Come on by. Play checkers. Have a nice cold cola, and enjoy life in Spamalot. Despite my annoyance at the first thousand spam comments received from “just people” who are trying to game Google by getting backlinks at my expense, I’ve come to appreciate the next thousand, most of which you haven’t seen as I’ve not let them make it to the screen.
It’s quite the fascinating study, seeing what the nice folks who are trying to sell you everything from diet pills to SEO to electrician services in Bismark have to say. Some put in quite a bit of effort to their comments, clearly having read the posts and trying desperately to offer enough to the conversation to make it past my scrutiny. Others, of course, insert links to dog grooming services. Still others think they’ll make it past the guard house with comments like “nice post,” or “I agree” or “this is so interesting.”
What I’ve learned from this experience is two things. First, the sheer numbers of people who are trying to game the system, get their business on page 1, make a living off the internet by doing anything they have to do, is unbelievable. They’ve been coming at me in numbers that blow my mind, and they’re still coming. Waves of them. A Tsunami of them. A lot of people.
Second is that even when they try, they are running on empty. Their best efforts at trying to get a comment with staying power are just absolutely awful. It’s not just that their ideas are worthless, but that they don’t really have ideas. Of course, it may be that this is a by-product of the fact that their real purpose is to spam me, to get me to allow them to comment so that they can get the backlink, but I suspect that the ones that write lengthy comments, with at least the appearance of effort, are actually doing their best to contribute to the conversation even as they try to get their backlink in there. But they’re empty.
I let one go (after deleting the backlink, natch) yesterday just because I was feeling generous and saw the amount of effort the spammer put into the comment. And it sucked.
I still spend about an hour every morning cleaning up the mess that the spammers leave behind from the night before. It’s a monumental waste of my time, and it interferes with my posting. It was my hope that after a few thousand comments deleted, they would get the message and go elsewhere. I thought they would realize that they are not welcome here, and that their time was wasted since I wasn’t going to let them get the link love they crave. And still they come.
This crazy thing called the internet is filled with these people, hoping desperately that you, and I, will succumb to their charms and pay them money for eyebrow braiding, or whatever it is they have to sell. Next time you click on a link on page 1 of Google, say hi to them for me. They are the folks hanging out at the Spamalot general store. 
From the mind of Amy Derby
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Are they after you and nobody else? I don’t see this trouble on other subscriptions.
I don’t understand why these people still show up, knowing that they are not wanted. No link here; I don’t care about that stuff. I just can’t understand the mentality of these people.
From what I’m told, the problem is that I have higher pagerank than some other blawgs, which makes me a more desirable blawg for the purpose of backlinking. With the addition that my program doesn’t (at the moment, though they are working on a change) have a “no-follow” option, so I’m prime picking for the spammers.
Me either, considering that they’re just wasting their time and mine.
I think the main unusual thing about the simplejustice attack is the sheer scale of it.
I have a totally pedestrian, low PageRank law student blog that gets the same sort of comments once or twice every so often and the general rule is if that sort of blog is getting targeted backlink comments -everyone- must be.
The scale is one thing, but the nature and content is entirely different. As was discussed earlier, this is a totally different deluge than the typical stuff I (and most others online) find regularly. This is not your mother’s spam.
Someone say something about people continuing to show up that are not wanted?
That’s a very interesting comment. I will bookmark it for future reference.
Do you use a spam-catching plugin? I’m very happy with Akismet, which lets me rapidly scroll through all the pitches and backlink garbage, and mass-delete all of it with a single click. Once in a blue moon there’s a legit comment with a backlink, which I just edit out. Takes me a minute. Don’t know if it’s available on your platform, I use wordpress.
I hope you don’t mind my using your comment to vent a bit, because this isn’t really in response at all, but it’s about the 479th comment with a suggestion about how to eliminate spam comments. Yes, I do have a spam-catching program. No, it’s not working with the type of spam I’m talking about here, which is completely different from the daily, run of the mill spam that we all receive. I had never been subject to anything like this until my blawg was placed on a backlink spammer’s list of high page-rank URLs. I suspect that none of those who are trying to help have seen what I’ve seen.
I do appreciate those (including you, Nathan) who are trying to help, but I am aware of Askimet as well as others, it’s not going to solve this problem and no need for the 480th person to suggest a solution. I’m trying to inform rather than asking anyone for help.
“That’s a very interesting comment. I will bookmark it.” I’m laughing at that comment because I get that one all the time. Another common one is: “Your entry has been very helpful with my term paper.”
I found that I was getting about 70 to 80 per cent of the spam tied to one particular entry of months ago. I got so tired of the spam, I finally deleted that post (it wasn’t a great one anyway) and the spam has abated somewhat.
Keep up the good fight. I can’t help laughing because it is frustrating and I am sure I don’t get anywhere near the volume SJ does.
This is an excellent post, and very probing of the subject matter. I will be certain to return to this blog in future. Thank you.