I’ve been meaning to do a post about spam, (I was about to make a ‘not the canned variety’ joke but it kinda is so I won’t) as a lot of it amuses me greatly. Granted, that’s not particularly hard to do but as anyone who has a blog allowing comments knows, spam happens.
There are approximately 4 types that I’d like to touch on. There’s more, but these make up the bulk of the automated comments that slip through the cracks (not a lot do, which is impressive). I realize this is largely stating the obvious but some people are unaware, and the rest of you can just nod silently, or loudly, or whatever it is you want to do. Not entirely sure how to nod loudly, but it’s entirely up to you! I’d list these in some sort of order, but it’s a lot more fun to list randomly.
TYPE A: The Sneaky
These are so crafty, they almost pass as legitimate comments. Almost, but I’m sometimes deeply suspicious of comments praising my work. (Yes, you should praise it but I do occasionally deflate my ego and boggle. It might be rare, but it happens.) Sometimes, they even relate slightly to the post content. Aha! Look at the suspicious site they’ve listed as their website and/or email! I’m onto you, crafty buggers. I’ll admit, if I’m feeling particularly needy, I’ll remove the email address and site and let it through. It’s nice to pretend to have more readers, you know?
Example: “Your post is very informative and helpful. This is a real issue. I have written much on this topic, you do good job”
TYPE B: The Crazy
These ones well… they’re hard to define other than wtf comments. Usually glaringly out of place in regards to the post they’re commenting on. There’s one in my spam queue right now.
Example: “japan is in a crisis right now”
Example: “oh yea hazelnut”
Example: “What is your day?”
The first one isn’t crazy in and of itself, but it’s location on a post I made about lizards weeks ago is. A thing to note though, this comments may genuinely be your readers messing with you. This type I’m tempted to let through as well, just for how out of place they are.
TYPE C: The Babbler
Random words put together in hope it’ll look like sentences. It’s actually quite fun to make some of these up myself. You should give it a try.
Good example: “And woman she went door cat, random stalled at and a touch banana wenaever.”
Bad example: “The lady went outside cat bird fish cucumber.”
Real example: “Later of they was even the empty designer, and even of he wrapped her second handbag to approach its to call luxury replica. It buzzed many of replica tamed tightly wiped sure wrist as watches into lou when sl*t stuffed you, all each many”
In the good example, we see no sentence structure whatsoever, random words and misspellings. These are the signs of a good type C spam comment. The second example ends well, but makes sense initially so it’s not acceptable. The third is a real comment that continued on for 4 large paragraphs after that snippet. Sheesh.
TYPE D: The Phisherman
These are your most obvious spam. Most spam filters do a good job of catching these nowadays but an occasional one surfaces every now and then. Often just a phishing link, they may add poorly spelled words as well. Or reference Viagra. Cheap. Hmm..
Example: “try it now <phishinglink>”
That about wraps it up, if you’ve got any novel spam comments to share please do so, there’s some truly hilarious ones out there and I’d love to hear them. Ever get tempted to let a few choice comments through? I forgot to save a lot of mine and by the time I got around to writing this up they’d all disappeared. Lucky I made fancy animations right?