I just had a rather disturbing email from a company advertising a new service called Buy Blog Comments (no follow tags used) promoting a new service offering to leave comment spam on blogs for those wanting to increase their SEO ranking.
The service offers to leave spam comments at a rate of 100 comments for $19.99, 500 comments for $99.99 and 1000 comments for $199.99.
They explain their service like this:
“Blog comments help your site rank better in the SERPs. We hired a few people who go through a list of blogs in a database we set up and pick out blogs that are in your niche. They then read through blog posts and leave a comment that has to do with the blog post they read, that way it wont get deleted. Your backlink will then be on a targeted blog, giving you more weight in the search engines. ”
The person behind the service is a guy called Jon Waraas (Jonwaraas.com) – a guy who owns a company called Developer Hut and a blog network called BuzzBums.
I think it’s one of the worst business ideas I’ve heard for a long time and something that bloggers should stand up against. I know that there are other services and tools that do this type of comment spam but this type of thing only weakens blogging.
I know that some comment spammers have done OK out of the practice but in most cases that I’ve heard about they don’t just leave a few hundred comment spams, they leave tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of them. I’ve also heard from a couple of people who know comment spammers that it’s becoming less and less effective as more bloggers use tools like Akismet and as so many bloggers use no follow tags in their comments sections.
Those buying such a service would also risk some potential downsides if they are caught out. I know I add anyone spamming my blogs to Akismets blacklist and have been known to expose companies who do it. Perhaps it’s time that bloggers stood up a little more aggressive to such blatant attacks?
I’d like to hear from those with a legal background comment on the legality of such a business. I know that of late spammers have been getting taken to court for sending unsolicited emails – I’d be interested to know what the legal standing would be of a company who so openly offers to leave spam comments on someone else’s web property.
Update: Comments have been closed on this post.
Wow… amazing… this shows that there are still a lot of people out there believing in sheer QUANTITY of links vs. QUALITY (and trust) of links to build.
I’m sure these 19.99 packages sell like hot cake, just because it’s *500 links*
And worst, I bet most of those 19.99 clients are not aware that there is software out there that does all that comment writing, content permutating (of the comment text) and even fancy stuff like captch cracking or spam challenge solving automatically…
but still, it’s bad bad bad quality links that people buy
and it’s unethical.
best regards
presell page man
Your guys and girls are JERKS! Jon is my friend and your just jeleous that you didn’t think of that Genious Idea first! You know its a smart way to make money. There’s no law against it and won’t be. My dad’s a lawyer and said its a legit company whether your sore losers want to believe it or not. Theres far worse things going around online (like porn spam) for instance.
YOU ALL NEED TO GROW UP AND STOP CRYING.
thats all i have to say..
I am the main page editor for one of the bigger blogs (www.wizbangblog.com), and I am appalled by this — and we have already had some similar instances. In those cases, there was one sentence that was vaguely germane to the topic, then a link to a “buy real estate” page. Since I didn’t know about this latest scam, I deleted the link and replaced it with a warning to the author.
I won’t make that mistake again.
I just pre-emptively banned waraas’ IP from posting anything at Wizbang (if you’re curious, it’s 75.126.35.50) and have a piece discussing this matter and linking to this article slated to publish at 5:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday.
The main ethical issue here, at least to me, has been addressed by only BC (as far as I noticed): the spammers here are making money by using other people’s blogs for commercial benefit without the owners of those blogs benefiting or being compensated. I’m no lawyer, but it seems awfully similar to the legal concepts of “theft by conversion” and trespass to chattel” — the use of another’s property for your own benefit without their permission. Even if there is no verifiable harm to the owner, it is still illegal.
Here’s an analogy: you live near a college. Your neighbor leaves home around dawn every day, and comes home late in the evening. You start renting out his driveway to college students who commute to class. They show up after he departs, and leave before he returns. He is in no way inconvenienced by your use of his driveway, and there is no damage done to it by the college students. But it’s still illegal, and he can sue you over it — and he’d win.
It’s much the same here.
J.
Jay Tea
Main Page Editor
http://www.wizbangblog.com
I just wish Google can read this right now… Please ban “BuyBlogComments.com” now for us to prevent this spammers to succeed.. Thank you Darrenor this great post…
Well, I paid for my 100 comments and have exchanged a couple of emails with Jon. He has not contacted me yet for the info about my site. I suggest you take a look at his network of sites and his blog (Of course you HAVE to leave a comment or two…) and he has a bio that lets you get to know who he is then things start to make some sense.
Anyway, I thought that the comments were going to have my links, and the posters would be making comments that were on topic and give my site as a good or bad example (I did insist on honesty) of the topic.
But I was told that the comment will be on topic but not mention my site at all. Rather the URL field that is filled out would be for my site. Ok, that’s not exactly what I wanted, but it may be ok I guess.
Anyway, I see most comments here want to burn Jon at the stake and I told him if nothing else all the protests would be publicity that money cannot buy. I just registered a domain something like payperpost.com to take advantage of this new and growing demand (or outrage) for the service. Say, did all of you that are so offended make any noise over payperpost? I’m guessing not. And how many are in that program? A few I’m thinking…
Anyway, I’m not a spammer, but I am a marketing person and things are either against the law or they are not. If these posts are not junk then I might hire them to post comments to MY 30+ blogs! I would love to get some on topic comments instead of the JUNK and offensive crap that I get now. I don’t speal too gud either and if that pisses you off then you need to get out more. Jeez…
Anyway, I have told Jon that he can do this white hat and not black if he wants to. If the comments are good, you’re going to benefit from the content as much or more than the person benefits from the link, in my opinion. I hope he takes my advice.
Radical suggestion for you, Chris:
BUY ADS.
Most blogs (ours included) offer advertising space to pretty much anyone who wants to.
Oh, that’s right. Those cost money, and involve compensating the owners of the blog you’re advertising on. Those two concepts are foreign to most “marketing” people.
J.
Jay Tea
Main Page Editor
http://www.wizbangblog.com
Darren – I agree with you. Spam comments should not be allowed at all. And the people providing such services can be compared to goons who use somebody else’s property for their benefit.
Ok, scenario, spam guru hires college students in India or the Philippines for $5 to $7 a day. It takes about 3 minutes to write a halfway thoughtful comment that relates to the article. Not hard for someone to do by hand and make it unique everytime. And not hard to make it look at worst like a low quality comment.
Example:
“Spam comments suck, I really hate them, it sure makes my work on my site more difficult. I really hope they nail this guy for coming up with the company idea.”
It looks like a legit comment so you approve it. 20 comments per hour, in an 8 hour day, 160 comments. Revenue for the spammer of $32 minus wages of $7=profit of $25 per worker. Put up 4 workers and you got $100 a day in income.
There’s benefits for the blog as well, extra traffic, comments that make the site look more active, poor college students in a 3rd world country make extra income they wouldn’t otherwise, spam company owner makes money.
Who loses? Why the reader of your blog of course and that’s reason enough to, at least for me, to detest this. I want legitimate comments that my readers can interact with, not some drivel posted by someone doing it for money.
LOL, I just have to chime in and say that 75.126.35.50 is not my IP. Thats my server’s IP.. I wont be doing any the comments myself, so no need to ban my IP. But you can ban it if you would like, it probably is already banned :)
Feel free to list any and all IPs you have, Jon. Our banning list has plenty of room, and if it doesn’t bother you, it won’t bother us, either.
J.
I wonder how the client will be assure that at the end of the day there are 100 comments made out there. What about those bloggers who moderate their comments and will delete them as soon as the feel the comments were paid for?
I don’t get it.
Well, at least they read the article. It will make a nice change being spammed by humans instead of bots.
The problem I see with this is IF the individuals writing the comments are intelligent, they COULD actually read a blog article, process it in their brain, and spit out an intelligent response. If they are writing the comment for a blog that is relevant to the niche of the blog they are being paid to comment on, then the blog owner might not be able to tell that it’s spam. It would look like a “normal” reader’s comment.
That’s a lot of “IFs” I know, and you would think that anyone who would take a job for this person wouldn’t be a morale, ethical, much less very intelligent individual. Why would you want to mess up your own personal karma by working for this type of business? But, someone who would do this most likely wouldn’t be thinking like that.
Additionally, looking at this from a customer stand-point, there is no way that I would pay money and then trust anyone else to leave comments on blogs with my name and url. Who knows what they would write, or how they would spell?!
It’s all a big bag of low energy as far as I’m concerned. I do appreciate the info though Darren, otherwise I wouldn’t have even been aware that this type of thing was going on.
“there is no way that I would pay money and then trust anyone else to leave comments on blogs with my name and url. Who knows what they would write, or how they would spell?!” – comment 113
That would be my biggest concern – how can I trust someone else with my name and sites with such a personal means of advertising? It’s like asking a complete stranger to disguise themselves as you and go to a party or on a date.
“It’s like asking a complete stranger to disguise themselves as you and go to a party or on a date.” ….Great analogy! Also, once those comments are posted, you can’t edit them. It’s not like posting on your own blog where you can edit your posts (i.e.: for typos or mistakes)… when those comments are approved and have your name and url on them, they are there for keeps. You would be leaving tracks all over the blogosphere, wouldn’t you want to know what “you” said?
The more I think about that, I personally couldn’t do it. And… if you are trying to create a successful blogging business, how about in the future when you’re well-known, and it comes out that you paid someone to leave 100’s or 1000’s of comments around the blogosphere for you? Yeah, I know this isn’t Hollywood here, but imagine some of the big names in blogging right now….if you found out that they used a system like this when they started out, how would that affect their credibility with you? It would turn me off to them and I’d stop reading their blog….
As you may expect from my blog’s name, I hate this new service. I hated it before I knew it was around even…
Earlier today I got a comment on my blog about golf. It was a decent comment, but I said nothing about golf, so the comment was completely irrelevant.
I have a feeling it was this service. (Not saying it was, but it seems to fit the mold.) If it was, a seemingly popular golf store is wasting money…
If you look at his network, it’s filled with useless garbage. I’ve never heard of this guy until now. It’s fun reading on all of his unethical ideas and how he makes money.
Karma will come around and jack-offs like this won’t exist on the internet.
Authenticity has been one of my concerns with a company like this, or with outsourcing comments in general.
However, with the open nature of comments as they are, it would be wholly possible for someone else to assume your identity and go on a comment spree. Though I have faith in human beings, in general, it would be a simple way for someone to try and destroy your reputation (especially if the blog author didn’t know you or your writing style).
Of course, that’s getting a bit off-topic.
Basically, it’s something that could happen anyway. Granted, if you’re trying to build a reputation for yourself, the last thing you want is to pay someone to be you.
~ Teli
I believe the only option then would be to force people to be logged in to comment. And you will obviously have the list of users with you. So, this way you could delete the dubious ones. Anyway, this whole business plain sucks.
Thanks for the info Darren. I’m going to install Askimet right now. One of my blogs gets 30 plus spam comments a day. Some don’t appear on the blog immediately anyway, as they are of the type with about ten url’s but it is still a big timewaster moderating them all. One of the most annoying things is that when you are deleting so many spam comments, it is easily to accidentally delete some genuine comments too.
That’s absolutely ridiculous!
Is there a way to identify such spam comments?
If the comments are on-topic, there is no problem unless you are a person that likes to argue principals over practical application.
If the comments are on-topic, you would never know it’s a paid comment.
If the comments are on-topic, they’ll actually extend the conversation further and add value to the web. Why? See #2.
The faulty logic of most of the comments on this post are that the comments are junk. Have you seen the comments? Then 99% of the comments here are just gossip, hearsay, and ill-informed.
If they are junk though, then I’ll be back to burn this dude to the ground, because I bought some a few days ago for one of my sites to test it out. I know that it doesn’t take me long to read an article and come up with a half-witted opinion just as good as anyone else. Of course I value my time too much to persue going after nofollow blogs as a linking mechanism, but if there is a pretty intelligent person who doesn’t value their time (or just likes reading blog posts and “Hey, I can get paid, too? Bonus!” This could be a win-win-win.
Win – for the blog owner since they get a good comment from a reader. (Just because it’s paid doesn’t mean they’re not a reader).
Win – for the blog comment poster because they’re getting paid to screw around on the web.
Win – for me. More links.
How is this any different than a Nascar driver putting a logo on the car? Except instead of drive a car, these guys chat on the internet.
Some of them doing these automatically and also some of them doing it manually. Just activate your akismet plugins and also make sure that your blog comment is not on auto-approved mode. This one works for me.
Now I know why my blog spam’s gone up recently.
On their site, they say that the spammers they hire: “… then read through blog posts and leave a comment that has to do with the blog post they read, that way it won’t get deleted.”
Heh. With comments like “Nice blog, keep it up!” I delete them instantly. So if you’re reading this and thinking of hiring this company to spam the blogosphere, don’t bother. The comments are easily identified as junk, and they’re treated like junk.
Cheers
Angela
@Matt Larson,
I’d be inclined to agree with your logic. Only problem is: the comments aren’t relevant or good. Anyone who gives two wits about their blog will delete them before they see the light of day. And yes, I’ve seen some of the actual comments and they’re along the same lines of many auto-generated spam comments.
~ Teli
I don’t see what the problem is. If the comment is good enough to add value to the post, why do you care what the anchortext/link is? If you’re that bothered, just nofollow your links for christ sake..
Anyone that writes “according to my lawyer husband” just makes me laugh. It’s not even technically spam, because it is done personally. Is it spam if a lawyer has his assistant write his letters? Jeez.
You can minimize the impact of the paid comment services by policing the anchor text. There should be a blog plugin that only allows legitimate names, thereby greatly reducing benefit of the backlink.
In the end, if the post has even modest value and the backlink is to a legitimate, related site, it does bring some value to the blog. If the blog owner doesn’t like it, they can just moderate comments. If they don’t have time to moderate comments and/or the comment volume is too high, then it doesn’t really matter anyways. This is the reality of a high volume blog… just like on any message forum or mailing list you get low value or marginal value posts all the time. Readers learn to ignore it.
This has about as much chance of getting off the ground as an incredibly chubby chicken.
It’s beyond stupid.
Could you imagine be so desperate for cash that you’d have to resort to doing this nonsense as a service?
There isn’t a chance the comments will be of any worth unless it’s one generic comment regurgitated wherever he can lay his hat.
It won’t last a week.
Just went over this kid’s site and it looks like he is just inexperienced in what he does. He has mentioned that he is not spamming , and I found that funny. I find it an irony that he mentioned how well he and his companions speak English, when the context of his comments just made it look like he is digging his own grave.
Here are the reason’s why their business is bound to fail in the long term.
Though he argues that nofollow does not work, it will take hundreds of these to actually make any difference in one’s ranking.
Finding a blog, reading its content, and writing a “long” sound comment takes a lot of hard work. I feel that they will soon tire of doing these over and over again. Blogging is also about relationships and about making friends and acquaintances. I for one will appreciate a long honest comment on my blog, and with my nofollow tags all over my blog, I wont mind them reading my posts and writing some useful comment. Still, I feel sorry for their clients, because it will benefit them nothing.
Links earned this way does not even give traffic and with the low click rate on comment links, again it is a waste of time.
Mentioning the word blackhat, admitting to doing it and inviting fellow BHatters is just the same as saying “ban me guys”.
And lastly, I think that Jon Waraas owe you Darren a lot of thanks. I imagine his site getting more visitors from this article than from any other.
curious to see if anyone received an email about john new website freeblogcomments – I want to know if he has targeted an audience that wrote negative feedback or just in general about his ‘service’
and yes this comment buying is just sick
got the same thing Iantrepreneur – he’s just trying to get some more publicity – not from me though.
SEO is important, but social networking, done honestly, is much more powerful. My stats show that search engines bring 17% of my total visitors while social networking brings over 60%. But more importantly, my social networking brings the “right” people to my blog. Maybe other people have other goals and driving fake numbers adds value to them, but I’m looking for authors who want to print books without getting ripped off and who want to learn about promoting online. I’d rather have one “good” number than 100 “fake” numbers.
Some comments are from people who are actually humans and wanting to promote their own site, while others seem a bit weird. if you found out that they used a system like this when they started out, how would that affect their credibility with you. I wonder if it is services like these going around posting supposedly-useful comments and adding a keyword to the comment name to get a link back? The guy on the site also says that nofollow doesn’t work. Surprisingly
i wouldn’t call this spam. Spam is automated and often is unrelated to the actual content of the blog/site. Also its generally some sort of obnoxious ad for another site.
Buyblogcomments actually has real people that read your blog (thought im not sure how for such a cheap price) and they post relevant comments. It’s more outsourcing than spam.
As long as the comments are not of the spammy nature ‘COME TO MY SITE IF YOU LIKE PROBLOGGER’ , ‘FREE TSHIRTS’ or something disruptive the comments this service post will fit in nicely with your article and in my opinion dont seem to be a big deal.
Also, I agree with Phillip Davis in the scheme of things its more important to focus on your social network community than your SEO if your a blogger. i likewise get around 70% of my loyal visitors from social networking sites rather than searches
If his commenters spell as well as he does, they’ll get picked up quickly enough. And how you could read a post and make a relevant comment on enough sites to even make minimum wage I don’t know.
If you are paying attention to your comments at all, I don’t see how they will sneak by very often.
I delete all the “nice post” garbage, too, unless I know who is leaving the comment and it either doesn’t contain a link or links back to a blog in my little “clique.”
If they do manage a reasonable comment and don’t link to anything objectionable, I don’t see it as the biggest deal. Companies pay people to comment in their forums to give the appearance of activity. Commenters here have mentioned the temptation to fake their own comments.
I am surprised there isn’t a service to pay for people to comment on your own site.
But I guess you can save the money if other people are paying to have comments left for them.
Correction, Google Adsense.
The thing that gets me about this is that we are turning into such a fakey fake society. Not just the US…it is a virus that seems to be spreading. Deception is the order of the day. It’s depressing. Bye, authenticity
Now we have one more stupid program. Terrible.
got the same thing Iantrepreneur – he’s just trying to get some more publicity – not from me though.
i wouldn’t call this spam. Spam is automated and often is unrelated to the actual content of the blog/site. Also its generally some sort of obnoxious ad for another site.
Buyblogcomments actually has real people that read your blog (thought im not sure how for such a cheap price) and they post relevant comments. It’s more outsourcing than spam.
As long as the comments are not of the spammy nature ‘COME TO MY SITE IF YOU LIKE PROBLOGGER’ , ‘FREE TSHIRTS’ or something disruptive the comments this service post will fit in nicely with your article and in my opinion dont seem to be a big deal.
That bastard! Let’s spam his website and see how he likes it!
Umh, this service seems awesome I bought a test order, waiting for the result
Just a thought.
I have read with interest all the comments about adding comment to blogs – the thing is if you put your site on line and invite comments then you will get them good or bad – and will you will be prone to this sort of thing.
The reason people can use a site to promote theirs is by exploting a weekness in the way the posted information is stored and filtered and displayed – a lot of off the shelf blog software does not strip out any tags or scripts or http references embedded in the post so if your blog is reated highly in search engine when a search engine indexes the page it follows the link – if the site also has a link somewhere on the site back to yours then the page ranking can be increased – basically the way to stop it is to filter posted data and strip out link and html – i think from you comments you are doing this by hand.
On the plus side is that you are also getting a link back from these sites so if they are moving up in the page rank that should also reflect on you – the other thing is if these people target the correct content then you will be getting added content as well.
I am not in agreement with these tactics just expressing my point of view – rather than a knee jerk reaction to spam them all as suggested on ealier posts just limit the damage.
Mark
I read blogs often and I also read the comments on blogs/forums. There are many instances where I come across content spammers and the information posted in their posts add information to the topic. The businesses being promoted are viable, honest, and valid and are trying to sell their product to the correct crowd.
For example, I once saw a soy milk company commenting on a lactose intolerant forum discussion. Sure, they were selling their product but they were in the right place, offering up their goods to the proper potential customers – customers who may appreciate the knowledge the comment spammer is giving.
I guess I’m just curious about the whole thing. Maybe we can put “tags” on comments that have links imbedded in them so the reader can see which comments are advertising something pertinent to the topic and which comments are form uniformed american citizens who spout uneducated opinions. Just a thought.
I receive tone of spam comment every day. Until I have tiring to read those comment that are spamming in. I was finding a way to filter them out of my list. Do you anyone have solution like spam filter or software to solve this problem?? I need helps.
it is a virus that seems to be spreading. Deception is the order of the day. It’s depressing. Bye, authenticity
If the comment is a good comment then what’s the difference?. Do you ever know the true motivation of your commenters? Would you want to? Also… Is it any of your business?
I think you can only judge a comment on it’s own merit. As soon as you try to second guess motivations behind them as a method of spam control, then you’ve really lost the plot haven’t you.
Those buying such a service would also risk some potential downsides if they are caught out.
This is the point