to praise someone's blog post, hit enter, only to be greeted by that ugly pop up box asking you to type in 536 characters before it will post your words.

I can't tell you how many times I've typed a lengthy comment on someone's blog post, hit enter, and exited the site just as I see that annoying pop-up box. I make an effort to do a lot of visiting when I link up to a blog party, but those word verifications are just one more step for a visitor to leave you some feedback, especially when the words are sometimes hard to read or aren't really words but a string of 53 letters.

Please, please, from one blogger to another...consider removing word verification from your posts.

When I set Serenity Now up, I added word verification because it just seemed like the thing to do. I removed mine early last year, after reading a helpful tip from a successful blogger. Afterwards, I noticed that the number of comments on my blog went up bit by bit, and the amount of spam comments I receive is not enough to make me want to turn it back on.

Somewhat Simple had a great post on how to change your settings.

I have all of my comments emailed to me so that I can be sure to respond to as many as I can. I may receive one or two spam comments a day, and they are so easy to delete. I check my email fairly regularly, and spam comments don't get much air time on my blog.

I made an Anonymous Spam Comment on my own blog to show you how easy it is to get rid of these. It will be worth the time you are saving your readers if you take these few quick steps if you see a spam comment pop up on your site.

Here's how the Comment looked when the blog emailed it to me at AOL:

*Just deleting the email won't work. You need to be sure you are logged into your Blogger account!*

Click on the link to the post title in which the offending comment was left. In this case it was "Hometown Seeds Discount," underlined in blue.

It will bring up the post on your computer screen. Scroll down to the comment and you will see a small trash can next to the date and time in which the comment was left. Again, you'll only see the trash can picture if you are logged in to Blogger!:

Click on the trash can picture and it's going to give you the option to delete the comment.

*Be sure to click on "Remove Forever" before hitting Delete. If I hadn't checked that box, my blog would still reflect that a comment was left and that a blog administrator had deleted it. I prefer the cleaner look of not having anything there at all.

Aaaand...you're done!

I am not in any way trashing bloggers who prefer to use word verification. Just wanting to pass on some information that's been helpful to me.

You'll make for some happy readers when they see they don't have to type in "hoytahkbuta" every time they want to leave you feedback. It has totally been worth the 30 seconds it takes me to remove the occasional spam comment!

{What's your take on word verification?}