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	<title>Comments on: Do not Buy Blog Comments</title>
	<atom:link href="http://aralbalkan.com/989/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989</link>
	<description>Aral on Flash, SWX, Flex, ActionScript, and life.</description>
	<pubDate>Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:05:10 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title>By: Steve</title>
		<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-91305</link>
		<dc:creator>Steve</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:10:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-91305</guid>
		<description>Nice on the nofollow. As long as search engines look as the number of links to the site rather then content on the site this sort of spam thing will just keep on happening</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Nice on the nofollow. As long as search engines look as the number of links to the site rather then content on the site this sort of spam thing will just keep on happening</p>
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		<title>By: mlankton</title>
		<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-72620</link>
		<dc:creator>mlankton</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:19:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-72620</guid>
		<description>Garbage comments suck, whether on blogs or forums. Fortunately for Wordpress users, the combination of akismet and moderation will make it a non-issue. Unless your blog gets John Chow kind of traffic I imagine.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Garbage comments suck, whether on blogs or forums. Fortunately for Wordpress users, the combination of akismet and moderation will make it a non-issue. Unless your blog gets John Chow kind of traffic I imagine.</p>
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		<title>By: Aral</title>
		<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-66285</link>
		<dc:creator>Aral</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:01:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-66285</guid>
		<description>@bela: Bless, are we a little slow or are we a spammer too?

Blog spam is theft. You're *stealing* from bloggers. 

You have no right whatsoever to spam a blog. It's not your space. You're illegally putting your advertising (stealing space, benefiting from page rank and clicks) on the blog that you're spamming. And you are poisoning the information on that blog and doing a disservice to anyone reading it. 

If you're a spammer, you're nothing but a petty thief and a nuisance.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>@bela: Bless, are we a little slow or are we a spammer too?</p>
<p>Blog spam is theft. You&#8217;re *stealing* from bloggers. </p>
<p>You have no right whatsoever to spam a blog. It&#8217;s not your space. You&#8217;re illegally putting your advertising (stealing space, benefiting from page rank and clicks) on the blog that you&#8217;re spamming. And you are poisoning the information on that blog and doing a disservice to anyone reading it. </p>
<p>If you&#8217;re a spammer, you&#8217;re nothing but a petty thief and a nuisance.</p>
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		<title>By: bela</title>
		<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-66283</link>
		<dc:creator>bela</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:51:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-66283</guid>
		<description>This guys just jealous the guy is making money,
your nothing but jealous all your trying to do is knock his money making scheme.

Why get jealous when somebody makes money?

Leave the guy alone if he wants to spam and earn for a living then thats what he wants to do.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This guys just jealous the guy is making money,<br />
your nothing but jealous all your trying to do is knock his money making scheme.</p>
<p>Why get jealous when somebody makes money?</p>
<p>Leave the guy alone if he wants to spam and earn for a living then thats what he wants to do.</p>
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		<title>By: Marky45</title>
		<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-66043</link>
		<dc:creator>Marky45</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:29:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-66043</guid>
		<description>this must be the worst idea yet and this is definitely gon to be hated in the blog community, back links for the most pages from the top you will see that it doesn’t matter what PR they have, That is just plain stupid. The way I feel is simple is a person comments in my blogs, the comment is relevant and on topic and the link does not go to some “bad thing” and otherwise complies with my comment policy I am fine with it.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>this must be the worst idea yet and this is definitely gon to be hated in the blog community, back links for the most pages from the top you will see that it doesn’t matter what PR they have, That is just plain stupid. The way I feel is simple is a person comments in my blogs, the comment is relevant and on topic and the link does not go to some “bad thing” and otherwise complies with my comment policy I am fine with it.</p>
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		<title>By: hugh</title>
		<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-63783</link>
		<dc:creator>hugh</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Jul 2007 17:43:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-63783</guid>
		<description>I like the fact that he calls it the "blogspear" not "blogsphere", as it's commonly known.

There's education at it's best. He is an incredibly sketchy person, to be sure.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I like the fact that he calls it the &#8220;blogspear&#8221; not &#8220;blogsphere&#8221;, as it&#8217;s commonly known.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s education at it&#8217;s best. He is an incredibly sketchy person, to be sure.</p>
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		<title>By: Tom</title>
		<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-63584</link>
		<dc:creator>Tom</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jul 2007 04:35:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-63584</guid>
		<description>The solution is simple.

1. Google and other SE's need to actually enforce nofollow.  Lots of empirical evidence that they do not.

2. Implement various anti-spam turing methods.  When nofollow was introduced, only a small % of blogs had anti-spam methods.  There are even 3rd party services in addition to turing tests to help prevent spam.

There is real value in allowing blog commenters whatever minimal link credit they might get from a comment link.  Don't punish the legitimate commentors, deal with the problem before it even gets in the door.

Nofollow is like throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Fix the problem as its root, i.e. prevent the spam in the first place.  There are real methods to do this that will solve 95% of all comment spam.  The remaining 5% is either tolerable (e.g. thinly disguised comment spam from outsourced human services to bypass turing tests)... or can be solved with moderation or a self-policing system like on craigslist and various forums.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The solution is simple.</p>
<p>1. Google and other SE&#8217;s need to actually enforce nofollow.  Lots of empirical evidence that they do not.</p>
<p>2. Implement various anti-spam turing methods.  When nofollow was introduced, only a small % of blogs had anti-spam methods.  There are even 3rd party services in addition to turing tests to help prevent spam.</p>
<p>There is real value in allowing blog commenters whatever minimal link credit they might get from a comment link.  Don&#8217;t punish the legitimate commentors, deal with the problem before it even gets in the door.</p>
<p>Nofollow is like throwing the baby out with the bath water.  Fix the problem as its root, i.e. prevent the spam in the first place.  There are real methods to do this that will solve 95% of all comment spam.  The remaining 5% is either tolerable (e.g. thinly disguised comment spam from outsourced human services to bypass turing tests)&#8230; or can be solved with moderation or a self-policing system like on craigslist and various forums.</p>
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		<title>By: Bruce Swedal</title>
		<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-62358</link>
		<dc:creator>Bruce Swedal</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 17 Jul 2007 19:31:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-62358</guid>
		<description>I do think that the automated comment spam that I have seen once on my own blog absolutely needs to be done away with.  I also think that Jack makes some very good points above.  As long as it is readers, reading blogs to get different perspectives and ideas who are making relevant comments to an open discussion.  I don't wee a problem there.  Isn't that what blogs are for?  To facilitate the exchange of ideas.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I do think that the automated comment spam that I have seen once on my own blog absolutely needs to be done away with.  I also think that Jack makes some very good points above.  As long as it is readers, reading blogs to get different perspectives and ideas who are making relevant comments to an open discussion.  I don&#8217;t wee a problem there.  Isn&#8217;t that what blogs are for?  To facilitate the exchange of ideas.</p>
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		<title>By: Aral</title>
		<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-61333</link>
		<dc:creator>Aral</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:47:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-61333</guid>
		<description>@Alex: Thanks for pointing that out -- I just added rel="nofollow" attributes to those links.</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>@Alex: Thanks for pointing that out &#8212; I just added rel=&#8221;nofollow&#8221; attributes to those links.</p>
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		<title>By: Jack Spirko</title>
		<link>http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-61312</link>
		<dc:creator>Jack Spirko</dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jul 2007 15:38:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://aralbalkan.com/989#comment-61312</guid>
		<description>Personally I think way and I mean way to much is being made over this.  Some bloggers in the dofollow community are actually talking about going back to adding nofollow over this.  That is just plain stupid.  The way I feel is simple is a person comments in my blogs, the comment is relevant and on topic and the link does not go to some “bad thing” and otherwise complies with my comment policy I am fine with it.  Who actually wrote the comment and what the “intent” was means absolutely nothing to me only that it meets the rules of my personal comment policy.

Everyone needs to realize that this is nothing but the latest topic du jour and just have a beer and rock on with life.  Basically those saying nofollow is the solution to this are saying,

Comment spam gave birth to rel="nofollow", people realized it did nothing to solve the problem and screwed over posters.  So the do-follow movement occurred which  has led to people comment spamming, which means we might as well use nofollow again, which did not work in the first place.

Sound like a circle of insanity?  There's a reason, it is!

The simple facts are if the comments are relevant to your blog, who cares if the poster or the guy who hired him gets some link juice? Anyone who does can’t see the forest for the trees! The reality is comments make your blog better; they improve your search traffic as well.

I believe all they hype around this is being swelled underground by Google because they hate the dofollow movement!  They are trying to kill any paid links or any links a user can easily create or hire someone else to create.  Why?  Because they can’t fix their own algorithms, that’s why.

This "war on paid links" has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with money, don't be fooled and stop worrying.  The Internet has done fine for a long time now and it keeps getting better, like us or not SEOs are a big part of why</description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Personally I think way and I mean way to much is being made over this.  Some bloggers in the dofollow community are actually talking about going back to adding nofollow over this.  That is just plain stupid.  The way I feel is simple is a person comments in my blogs, the comment is relevant and on topic and the link does not go to some “bad thing” and otherwise complies with my comment policy I am fine with it.  Who actually wrote the comment and what the “intent” was means absolutely nothing to me only that it meets the rules of my personal comment policy.</p>
<p>Everyone needs to realize that this is nothing but the latest topic du jour and just have a beer and rock on with life.  Basically those saying nofollow is the solution to this are saying,</p>
<p>Comment spam gave birth to rel=&#8221;nofollow&#8221;, people realized it did nothing to solve the problem and screwed over posters.  So the do-follow movement occurred which  has led to people comment spamming, which means we might as well use nofollow again, which did not work in the first place.</p>
<p>Sound like a circle of insanity?  There&#8217;s a reason, it is!</p>
<p>The simple facts are if the comments are relevant to your blog, who cares if the poster or the guy who hired him gets some link juice? Anyone who does can’t see the forest for the trees! The reality is comments make your blog better; they improve your search traffic as well.</p>
<p>I believe all they hype around this is being swelled underground by Google because they hate the dofollow movement!  They are trying to kill any paid links or any links a user can easily create or hire someone else to create.  Why?  Because they can’t fix their own algorithms, that’s why.</p>
<p>This &#8220;war on paid links&#8221; has nothing to do with quality and everything to do with money, don&#8217;t be fooled and stop worrying.  The Internet has done fine for a long time now and it keeps getting better, like us or not SEOs are a big part of why</p>
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