Are you Losing Good Blog Readers and Comments?

October 14th, 2007 | 12 comments

Just a quick message (advisory) to those of you who rarely check your spam filters. Please understand this is a rant, but I’m not disrespecting those who are guilty I’m also not familiar with all the different spam filtering plugins etc. so it may very well be an issue with the system you use and not you the blogger.

My domain triggers many spam filters. It may be due to the words “money” or “online” in my URL. It may also be due to people accidentally flagging my comments as spam or people that don’t like what I say so they spam me to “get back” at me, who knows. All I know is I’ve never spammed anyone, ever!

The fact that many of my comments never show up on blogs makes me wonder how many others are going through the same thing.

On blogs that I really like and/or that are run by friends and/or frequent commenters of this blog, I’ll still leave comments frequently and contact them or attempt to contact them letting them know that I need fished out of their filter.

However, on blogs that I just found and liked, if my comments never show up I most likely never come back.

The moral of the story is that just because a comment ends up in your spam filter doesn’t mean it’s spam.

Check your spam filters daily. If you don’t you’ve probably lost a bunch of good comments and trackbacks as well as regular readers who never come back because they can’t even contribute.

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12 comments

Chuck Brown (12 comments.)
15th October, 2007 at 1:02 am

Fortunately, most of the stuff Akismet catches for me is actually spam. I may have had ONE legitimate email snagged so far. But I agree about the importance of encouraging and enabling comments. It very literally adds content to your blog posts, because our readers frequently know about many, many resources of which we’re not yet aware.
Josh Spaulding
15th October, 2007 at 1:04 am

Chuck, theres been more than one hint, hint You’re right though, I use Akismet as well and it does pretty well. It still blocks good comments from time to time though.
Snoskred (3 comments.)
15th October, 2007 at 2:10 am

I used to have a lot of trouble with getting stuck in spam traps. It seems a few bloggers did not like that I put my url under my name in comments and they marked my comments as spam. Once Akismet is told your comment is spam by a few bloggers, it ends up being spam across the internet.

I have a couple of thoughts on how to stop your comments going to spam -

- always comment using your name rather than your blog name, at least the first few times you comment on a blog - and don’t use your blog name without contacting the blogger first and asking if it’s ok.

- don’t use links in your comments on wordpress blogs unless you have built a relationship with that blogger by commenting several times on their blog

- drop by my blog and leave a comment - if it goes to Akismet I’ll drag it out of there and let you know - it may take a few “drags” out of Akismet to pull you out of their spam box for good.

I hope that’s helpful.

Cheers,
Snoskred
Josh Spaulding
15th October, 2007 at 2:22 am

Thanks Snoskred, duly noted
Chuck Brown (63 comments.)
15th October, 2007 at 2:34 am

Ouch…thanks for letting me know about that, Josh! Sometimes I have my fingers in too many pies at once. Both of those comments have now been freed from the clutches of the Akismet gods!
Josh Spaulding
15th October, 2007 at 2:44 am

Hey Chuck, thanks, I hope you didn’t take offense to that. Just letting you know
YC (17 comments.)
16th October, 2007 at 8:04 am

Heh! Josh you were flagged as spam on my blog but I do check Akismet periodically. Luckily I managed to fish yours out
WarriorBlog (8 comments.)
16th October, 2007 at 10:37 pm

You said that you would never come back to a site that doesn’t show your comment…so does that mean you only visit to leave a comment? not for the content?

:O
Josh Spaulding
16th October, 2007 at 10:53 pm

Thanks YC, much appreciated

WarriorBlog, if you read further you’ll see my reasoning. If I can’t even contribute and interact I normally won’t come back, unless it’s a friend, family member, frequent visitor here etc.

Why would anyones reason for visiting a blog be to just comment? Unless you mean for the link you get (if they use dofollow,) which is something I rarely think about, as it’s not much of a link building strategy.
Snoskred (3 comments.)
16th October, 2007 at 10:59 pm

It’s about participating. If someone won’t let you participate, you lose a bit of respect for their content - and let’s face it, there are literally thousands of blogs on the internet so why would you go back to one that isn’t respectful to you as a commentor when you can just go find somewhere else that is respectful to you as a commentor?

On the other hand, I don’t like it when people use their website name rather than their “handle” - I don’t go around commenting as “life in the country” because it seems a bit odd. I’m known on the net as Snoskred. My advice to people would be - choose a very unique name as your handle and get to be known as that name around the place. There’s not another Snoskred, thank the deities. That’s because it is the Norwegian word for avalanche. I chose it specifically because it was unique and would stand out.

I love the subscribe to comments option. This has been an interesting discussion to watch!
Maurice (TheCaymanHost) (60 comments.)
17th October, 2007 at 5:24 pm

Like Snoskred I like the “subscribe to comments” option although I have been relying more on CoComment in an attempt to keep track of conversations I get involved in.

What I do find puzzling is that the option to subscribe to a comment thread on my blog is habitually completed by people with a fake email address. The subscribe option is double opt-in for prevention of abuse, but I frequently see undeliverable messages where folk have filled out the box with a phony email!

I’ve never relegated you to my spam bin Josh in fact you seem to be one of the few who manages to send successful trackbacks.
Josh Spaulding
21st October, 2007 at 1:20 am

Since i installed the subscribe to comments plugin, I’ve noticed more comments so it’s definitely a good deal!

As far as cocomment I started using it, but I’ll admit it was for the links I was getting. Now they aren’t showing up as links so I don’t use it lol I know that’s bad.

That’s amazing Maurice, yours is one of the very few that doesn’t send my comments to the spam filter