Generating Backlinks Encourages Comment Spammers

As a new blogger I quickly learned the importance of getting a link to my blogs from other websites and blogs.  One of the easiest ways to start getting backlinks is through commenting on other blogs.  The majority of commentators make comments relating directly to the post they are commenting about and they do not abuse leaving links.  A small subset though have become comment spammers.  Comment spammers, in my opinion, fall into two categories - intentional link spam and malicious link spam.

The intentional link spammer is only interested in getting their link onto as many blogs as possible.  The don't read the blog but only zero in on the comment to make some insincere comment like "nice blog" and their link.  Their only agenda is link building.  On the surface this seems rather harmless.  Consider though that by allowing their link you are creating a hole in your Page Rank bucket without getting any benefit from allowing the link.   Allowing one or two blatant comment spams through only encourages other comment spammers.  The best way to deal with this type of link spammer is via comment moderation.  The best course of action is to reject the comment.

The malicious comment spammer has the specific agenda of trying to harm your blog's PR through the comment system.  Lowering the PR of a blog results in a reduced earning potential for that blog.  The reasons why another blogger would try to maliciously lower your blog's PR could be as simple as competition or maybe they just don't like or style or maybe they think knocking your blog out will give them more earning potential.  Any blogger who does not use comment moderation is setting themselves up for the malicious comment spammer.  In the matter of a couple of hours this type of spammer could do some serious link damage to your blog.  If you didn't notice for a day or two a hole consisting of a couple hundred links pointing away from your blog would likely be enough to affect your PR.  Prevent this by always using comment moderation.

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