I get a kick out of spam

Patty here…

In yon years of yore when we first started blogging we got a lot of spam. For a while there was no good way to reduce the flow without restricting people from commenting, which we didn’t want to do. That meant, as self-appointed blog administrator, I periodically had to search through days, months and years of posts and delete spam in the comments sections. I once found 150 spam messages on just one of our posts, all typed in Chinese characters. All the messages looked like the same message to me but since I don’t read Chinese I was only guessing. I deleted them anyway.

Back in the day, spam comments generally lacked finesse, i.e., “for great girl on girl porn, click here.” One spammer actually begged me in advance not to delete his comments because he needed the money from the thousands of Naked Authors fans who would surely be sucked in by his brilliant pitch. Boo hoo. Delete. Combing through our posts for spam often took hours, sometimes days of labor. Invariably, as soon as I deleted the last spam comment, almost by magic more would appear.

Now that we are blogging again I’ve noticed something: (1) it’s easier to control spam because Google has some sort of filter that seems to know a real person from a spammer and (2) now spammers attempt to disguise their motives with flattery. Too bad I'm not fooled. Here’s a recent gem I got in response to “Time heals all wounds,” a post I wrote in April of 2009 about the loss of my beloved pets. If this touches your heart, please let me know. 

 “I loved as much as you'll receive carried out right here. The sketch is tasteful, your authored subject matter stylish. nonetheless, you command get got an impatience over that you wish be delivering the following. unwell unquestionably come more formerly again since exactly the same nearly a lot often inside case you shield this increase.” 

It seems as if the spammer opened a dictionary, pointed a finger randomly over pages of words, chose a few and strung them together. After this heartfelt message, the person directed me to his YouTube video. Yeah, as if I’m going to click on THAT link.

 Below are a few more gems from people peddling everything from fry cookers to cockerdoodles:

 “Ahaa, its fastidious conversation regarding this paragraph here at this weblog, I have read all that, so now me also commenting here. Feel free to surf to my webpage…” 

“Great blog here! Also your web site loads up fast! What web host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host? I wish my website loaded up as quickly as yours lol Here is my web-site…” 

“Wow, that's what I was searching for, what a data! existing here at this web site, thanks admin of this site. Feel free to surf to my web-site...” 

“Pretty! Thiѕ has been an еxtremely wondeгful article. Many thanks foг supplying thіѕ informаtion. Herе is my webpage…”

“Valuable info. Fortunate me I found your web site by chance, and I am surprised why this twist of fate didn't came about in advance! I bookmarked it. my blog…”

“I have been surfing online more than 4 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for me. Personally, if all webmasters and bloggers made good content as you did, the web will be a lot more useful than ever before. Also visit my webpage…”

Four hours? Ahaa. Wow. Pretty. Twist of fate, indeed. Good thing we Nakeds get loaded fast. That's suddenly become a lot more useful than ever before.

Happy Monday!