Just over a month ago I wrote a post where I questioned the types of links I was seeing on this blog. I’m not the first one to wonder about this type of thing but with the types of things going on with Google, Panda, Penguin and whatever else they come up with, I’ve started looking at them more.

Chris Martino via Compfight

I’ve also noticed that most people aren’t paying attention to the comment policy, the very short one that’s right above the box you write comments in. What happens is people are putting in keywords in the name area, which I’ve asked you not to do, and your comments are going directly into the spam filter. Then I’m having to go in and pull them out of the comments seem like they’re pretty good. After that I then go in and remove the keywords from the name, then approve the comments.

Frankly, that’s getting tiresome and I shouldn’t have to do that because, well, I did ask. So I’m making some changes to how I’m going to accept comments from this point on, and it’s going to involve a couple other things as well.

First, if your comment goes into the spam filter because there are keyword names in it, I’m leaving it there. Almost everyone who comments often knows this because I’ve mentioned it directly to them. Also, I’d set up my spam filter to automatically send all comments that have the @ symbol in the name field to spam. So, those comments will never show up; sorry. I will alter the program a bit though because I know a few folks who comment often really want to use that 3rd word, something else that automatically sends comments to spam. I don’t feel like pulling y’all out of there all the time either so I’ll make that change; thank me later Brian. lol

Second, I’m not accepting anymore comments where the email address goes to “info“. Do you know that almost no one who uses that has ever responded to a single comment I’ve written then directly, asking a question? That proves to me that it’s not you writing for you but for someone else, and you’re not seeing it and they don’t really care about this blog or about engagement. It’s always been my intention that we have engagement on this blog and since I know it’s not coming, that this is just a weigh station to drop a comment and move on, those are gone.

Third, the same goes for certain links. I don’t mind business links and I certainly don’t mind blogs. But I’ve seen more affiliate looking links popping up, folks trying to add specific pages to go to and such, and I know those are killing this blog. If the link is questionable I’m removing it. To date I’ve been removing links because I’ve noticed some folks leaving comments from different businesses, and I talked about that previously. Thing is, if I know it’s your website or blog I don’t have a problem with it; my buddy Sire has 7 or 8 blogs and he’ll switch up the links from time to time. I do it as well. But my picture comes with all of them, as does his; most of the folks dropping these things don’t have an image and thus it’s questionable.

Fourth, and this is the last one, if the name in the email is different than your name or your business name, I’m removing those comments as well. If you use a male first name & it’s a female name in the email, or vice versa, those are easy. I might miss a John and Jack and that’s okay because I know those two names can be used interchangeably. But I won’t miss a Bob and Steve; way too distinctive. If people are paying you to write for them the least they can do is give you a proper name and email; if not, I don’t need it here because I know for sure you’re not ever going to see what I’ve written back to you.

I know Adrienne’s going to be proud of me for taking these steps, that’s for sure. I appreciate when people comment here but I’d like to know that people are doing it because they care and want to exchange ideas, not as a pathway to a linking strategy. Yeah, I know it happens, but at least be more clandestine about it.

That’s all I’ve got; I suppose the commenting will drop some, but I’ll know who cares and who doesn’t from this point on.