Website promoters, take note:

As a webmaster for multiple clients, I also often play the role of blog administrator. One of my responsibilities is to approve comments made about the blog entries. It's not difficult, but one thing I have noticed is this:

Some people use a blog comment to post a link back to their website.And that is perfectly acceptable IF the comment is legitimate. In fact, if you or one of your minions is not currently reading and posting comments to blogs, then you're missing a great opportunity to get your links out into the ether - and we all know that search engines love finding links to your site.

The trick is that many times (over half the time, in my experience) the comment is not legitimate AND it contains a link to someone's website. Using a complex mathmatical equation which I just made up, I have identified a new species of internet communications:

                                                        SPAM + COMMENTS = SPAMMENTS

 Up until recently these spamments were easy to spot because they contained gibberish or at best, really bad english. They might look something like this:

    slkje w okijoweko wkm b owokiw  dswwexxosi w

or 

    I have okay for you. Now girls going crazy for your manly... (well, you get the idea...)

Those were easy to spot and delete. Their message to the blog owner is quite clear; "If you don't administrate your blog comments (and many people don't) then you will never notice that this is gibberish, so I'm going to take advantage of your stupidity to promote myself."

 But over the years spamments have proven to be highly resourceful at adapting to their environment. In fact, lately I've discovered a new subspecies of spamment - the TEPID SPAMMENT. 

This brave new subspecies actually looks like a legitimate comment (with a link, of course) except that upon closer inspection one may notice that the comment is so generic that it might apply to anything - which is, I'm sure, the whole purpose of the tepid spamment - you can use it just about anywhere and it doesn't directly offend. Unfortunately for the blog owner, it also doesn't really say anything useful.  Here's an example:

                                            Nice article. You provide a great service. www.cincinnatiwebs.com

Some of my clients have suggested that these comments are legit, but I recognize the TEPID SPAMMENT when I see it. IMHO (in my humble opinion) the tepid spamment is also sending a message to the blog owner, which says; "Okay, so you administer your blog comments, but maybe you're either stupid enough or desperate enough to get comments on your blog that you'll let this one slide, in which case, I get to promote my site without actually reading or caring about your blog entry."

The idea is simple:  Get a list of blogs to abuse, create a tepid spamment generic enough to use on all of them, and spend an hour or two placing your link all over the internet. It's not a bad idea, really and I bet it works much better than the original spamments do. But it still makes me angry. These people are taking advantage of bloggers to promote their own site(s). And some blog owners don't even mind being taken advantage of... they'd prefer to see more comments on their site - even the tepid spamment.

So, What's a self-respecting blog administrator to do? Well, I have found a solution which satisfies my clients and appeals to my sense of truth, justice and the american way (Kids, don't try this at home - I'm a professional and I use all the proper safety equipment.)  I remove the link and then post the comment. Yes, it takes longer for me to do that, but my client is happy with more comments on his blog and I feel I'm doing my job to protect my blogs from spamments.

Mind you, if you send a tepid spamment to MY blog - I'll remove the link and use it as an example.  So, in the immortal words of Pat Benatar (okay, so I'm dating myself...),
 
                                                "Hit me with your best shot... Fire Away."