Buying Blog Comments is Beyond Stupid — The Phoenix Real Estate Guy

I don't get it…

Back in July I read a post on ProBlogger (fabulous blog BTW) that talked about a company that was offering a service where people could pay to have someone post comments on blogs. This is supposed to get your website/blog better search engine rankings.

I said to myself at the time, "This is a really, really bad idea." (dozens of commenters on that post agreed. Drew Meyers had some thoughts on this practice as well.)

This morning I awoke to a LONG comment left on a post about the Aaron Anglin tragedy. Given that this post came in at almost the exact moment in time that Aaron was being laid to rest, I thought maybe someone had some thought, some moment of reflection on this tragedy.

What I found was blatant advertising for a real estate agent / website in Woodstock, GA.

I get this idiocy every now and then. Why in the world an agent would think it's appropriate to write a comment on my blog that adds zero to the conversation and simply advertises their services is beyond me.

I was about to hit the button to send this clown into multiple anti-spam databases when I took a closer look at the comment. It was left by someone using a Yahoo.co.in email address (a free email account from Yahoo! India).

Maybe I'm going out on a limb with this assumption, but something tells me that the agent in Woodstock, Georgia is unlikely to be leaving a comment from a free email address in India at 3:00 in the morning his time.

What we have here appears to be a "paid comment". Mr. Woodstock Agent seems to be paying someone to travel the blogiverse, entering blatant, spammy advertising comments on people's blogs.

So before I sent this guys domain to anti-spam databases across the planet, I thought I'd drop him an email. Help him understand why this was a really bad idea. Maybe give him an opportunity to get his money back from his "SEO guy". Here is what I sent (links modified):

I'm going to assume this comment left on my blog, which is nothing but a spam advertisement, was a "paid comment" — ie: the owner of Real Estate In Woodstock . com paid some company or individual to go around to various blogs leaving comments.

I hope they didn't pay very much.

Here is why this is a *really* bad idea.

1) It labels you as a spammer. Not very many people out there like spammers. Most in fact, despise them.
2) This comment in particular is especially horrific for two reasons:
1) It is blatant advertisement for a real estate agent, left on another real estate agent's blog. Why would you possibly think I want to advertise you? It'd be like Chevy using Ford automobiles in their TV ads.
2) Most appalling to me is this blatant spam ad was left as a comment on a post about a very serious personal tragedy. It is *completely* and utterly inappropriate.

3) I have, of course, removed this ridiculous comment from my blog and tagged it as spam. As such, the domain name real estate in woodstock . com can be sent to databases that collect information on known spammers. "Spam-catcher" software, which most blogs and email providers utilize, access these databases to try to eliminate spam. It's likely that your domain will end up on a "blacklist" that propagates across the internet, flagging you as a known spammer. That's not really the type of list you want to be on. I have not finalized the submittal of the domain to the blacklists, yet.

I realize that many agents want to increase their web presence. I know, because I am an agent. Many don't understand how these things work and waste good money chasing really bad ideas. Companies out there prey on ignorant victims. Other bloggers are likely not to be quite as nice as I was and immediately relegate your comment to spam blacklists (and it's entirely possible someone that saw it on my blog already did so given the nature and type of post this comment was left on).

If you paid for this comment, you are getting ripped off, plain and simple. Not only is it a complete waste of money, it is quite likely to seriously damage your reputation and the ability to get this domain name any sort of rankings in the search engines.

If this was not a paid comment, well, then shame on you.

I *will* send this domain to anti-spam blacklist databases in 8 hours (3:00pm MST on 9/28/2007) unless I hear from you.

Well, it's now 5:49pm MST on 9/28/2007. I've heard nothing from any of the three email addresses I sent this to. (well, four counting the spammer him/herself.) So, off to the black lists it goes.

Conclusion: Don't pay people to post ridiculous comments for you. Take a few minutes yourself to read blogs and leave pertinent comments. I use "Do Follow" here, so you get "link love" from URL's in comments. In addition to the link love, you just might learn something too.

Oh yeah, and going 11 hours on a business day without checking your email is probably a bad idea too.

[tags]spam sucks, paid blog comments[/tags]

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Kris Berg

Jay - The sad thing is that I got the same comment on my blog later yesterday. I had keyboard poised ready to send Mr. Woodstock an email when I remembered that you would probably beat me to the punch. Thanks for reading him the riot act. Amazing that someone bought into this as a "marketing" tactic. He is probably off at a listing appointment right now saying, "And I'm a blogger!".

Jay - The Phoenix Real Estate

It's actually quite sad that the guy is paying someone to slowly destroy his credibility and search positioning.

Folks out there need to be extremely careful with people that promise to get you search positioning. Many are clueless and sadly, many are crooks.

24 hours later and still no response from the email. Maybe it's just me, but had I received an email like that, I'd have responded.

Maurice (TheCaymanHost)

Good post. I have recently had a run in with a similar type of 'human comment spam' which although not as blatant as this and not in such poor taste it was still pretty transparent.

This came from a domain in Canada and was not, I don't think, a paid comment, simply someone using a dofollow list and inserting the same one line comment on every blog he came across where there was a relevant discussion.

This type of tactic often goes unnoticed, particularly by the less wary or newer bloggers. Unfortunately for this guy, as a reader of several of the blogs he was targeting, the pattern was pretty obvious and when it appeared on one of my threads, the URL was stripped out and a rather ornery response posted :-) I also alerted the other blogs to this guy's MO.

When no response was forthcoming from any of the barbed criticisms he received at the blogs in question it was even more obvious he was just a drive by advertiser. Considering the URL he linked to, using a product name as anchor text, was not even a blog, and extremely unlikely to be of interest to my readers who probably don't buy pseudo ghetto wardrobe items, it makes him a spammer in my eyes, and not even a very clever one. Like you, I blasted his details of to the anti spam databases.

daniel butterfield

Jay,
I was poking around looking for real estate hedge fund blogs and more importantly how people categorize real estate hedge funds and i saw this post.

I am not blogging on a daily basis but i can see how annoying this could be for someone that is very serious about sharing information with one another.

With that in mind, I have a question for you, if you have the time to answer or comment back I would very much appreciate it. I manage something very close to a Real Estate Hedge Fund except that each investor has an equity position and i don't fall under the accredited investor requirement. I recently started to get very involved in web sites and blogs. I am already fairly technically having worked for Andersen Consulting for 5 years before they turned Accenture.

My question is: with so many choices on how to communicate how do you figure out what is best for you (that being me). In other words i have my main web site that I use to communicate my company marketing. I have a few other specialty sites that i use to rent property and do credit repair. I also have 3 blogs that i use to track lenders, rent to own clients and rental property status.

Now i am ready to take the next step and really make an impression. I realize it doesn't happen over night and I expect this to be a 2008 2nd quarter result, but which direction is the best in your opinion.

Here is what i know:
1. I could figure out a subject or number of subjects to blog about and grow an audience similar to your blog. However i must be careful separating business from the blog unless someone approaches me for services. No sales in the blog.
2. I can write relevant articles about my business, real estate, distressed properties, lending, credit repair and rent to own - all the capabilities we have as a real estate hedge fund.
3. I could do some Google advertising to simply bring traffic to my web site, but i am not sure if that is the type of buzz i am trying to create.

Any comments would be appreciated, you just seemed like the type of guy that would be more the willing to comment back.

BTW i am not an agent, however i do buy and sell properties - web site has more detail on there dometri.com

Daniel