Friday, May 31, 2013

Spammers Say the Darndest Things

I noticed earlier this week that my blog was about to pass 100,000 page views. That would be exciting except that I've noticed I've had a LOT of suspicious traffic again. I get a lot of spammers leaving comments on the older posts. I was hating that but then decided maybe I needed to change my attitude and learn to enjoy it.

What? Enjoy spammers?!

First, for those of you who don't have your own blogs, let me tell you about spammers. They are advertisements, really. They are likely automated responses. That is why many bloggers have you go through the word verification process and if you can't do it, you can't leave a comment. Without word verification they can leave "comments" on blog posts using some sort of computerized program. At the end of their comment, they show their website and invite you to click. If you do, you find they are advertising some great new weight loss product or something like that. You don't get to connect with a real person at all. I don't know how they find blog posts but I've noticed that once they find one of mine, I get a LOT of comments on that particular post. It's not all bad, though.

Many of them say nice things to me! They call my posts brilliant, insightful and even auspicious. They tell me they've been looking and looking for an article such as mine because it answers all their questions. They tell me I am a great writer and perhaps I can help them start a blog. They ALL invite me to check out their web page. Isn't that sweet of them?

None of them make sense and are most certainly written by someone who did not read the post. Many seem to be written by someone who has access to a list of English words but has no idea what they mean. Many just link nonsensical, sometimes funny, phrases and make them look like comments. That can be kind of entertaining. Well, it is entertaining the first few times. I'm now getting about 20 a day!


I know I can reinstate the word verification again, and likely I will, but I'm trying to hold off. Why? Because they are getting harder and harder to read and I hate them.! I may have to give in again, but for now, I'm just going to keep deleting my spammer comments. If any sneak through where you can see them, please don't encourage them by clicking on their links.

For now, I may as well continue to accept their ridiculous compliments!

P.S. For those of you wondering about the arsonists in our neighborhood, I don't know anything more about the culprit(s). I saw that the camper fire actually did burn the house a bit where it was parked, and melted a bit of a camper in the driveway beside it. We've had no damage to our property.  I slept several nights with the windows open so I could smell smoke but all I smelled was a nervous skunk! Hopefully we have returned to being a quiet little neighborhood.

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