Domain Owl

I would like a word about administrating comments in WordPress, if I might. I administer 6-7 blogs and on any one day I can be working between them, submitting posts and publishing entries. One of the tasks that absorbs too much of my time is the weeding of spam comments, especially when a huge array has been submitted. This has become an awesomely irritating task that does not lessen over time.

It seems to me there should be some core functionality that argues against a spam comment submitter posting where their comments are not welcome. Not only are they risking their urls be submitted to the “hate” lists, but with adult material and pornographic links, these amount to a sheer nuisance. There simply no reason seven to eight thousand comments a day which will be deleted should be occurring.

Over time the aggregates are staggering. My readers for any of my sites are not porn searchers, and none of the keywords for any story can be resulted from an SEO search for those names. Yet time after time obnoxious links with undesirable words crop up, in comments stuffed with links I have no intention of approving. You’d think there would be some way to turn the spigot off.

I can see how many people simply ply onto my blog without reading it. It shows in the poorly worded in and inaccurate “responses”. What stuns me is the amount ungrammatical postings and clearly spun nonsense posts that are still nevertheless commented daily. Many are obviously form illiterate typists. Why would I want pidgin English from a spam url on my site?

I am going to start writing letter to domain registrars and hosting companies demanding these sites be taken down and emails disabled for any link that hits my sites more than 5 times with pornographic materials and illiterate, unconnected spun posts. I am also going to chronicle the results, if any. It seems to me there should a line beyond which consistent spam posting becomes Internet abuse. Malicious posting cannot be ruled out.

The most frustrating thing I find about these posts is how badly they are skewed to my website topics. I can go to blog A and see posts with backlinks suited to the keywords for sites B, C and E and have to delete them. I can go to Blog B and see comments with backlinks suitable for sites A D and H. And so on. If you are going to make the effort to mechanize posting or even do it by hand., why can’t the writer match the blog comment to the subject?

The answer, of course, is that someone has hired an illiterate non-English speaker working from a foreign land to do the backlinking. They certainly understand enough English to pile porn links into the comments and save. But since they can’t read English they are throwing all their backlinks at the wall to see what sticks. And I am getting really tired of cleaning off the wall.

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I collect a list of all the email submissions from the comments field in the comments admin section. I then make the response url a page where I measure the traffic and check who is coming by IP address. This is a rainy day project but one that can build an appreciation for real users versus those who view yourwebsite as a seo portal for their spam.
Those repeat spam posters who never respond the email blast get deleted.

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Every blog owner has now come to know that a necessary chore of every blogista or blog owner is to weed through the spare comments on the blog. But the cryptic inattention to detail is confounding. When people with keywords that fit your site insist on leaving links of unrelated topics and material on still a third topic, it’s fit to cause blog rage.

I am also enraged to find that on many of my blog sites the submitted comments are argumentative and rude, as if there is any value at all to my posting this? This kind of comment is guaranteed to be deleted. So why bother leaving it? No blogger wants that kind of material on their site. How can links which are never accepted help anyone’s SEO?

Furthermore I am getting comments where blogs I have under development are being submitted. This is surprising since the posts they are writing comments to don’t exist. The blog posts they are “replying” to are listed as “coming soon”. There is no content to read or respond to.

I can only conclude that the software submission used for this type of blog comment must be verified and only these type of comments stand out. Pity the poor clients who think they are really purchasing SEO. I can also infer that these visits are intended as malicious. For some motivation of their own, submitters are using my url for target practice.

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I was speaking in consultation with a colleague today, and while going over the ideas for a new website I noticed a particular emphasis on the site design. I realized it had been so long since I had heard anyone fret about using a public template, or develop using overly customized code, or even properly launch conjunction sites, I was moved to mention it aloud.

It seems obvious to me by now that the whole dimension to designing a website has almost vanished as an aesthetic art and been wholly replaced by the architectural need to build an SEO capable site first and foremost. The site plan Google submission, the DMOZ listing, and the bots traveling over the site every day has become an outsize priority for every site.

Webmasters can see how link building, paid link exchanges and article submission have taken over the web. They can see this especially well when administrate the polyglot mixture if spam comments that flood the WordPress that are neither relevant nor grammatically formed into real sentences. The mechanized manual submission software many non-English speakers are using has a lot to answer for.

Bulklinking is the new sport of domainer kings. The bulk of a domain’s launch expenses and the main thrust of its establishment on the Internet frontier is a loud neon sign proclaiming its existence. Being able to seed your link in as many directories as possible has long been an SEO goal, but one of questionable theoretical relevance. i recognise this as afact of current web site commerce and many others do too.

My problem is the manner in which many mechanized software programs slam my websites with useless comments daily. I am not a machine and I have to delete these manually. I have one blog which has over 3,000 pointless links that make no sense with comments that are gibberish. The sentences are just random words. This is practically more time consuming to eliminate from my administration interface than an actual site hack.

What I believe should happen is that these linkers should be judged as the equivalent of spam and be treated as such. Their web hosting companies should be contacted. Spam sites and remailers and emails where spam email originally comes from is regularly reported to the site engines from downranking and eventual discounting of the site data. Spam commenters utilizing random assignment of comments to blogs and websites should suffer the same fate.

There should be a bulklinker database just like the universal spam list and the same sites who pay Rupees to cement innocent websites with layers of nonsense. Most of these comments have no relationship to any of the keywords for the sites concerned.There ca be no benefit whatsoever to their site and the link makes my site anonymously supporting junk site urls and seem relatively discounted form an SEO perspective.

Since I know which link directory websites I have added my sites to and which I have done nothing with, I can see how universal and inconsiderately applied some of these list additions are. Some of my websites have been targeted simply because someone thought I would be spending a fortune on affiliates or fraternal sites links and thought they’d hitch a ride on my site.

But all these suppositions rest on my ability to weed out my spam. Er, (cough) the comments area. That’s a lot of work my spam folder is dragging down my day with. My worry used to be that there might be a genuine comment and now it doesn’t matter. The sheer time necessitated to be spent on deleting junk comments from my blogs makes me want to report these spam comment sites somewhere. But where?

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In my endless slog of deleting emails that are useless and distracting in my inbox, I was shocked to see  Paypal email that usually signals a banking transaction or some other communication that begs my notice.  Paypal wanted me to know about international services possibilities and some urls they wanted to visit on their site. Are you f-ing kidding me?

I know for a fact I am one of the Paypal customers who have selected opt-out when their pointless self-publicizing emails are concerned. There is no justifiable reason I should be receiving anything from email at Paypal or that url and its origins that is not connected to my personal banking. Paypal is abusing its position as a trusted email sender at this point.

Spam is not banking. It’s advertising. And since they’ve already collected their slice of my earnings, I’d prefer it if they not waste my time.

Be advised this is a full-blown rant from a domainer who is offended that their bank sees fit to use its status as a must-read email source to flog their services. Hint: I am already a customer.

Paypal has no business using their connection to me an an electronic customer to wave their shingle and beg for more fees. Paypal takes a slice of whatever I earn and I have long gotten accustomed to accepting this as a cost of doing business with them. Apparently they are greedy for more fees and this is the  communication they have sent to me, using my email address and name, url links on their site that neither apply to be or my services.

That’s a greedy bank.

Paypal should know better. One of the last things I need to spend my time doing right now is weeding through their pointless “communications” unless they are regarding critical financial transactions and money issues. That’s why I open an email from Paypal. Not because I’m lonely and just can’t seem to find a single site online to look at.

Paypal is getting like Ebay now, where they fill your inbox with things you’d rather not see and daily weigh the utility of still being a customer. I would like Paypal to be a bank and operate like  a bank, and not be weighted down by its need for attention and traffic. Paypal is a site which should wait for when it is convenient for me to go there, and not distract me in the meantime.

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At this very moment your domain name could be underway to be sold somewhere online. Without your knowledge. Think it can’t happen? One of my colleagues in the domain firmament was flabbergasted today to learn that his domain name (and website) were being vended by a well-known auction site.

One catch: he still owns the domain name.

This can happen in the world of domain name buying and selling and sadly it happens more often than one would think possible. A lot is going on at any time online and it is almost impossible for a domainer with even a few dozen names to keep abreast of everything pertaining to each name taking place. Of course, the fusillades of daily spam don’t help. I am willing to bet some clickjacking or password guessing combined with some clever timing to release the name while owner was busy elsewhere.

Thus all the more reason to vigilantly update sites daily or as often as possible. Weeding through the spam and offers and solicitations for hosting products and suchlike, a domainer can quickly get tired of seeing important notices and notifications because of the sheer volume of the broadcasts. Hosting companies are so notorious for sending out offers and prompts and reminders and advertisements a domainer is practically immune to opening their email.

And that’s when the domain name pirate strikes. It’s a good bet the pirate of any domain name knows your IP address and can track your activity by a login or posting activity somewhere. Just Google someone’s IP address or their corresponding user name with their email and sooner or later a trail forms. What is not so clear is how liable a registrar or auction site is for hosting a sale of a name clearly in dispute of ownership.

This is the dilemma many domainers face when they register a name. If privacy is not purchased, then any working online operator can limp their way to some kind of hack or pose a sale if the domainer is busy enough not to notice. Many domainers watch the droplists and deleting domains auctions for just this reason. Being on good terms with your registrar and knowing their terms of Service doesn’t hurt either.

Keeping track of domain name activity that has been pirated started many years ago, when hijacked popmail addresses and phantom spam campaigns spouted reams of “reply -to” spam aimed at astonished webmasters who’d never even used their inboxes. I personally have had important emails topped out of my administrator email account only to find the limit reached. On a 100 GiG mailbox that’s a lot of spam.

What’s even more frustrating is that if a sale is reached via the fake auction listing, the third party “Buyer” becomes part of the mix. As a buyer in good faith, if he parts with hard earned cash for the name, is he entitled to it if the registrar ever sorts matters out? For a lucrative domain name with marketed traffic and keyword density with a site up, that’s a significant loss to the owner of the name, who wasn’t even listing the name for sale in the first place!

Virtual records are all very well, but printed purchase receipts and domain transfer records with renewal dates and expiration projections can work to demonstrate original chain of title to a domain name. It then becomes the registrar’s responsibility to disclose why they released a name not unlocked for sale by owner. Domain locking is enabled for just this reason. The IP tracking of the registrar or hosting company should underscore this utility.

One final point: if you go into partnership with another domainer or sponsor for a site or name project, keep a record of the email communication where rights and titles and participating profit percentages and shares of the enterprise are clearly spelled out.These can be handy reminders when project leads forget where their enterprise is going or where it came from.

Every development deal is its own ship sailing to a unknown destination. Online webmasters and site operators need to helm their own vessel. Attention to detail is key. Backups and records of performed work are advisable, especially when billing is ongoing. Clarify deal points with partners and keep track of time and billable hours spent contributing to the project. A hosting company will have records to confirm your login time and access.

To keep all your domain names in the batter’s box, review the lineup from time to time. Keep renewal date checks current and know all the procedures to transfer or billing inquiries ahead of time. View the traffic hits as RBI’s and police site errors. (Hostnames may form some kind of infield fly rule). If your domain names are playing every inning, they can’t go AWOL. This way, when it’s time to have a time out and call the umpire, you have all your ducks in a row.

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Everybody wants a blog comment with an inbound link back to their site. I see hundreds of them here and elsewhere. Link exchanges generally work to the benefit of both sites, since only the webmasters of relevant sites with SEO value need apply. Search engines denigrate the value of unrelated links. Lots of spam and lots of erroneous commenting needs to be addressed.

SEO bots scrub down the blogosphere daily. But the reality is few can keep a blog going. The number one issue with administrating a blog domain is that the blog engine needs effort and attention. Admittedly it sometimes needs more time some days than others, but administration of the blog domain that is a domain blog can absorb more minutes than observers might suspect.

One of the most surprising aspects to curating a blog is administering approval of the comments users and visitors leave at the site. Various articles should have different users with varying home urls and different email addresses. But with the effort some domainers and online contractors are making these days to promote their domain urls, some spam comes along.

Here are some notes for those reading this who attempt to comment here or spread the url word about their domain or website online. Whether it is a FaceBook page, Myspace address, subdomain, or Squidoo link, these rules for commenting apply. Links and comments promoting links will be deleted meeting the following criteria.

1. A comment with a home page name that does not relate in either subject value or keyword association with my domain or blog is probably not going to be approved. These are obvious spam.

2. A blog comment that is misspelled is probably not going to be approved. This shows the writer is not a native speaker and too careless to spellcheck. Grammar errors mean a scripted posting machine did the commenting.

3. A blog comment abusing the administrator of this site is probably not going to be approved. Comment administration decisions are final.

4. A blog comment repeated word for word across a half dozen articles with identical commentary text  is probably not going to be approved.

5. A blog comment flogging an unrelated service or site is probably not going to be approved.

6. A blog comment uniformly unconnected to the content of the article AND misspelled AND promoting warez AND to a topic-unrelated site domain name url  is probably not going be approved.

7. A blog comment that is in a foreign character set and thus unreadable  is probably not going to be approved.

8. A blog comment that is too long (a page or more, 700 characters plus, ) probably not going to be approved.

9. A blog comment that is relating to an adult name or mature content site when the posted site is completely unrelated to such material is probably not going to be approved.

10. Asking for free publishing of this site’s content elsewhere on a  site with advertising and affiliates, and for free writing services on your site’s behalf will probably get deleted. Appropriate communications along these lines happen via email, not in the public comment area.

Bonus Round:

Your link will probably get deleted if it is one in  series of exactly similar posts on various stories under different email addresses and site names.

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