Plagued By Blogspot Spam Comments

Certain posts on this blog seem to be plagued by spam comments. I know a little bit about SEO, online marketing, link building and automated link placement, so I think I know what's going on here. These people use automated software to find blogs and websites that have comments enabled so they can fill them with spam comments. Some do it to try and promote their crap websites that are more than likely in niches that a hard to get links for.

Example: Porn, Gambling, Pharmaceuticals etc. And others are selling the links in a service on forums where you can buy blog comments. So, for example, the "seller" finds 50 blogspot blogs that all have comments enabled. He or she then sells that service to people looking for some comment backlinks for say $10. Usually, but depending on the quality of the comment service, the seller then uses the software to place the comments automatically, most of the time using spun comments that are not relevant to the site / post they are being left on. And most of the time the comments don't really make much sense.

My only confusion with my situation is that my blog has always had comment moderation enabled. None of their spam comments have ever been published here, so you would think they would have given up by now. But no, the comments are still coming in thick and fast every day. Perhaps they are just running the software over and over looking for hits (live links) and my blog link is in there. Once they analyse the results they should see that my blog - Interwire, has not resulted in any links being placed. Then, hopefully, they will remove my blog from their software.

The post getting all the attention is this one. Perhaps its in a niche they are desperate to get links for (CBD oil / CBD infused supplements are very popular at the moment), and that post might sit in a decent position in Google. Who knows, I haven't checked. It's not like I'm trying to make any money from the post, I just wrote about a new product that was coming out. But if any of the BOT users (people running the software) happen to read this post (very unlikely), please take my blog out of your software. You are not going to get any back links from this blog. Don't waste your time.

If they're doing Blogspot wide (scanning all blogs), then I don't think there's much I can do about it except delete the notifications that I have new comments. I could ban IP address, hosts, etc, but I can't be bothered with that. None of the comments will see the light of day anyway, and it only takes few seconds to delete the blogger notification emails. I should add. As all the comments are being sent in by Anonymous users (basically bots), I have now disabled the ability for anyone, including anonymous users, to send comments on this blog. So lets see if that fixes this annoying issue.

Update: Disabling anonymous users to leave comments has totally fixed this issue. This blog now gets zero spam messages. So if your experiencing this issue, just disable the ability for anonymous users to post a comment and that should do the trick. 

Quick Grafter Work Website Review

This is not really an in-depth review, as I haven't used Grafter to the level needed to write a full review. This post is more of a "my experience" so far type of entry. If you're looking for temporary / short term work you may have come across a site called Grafter. If not you might be asking the question:

What is Grafter: It's basically a website where employers and those looking for a few days / weeks work connect. Employers advertise short term work, and if you're registered on Grafter and fit the criteria, you might get selected to "apply" for the job. If you apply and actually get chosen for the position, you do the work and get paid through the Grafter system. Easy!

Well, that's what is meant to happen. Sounds really good. Some quick work, a few days here and there, no long term commitments. But to be honest, I've been a Grafter member for around 2 years now. I have a profile with a picture of myself, that's fairly well written (something you need to fill out in order to be considered for jobs), I've got experience in numerous sectors that are in demand, I also get many new job offers from Grafter which are close to my location, I have my own transport and safety wear, but yet I have never even had so much as one days work from Grafter. Absolutely nothing.

Most of the time I get offers for work, I respond by applying for the job and just don't hear anything back. Other times, some of the jobs offered are a bad match. They're either really far away, or in a job sector that I have not listed on my profile. So technically I should not be getting sent the job because I have set up my account to only be considered for jobs that fall within the job sectors I have experience with, and within a certain distance I'm willing to travel to work from my location.

I can't comment on how reliable they are in terms of getting paid, employers not paying etc, because I've never had any work from them what so ever. I may update this post if I do happen to get any work from Grafter. If I could choose one word to describe Grafter so far it would be: Terrible. I should add, though, I don't think its a full-on scam and that no one at all ever gets work. I'm sure some people have had some work from them.

I just suspect that Grafter could potentially have a lot of fake jobs listed because they are trying to grow their business and increase the amount of people, workers and employers alike, in order to make it look more popular than it is. A fake it till you make it type method. Just my opinion of course. But this is nothing new. Lots of websites and companies do this.

Some do it themselves to help speed up growth (generate more real users) and others are just abused by people (registered members / fake employers) looking for leads / personal details from the people applying to the jobs. Some do both. Which one is Grafter, I don't know. However, this post reminds me a bit of the other post I wrote about the many fake jobs being advertised on Indeed. Anyway if I happen to get any work from Grafter I'll update the blog with my experience.