Most of you I am sure have noticed that the vast majority of my posts and pages have a comments section on the last page. That is a function of “Blogging” software. We write something witty, controversial, or informative, and you the reader get to comment on it. There is something about those comments that can make a site more popular than others.
I don’t know what the technical aspect of it is. But if I comment on another person’s blog, it will create a link back to my blog. The more links to my blog, the higher my rating among search engines, and the more likely I am to get traffic to my site. At least that is how I think it goes.
Long ago, when I started a blog similar to this one, I wasn’t getting much traffic, but I was spending a fair amount of time cleaning out SPAM comments. I am not familiar with any other blogging software other than WordPress. With WordPress, comments go into the queue and you get to wade through them to decide if they are legit, approve them, mark them as SPAM, or flat out deny them.
Christopher is usually lucky I approve his, but there fair criticism…soooo.
But, I wonder if other blogging software isn’t so restrictive. I have found some vague blogs that offered an answer to an IT problem, and the comments section was a mess of posts that were nothing more than advertisements for erectile dysfunction pills. Either the author was glad for any posts, or they just automatically posted as soon as the commenter hit “Post Comment”.
I have that option, but I would rather know who and what is posted to this site.
But, back when I was clearing out those SPAM comments, but getting little traffic, I kept telling myself.
“Well, at least you’re getting attention. Attention means traffic will grow.” Boy was I fooled. All I got was an increase in SPAM without an increase in visitors. Hard to attract readers when you posted about once a month.
These SPAM comments don’t just come right out and say, “Click here for Michael Kors clutch purses”. No, there much more subtle. They try to hide the links in the text, all the while telling you what a great post it was. Never mind that my post “Done Button” wasn’t very informative or controversial. It was me whining about how I didn’t want to work out anymore!
My favorite one to date, and I get several, and it isn’t so subtle. It is flat out telling me to steal content from other sites to use for this blog. “It must be hard coming up with fresh material all the time,” It says. Yes, some days it is, but even more difficult is the time thing.
There is a chance that someone is stealing my stuff. Last month, readers downloaded my short stories five times. Hope it was for pleasure, but if you stole it from me and posted it, better give me credit.
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