I cannot stress the importance of checking each and every comment and their links before accepting them on your website. Spammers are tricky and will often post comments that look, and sound genuine. You may think they really took the time to read and analyze your post. But beware, sometimes these posts will be paired with a link that can hurt your ranking. If just one of your blog comments carries a link to a reported spam website, your ranks can be significantly hurt, specially in a highly competitive market. Worst case scenario is that you too may be flagged as a spam site too for your involvement. Even though your intentions are not to be a spammer, by acknowledging them, and accepting their links on your site, you too will suffer the consequences. Remember that removing yourself from a spam list is a lot harder than getting on it in the first place. So please, practice your due diligence and make sure to check each and every link first before accepting them.

A good way to check a site for spam content is to open the link in a new window, read a few sentences to see if the web page looks genuine. If you are suspicious or if you have a single doubt, don’t accept the comment or edit it to delete the link. Sometimes you will have to wait a few minutes until you begin to see the true nature of a site. It often happens that a site will look genuine, but after a while, you begin seeing the pop-ups begin to appear. A site with pop-up ads should raise a red flag that the site may be a spam site. I also check the internal structure of a website. It has happened in the past that I will check the link that redirects me to a genuine looking site, but when clicking on the links in the navigation menu, each link goes to the same page. This raised a red flag, so after further inspecting the site, and doing a background check on the url, the site was listed as a severe spam site.

Spammers are finding ways to get around the protections that we have deployed against them. Just like advances in guns have led to advances in bullet proofing, we too must remain on guard and protect our websites. I suggest to routinely check the links on your site using the backlink check tool found here.

I hear a lot of people say that they are unsure of how to deal with reporting spam. Some fear of spammer backlash, fearing that a spammer may personally identify a website and attack it in retaliation for their report. Although I believe it may be possible, and I do believe there may have been a few victims of this type of attack, the alternative is a loss of valuable time for you–if  in case you have to check a large amount of links manually each day–as may be the case with more established blogs. In this case I would suggest trying out a spam filter. If your blog is hosted by a services such as word press, installing a spam filter will be easy to do. Otherwise, you may have your work cut out for you, but it should be worth your time. Using a spam filter will allow you to avoid reporting any spam, while still taking advantage of avoiding spam links on your site. You will still need to stay weary as new spammers are born each day, and they may get past your filters. If repeat offenders continue attacking your site, feel free to report them. They will likely be attacking several other sites too and will likely be expecting to be cited sooner or later anyways.

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