Getting comments on blog with weird usernames?

[froggyboy604]

I occassionally get comments with User Names like "Hard disk, Cheap Nike Shoes, PC software, Computer Shop UK, IT help, Financial services" a long with their site link which is related to their username like computerexamplewebsite.com .

Are these comments mostly comment spam?

I'm guesing they are optimizing their Anchor text for their links. I usually just change their usernames to Anonymous, John Doe or Jane Doe since it is weird having a comment by a user who called himself "Hard disk"

 

[XcapeX]

Lots of them can be spam, but that is just a username the person uses, so when you see their name, you think of it and click their link. 90% of the time it will be spam.

 

[CyberFreak]

All the usernames you mentioned i would say are spam (Cheap Nike Shoes, PC software, Computer Shop UK, IT help, Financial services especially)

 

[David]

Read their comment as well. Sometimes they are optimizing their link, but the comment is worthwhile.

 

[froggyboy604]

Would it be unethical to change their usernames to anonymous, John Doe, Jane Doe, etc since I find the username like "Hard disk, CPU " spammy and weird, but their comments are worth reading?

 

[CyberFreak]

It is up to you to decide. I personally don't see anything against it.

 

[David]

Would it be unethical to change their usernames to anonymous, John Doe, Jane Doe, etc since I find the username like "Hard disk, CPU " spammy and weird, but their comments are worth reading?

Like Fowler said, its up to you. Although, if that person finds out, they may not return to comment.

 

[Cosmic]

Sounds like they are spamming for backlinks, as the URL they have as their homepage is their username's link, quite often. You should be able to stop that by disabling that feature and making all links rel="nofollow"

 

[David]

Sounds like they are spamming for backlinks, as the URL they have as their homepage is their username's link, quite often. You should be able to stop that by disabling that feature and making all links rel="nofollow"

In wordpress blogs, the username always links to the site they want to link to. Its by default and nofollow is default. However, with blog comment moderation (akismet), changing it to dofollow will be fine, as you have akismet to protect your blog and you can get quality posters out of it.

 

[Cosmic]

Sounds like they are spamming for backlinks, as the URL they have as their homepage is their username's link, quite often. You should be able to stop that by disabling that feature and making all links rel="nofollow"

In wordpress blogs, the username always links to the site they want to link to. Its by default and nofollow is default. However, with blog comment moderation (akismet), changing it to dofollow will be fine, as you have akismet to protect your blog and you can get quality posters out of it.

Maybe so. How well does that screen out spam like this?

 

[David]

Maybe so. How well does that screen out spam like this?

Excellently. It hasn't allowed any spam comments been published, and even genuine comments with 1-2 words are being blocked (of course you can accept/deny them afterwards). Also, you can set it so posts with more than x number of links in the comment has to go through moderation. :great:

 

[froggyboy604]

Thanks for the tips. I think I just leave the weird user names a lone.

I'm just worried Google, and other search engines will black list my blog because of spammy looking usernames and links on my comment on my post.

I get most of my Traffic from Google, so if I get un-indexed from Google it will be very bad for my daily traffic.

 

[Cosmic]

That should not be an issue if you have rel="nofollow" links, which is default with wordpress.

if you ever get blocked form google you will probably be informed by an email to [email protected]

see: http://www.google.com/support/webmaster ... swer=35769

 

[iGame]

Yes most of them maybe spam

 

[Luigi1632]

Sounds like bots..

Keep an eye on them.

 

[Lee Lawson]

Well give us an example of which you call spam, if they are just advertising there site then yes. You never know, HardDisk could be a person😛

 

[Antarctic]

Backlinks.

 

[charlesying]

definitely those are spam links