The ones that I don’t appreciate very much are the bogus blog commenters. They’re not spammers, just a very close cousin to spam. Sometimes it’s a bit difficult for me to determine whether or not the comments are bogus or spam. Luckily, since my blog is on the WordPress platform, I’ve installed Akismet, which is a spam catcher. However, there are some comments that even Akismet doesn’t catch.

Over the past few months in writing blog posts, I’ve come to find a few common characteristics in bogus comments. Here are the ones that I see most frequently:

1. Keyword Names: The commenter does not use a first, middle or last name. Heck, they don’t even use a witty username. What they use are keywords to steer search engines to their site through backlinks. That’s a No Job for Mom no-no in my book (I know a few got past me, but I’m looking out for them now).
2. Flattery: The old saying “Flattery will get you everywhere,” doesn’t work here. I’ve been around the block a time or 30, I know the difference between a compliment and empty flattery. Some folks will say anything just for a backlink.
3. Promises to subscribe to my RSS feed: This is a sister to Flattery. If you are going to subscribe to my RSS feed, please do. However, there is no need to post a comment that says “I like your blog I guess I will subscribe to your feed so I won’t miss posts.” Oh, I forgot, such statements are usually signed by “keywords.”
4. Several comments applied to different posts on the same day saying the same thing: I think that crosses the bogus line into the spam category.
5. Thanking me in advance for approving a comment: Bloggers want to approve quality comments. No need to thank in advance unless you know that your post is really bogus and the false “thank you” is the flattery to get the post approved. Most people who submit quality comments assume that the post will be approved.

This is by no means a complete list of bogus blog comments. It’s just the ones that I’ve come across repeatedly. If you have a few “bogus comment gems” that I didn’t mention above, please share them. I could use the chuckle.