Did you have a happy Christmas? 

Well I have just wasted 30 minutes deleting automated comments by lazy SEO hacks.

Some lazy ticket sales and electronic goods sites have managed to download a script that automates posts to blogs to create back links for Google to read and increase their SEO and profits. Lazy! And very annoying, I just deleted 98 rubish comments. If the uber clever SEO hack had been slightly less greedy and only left 2-3 comments I would have probably not been bothered to go and delete them.

I tried blocking IP address, but the lazy folks spamming my comments use dynamic IP addresses, they are a ComCast ADSL customer in the states. ComCast did not reply to my email about the matter.

So what can I learn and share? What mistakes did I make:

 1. The links from my blog to the commentors site does not have a no follow tag. Adding this would make it a waste of time for the spammer. Was this wrong? I felt that people who take the time out to comment on my blog should have a proper link to their site helping their SEO as gratitude for the comment.

 2. I did not pre-moderate my comments. Firstly I didn't do this so convesation can take place without being slowed down by the fact I have more interesting things to do than sit waiting for comments 24hrs a day. Is this a mistake? No, it is not, open convesation helps a community.

 3. I did not pre-moderate my comments - I know this is also no 2 but there is a gray area of the case law that has seen companies / individuals who edit the content of user contributed material held responsible for the content of the comment. I don't fancy being sued! If a comment is post removed based on complaint then their is no problem.

 4. I did not put a capture on my comments. Well I hate trying to read the silly graphics and type the words requested. So I did not see why my users should have to do something I hate.

So Comments are now turned off. Sorry.

The good news is they will come back, but after I have implemented a friendly capture system. One that does not leave you rolling your head to the side trying to work out if the lette is a K or B.

Instead I will have a few hundred simple images, and ask you to input what the image is. eg spoon, dog, cat, cow. etc. Easier than horrible text that human nor computer can read.

Have a happy new year.

See you in the next Decade.