If you blog often then you are aware that bots (and obviously humans) are capable of putting comments on a post.  In as much as you would like to receive legitimate comments and start a conversation, your comments list is now dominated with “Comment Spam”.

Thinking that most bloggers would know this, apparently not a lot take the time to configure their blog settings to check for spam. Though this is mostly taken care of by top blogging providers, there are some that are still primitive or it doesn’t do it for you automatically.

Here are some of the things that help me spot a genuine comment from a fake.

1. People who don’t know your real name (see example in picture) is obviously a spammer. They don’t even bother to read your About page. If someone’s intentions are real then they would make sure they are addressing the author correctly.
   
   
2. (dot) ru. I see a lot of email addresses ending with .ru, accompanied by weird characters. They are Russian. I would normally delete any email that has that extension because of experience. But, from time to time, I still check with a translation tool in case it is legit.
   
   
3. Appreciation. If the praise isn’t appropriate and seem “fishy” then it’s spam. It feels good for a second but you will realize it’s not intended to please or give feedback. It’s easy to delete it then.
   
   
4. Bookmarking. You will get messages that say they will bookmark your blog. If it’s a one liner, I delete it. If you want to seriously pat the blogger’s back then I’m sure you would say something else to support the praise.



There are more tips out there to help you combat comment spam.  Do share and provide the links so bloggers can get back their time and focus on writing and building relationships with their readers.