Comment Spam is a generally automated attack where a site’s comment fields are abused often with low-quality messages or unrelated URL’s being submitted through it.
Goals of Comment Spam
- Attempting to advertising a product or their own blog to your audience
- Leveraging your website as a backlink to increase their SEO
- Use your comment fields to send spam to other recepients
Characteristics of a Spam Comment
- Generic Language: A usually complementary sometimes off-topic comment with an associated backlink
- Contains URL’s to unrelated products & services or questionable keywords
- Contains a randomly generated URL or email
- Is in a foreign language
- Sent from a Spam Hot Spot: Eastern Europe, SE Asia
Why this is bad
- If search engines detect spam on your site they will delist your site or punish your rankings
- Poor moderation damages your credability and trust
- Dangerouse URL’s may cause harm to your sites visitors if they click on them
- Untrustworthy URL’s within your site may lead to it being listed on safe-browsing blacklists
- Spam being sent from the website may lead to your host suspending the cPanel service
What You Can Do
- Disable Comments if not required
- Enable Comment Moderation
- Install a anti-spam plugins such as AntiSpam Bee