The Search Engine Viking Blog Commenting Policy:
1. Your comment must be specifically related to the post. No ambiguous “Good stuff, thanks.”
2. Your comment must have at least one complete sentence. Subject, verb… that kind of stuff.
3. Your comment must be written in English. I’m not being a bigot, but I can’t read other languages; and if I don’t know what you’re saying, I won’t feel comfortable accepting it. Besides, the blog itself is written in English, so a *real* commenter would understand the English language well enough to shape a decent sentence or two.
4. Your comment must demonstrate an actual interest. This doesn’t have to be anything big, but do something to prove that you at least skimmed the post.
5. Your replies must be real replies. If you reply to another comment, make sure you actually address the question or concern that the original poster has.
6. No overtly vulgar and/or profane comments. I swear just a little more frequently than the average sailor, and you’ll see me drop the occasional bomb in my posts. I really don’t mind if you do the same in your comments, so long as it’s not over the top. Is this wishy-washy? Of course. But I don’t know how else to explain it. If every second word is the F-bomb or an exotic sexual position, I’ll probably nix it.
7. You can leave keywords as your name, but only if you follow the above rules. I understand the importance of backlinks and anchor text, so it’d be hypocritical to disallow the very thing I’m talking about. But, you MUST follow all of my Blog Commenting rules.
See, that’s not so bad.
Why The Blog Commenting Policy?
When I visit my grandparents’ house, they’ll often make me a spam sandwich. Call me weird, but I love THAT kind of spam. Gelatinous meat-ish product in a tin can… mmmm.
As for the other kind of Spam – like renegade backlink comments… I don’t like that kind nearly as much.
But, I guess as a small sign of early success, I’m at the point where I’m getting at least 20 spam comments per day. Most of them are easy to spot from a mile away, like this classic:
Get free penis pills NOW!
That’s easy to spot, right? Unfortunately, spam like that isn’t the problem. I can easily hit the “spam” button and feel no remorse.
What makes this whole comment moderation process difficult is the people who are a little more creative. They’re hoping to sneak past comment filters with comments like these:
This is a good post, I stumbled across your article while looking for free downloads. Thanks for sharing, I’ll be sure to recommend this site to others.
See the problem? I can’t tell if this is genuine or not. (Actually I can tell because I got this exact same comment 15 times from different IP addresses, all pointing back to the same URL). But you probably get where I’m going with this.
I really don’t want to accidentally label anybody’s comment as Comment Spam if it truly isn’t. But because shady SEO dealers are getting sneaky with their comment styles, I’m reluctantly starting this Blog Commenting Policy.
Congratulations are in order now that I see you’ve moved far enough up the food chain to post rules!
I’ll be 100% honest, I have stepped back from posting on blogs because of a couple commentators. I know, boo-hoo, but what I enjoy most about reading other comments is how other people answer the questions, but don’t take over the post or spam the post.
Are you prepared to block people from your blog?
.-= Scott Barron´s last blog ..Stepping Away =-.
[Reply]
Lee Reply:
April 2nd, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Thanks for the congratulatory note
The funny thing is, since I posted that, I’ve been SLAMMED with automated spam comments – I’m sure it was a random coincidence, but part of me wonders if some supercomputer said “Comment rules, huh? I’ll show him!…” 
.-= Lee´s last blog ..My First Guest Post Ever Is At PlantingDollars.com =-.
[Reply]
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[...] Leave a bunch of “spam” comments (I’ve struggled with this myself, hence my Blog Commenting Policy). Spam sucks. Big time. Nothing is worse than sifting through hundreds of alien-language dribble [...]