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13 Words and phrases I’m tired of seeing in the machine-generated “comments” that hit my filters:
1. Article. I don’t write articles. I write all kinds of junk – most of it fiction – and post it here. Even my “How to” things rarely qualify as articles.
2. Helpful. Yes, I manage to be that sometimes, but never on the posts this word is applied to. Really, Suzie’s House is helpful? Or a poem about vampires? Or a picture of a wall? Yeah, right.
3. “This topic.” Yet it’s clear from the comments that whoever wrote that has no idea what the topic is.
4. “Fine read” on one of my ancient 365 Photos posts. One with no words. If it landed on a Suzie’s House, I might pull it from the thousands such “comments” I get each day. But no. It never does.
5. Ugg boots. It’s enough to make me decide to NOT buy them.
6. “This Blog”
7. “Your Blog”
8. Heck, just calling my blog a blog, because how often do you real people do that? Hardly ever. You wonderful people talk about whatever it is I’m talking about. That or something I said somewhere else.
9. “Loading slowly.” What is it with spammers that they feel like insulting my technical aspects? I’ve already asked a bunch of times, and you all always tell me the site is loading just fine. Except when it isn’t loading at all, and then I’m already dealing with it ahead of you.
10. “Howdy” or some other greeting, because, again, real people never bother.
11. “I subscribed”. I wish.
12. “Thanks for share”. What? Can’t even be grammatical? Mind you, this one particularly sticks out because it COULD be real. But not if it’s from an unknown commenter, on an old post, and leads to a purely commercial web site.
13. “I know this is sort of off-topic but” Again, so close to real.
Those spam comments were why I set up wordver for posts more than two weeks old. For some reason, the bots seem to always get the older posts.
I hate having to add that extra layer of complexity for my fiction readers, but Blogger won’t let me have different comment settings on each blog, and I got fed up with spam comments showing up on sensitive posts on my original blog. If I remember correctly, the last straw was a comment ad for fake Rolex watches on a post about the death of a beloved pet. Grrrr….
Howdy! This topic was one fine read. Thank you for share such helpful article.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. I’ll be ducking for cover now. Grin.
LOL.
You are so lucky I have a sense of humor.
Well, Heather beat me to it, I was going to say the same thing!
I for one don’t see the point of these machine-generated posts. They must serve some purpose, but I don’t know what it is.
They are trying to get free advertising. It’s a stupid way of thinking, though, because any post that is alive enough to be seen by readers and MAYBE have someone clink on the link in the name to take them to the ad site won’t allow them to comment.
I’ve had a few spam comments in the last few months, but nothing too outlandish.
I feel kinda disappointed by this. LOL! You’re getting more random love than me!
Happy TT!
Gah! Not my kind of love!!!
Luckily, I don’t get the spam comments. Get lots of spam email to my author email, though. Oh, and I love my Ugg slippers! LOL!
*hugs*
Paige
My TT is at http://paigetylertheauthor.blogspot.com/
Yup. Right there with you.
I look at my spam messages, and at the first glance, they almost seem genuine so I’m like “Yay! Visitors!”. And then they ruin it with that stuff and I’m like “No! Spam!”
They’re getting cleverer, the little bots.
Do you ever get the novel length Boycott American Women comment? It’s a real hoot.
I saw that a while back, but didn’t stop to read it. I’ll keep an eye peeled. These things tend to come back over and over.
Yeah, I’m the webmaster for an author’s site and I go through her spam every week or so…tons of your articles, or your blogs, and I know what you mean about the UGGS!
Thanks for sharing!
I always LOVE your 13s Alice Audrey. Always inspired and fun.
My favorite spam in the past year began “Your website is my breathing in.” How can you not fall for that line?
To have your site provide someone with actual oxygen!! 
What bugs me is some of the newer bloggers probably unsuspectingly approve some of those crap messages, garnering the bastards links.
You ARE helpful in my life, your comments always cheer me up, my friend — each and every time you visit, just to know you’ve been by.
xoxo
Yeah, it’s amazing how many different kinds of Ugg Boots the spammers are promoting. Ugh!
Howdy,
Your blog is a fine read. I enjoyed the topic of this helpful article. I subscribed, although this blog loaded slowly. Thanks for share! (This may be off-topic, but buy Ugg boots!)
Heather beat you to it, though this is almost uncanny how well this works.
You get words? Mine are just gobbly gook and dangerous links.
Oh that and asking if I want to extend my non-existent junk.
heh, akismit spam filter helps screening on my site. at least the spam strains are evolving away from yelling insults for attention.
I still get plenty of insults in mine. It’s remarkably annoying, even knowing it’s got nothing to do with me.
I get so much spam including the insults, dangerous links, and foreign language spam that is 1500 words long. Pearl is right – Akismit has been a blessing for catching practically all of my spam comments. I think I have only had one or two get through that could have been non-spammers but ended up being such.