Say More, Please

Has anyone else noticed in the past few days that Blogger has flagged very short comments (even older ones) as Spam?

Like many bloggers, I check comments daily and usually have anywhere from 2 or more on any given morning. Most of these Spam comments are at least a sentence or more long. Maybe you've received similar ones like this: Your blog is so interesting, please present more of this material . . . and so on. Of course, it's all complete nonsense, and there is always a link to a site that is definitely not that of a fellow blogger's. You can tell false flattery

My next step is to select the ! exclamation point, then the trashcan icon and deletion is done. Now, you would think that blogger would recognize future comments as Spam, but it doesn't quite seem to work that way. I've had repeat Spammers, maybe you have too.

There was a different pattern this weekend when I did my usual Spam comments check. Blogger indicated there were 40 Spam comments, that's way more than before in a single day. After checking, I found out that these all comments were legitimate from fellow bloggers (including bloggers no longer posting). Amazingly, Blogger had flagged these as Spam comments going back to the start of this blog! The one thing all had in common was their brevity.

That's why the post title is a request to, whenever possible, include a few more words in a comment. This may (or may not) prevent Blogger from incorrectly flagging them as Spam.

Of course, leaving a longer comment can be difficult, especially if you follow and read many blogs posts of those bloggers who post often. Personally, I've been posting less often, reading blogs on a semi-weekly basis, and not commenting on every post. Blog reading and commenting takes time which is something we all would like more of every day, month, year. 

In checking these newly marked-as-Spam comments, I said that what all had in common was that they were very short, usually 2 to 3 words. Here's some examples of actual comments from legitimate fellow bloggers that were suddenly marked as Spam:

Looks good, Looks delicious
Very nice, Very pretty
Great!, Nice views
Beautiful flowers, how cute or how sad

Amazing, Oh my gosh!
Sweet photos, Excellent photos, Love the photos

Too cute, Good ones, Sounds good

Merry Christmas, Happy Easter or Happy (whatever holiday)

Happy anniversary or Happy birthday

Why did this happen now? 

No clue because despite several online searches, I couldn't find information to indicate whether Blogger had changed some sort of Spam algorithm. (This is defined as a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.) 

But, there were a number of online complaints about whether or not Blogger does anything about comments marked as Spam. Here's two examples of actual online complaints:

We have been getting a sudden influx of trolls posting comments on our site trying to get their links in there, even though our comments section doesn't work with hyperlinks. I mark them as spam every time, but it doesn't stop them from being able to continue commenting. I'm just curious what the benefit is of having the "Mark as spam" option vs. just deleting. Is there something I can do to ban them from commenting? There is a certain satisfaction I get from marking them as spam every time, but I also have better things to do.

And another complained: For over a month now regular readers and commenters' comments get marked as spam. At least one comment a day, but often all of them! I do my best to set all comments free as fast as possible, by marking them as not-spam and posting them.

And EVERY.SINGLE.TIME I notify Blogger via in-blog support / help button. 

This is deeply frustrating as I'm freeing the same commenters' comments from spam limbo several times a week. What more can I do?

Here's a Blogger response 

A Platinum Product Expert stated: Blogger does not share information about how they determine a comment is spam or not.  I think the best you can do is continue to mark them as not spam. Suggestions included: Manage your blog's comments, Set your Blogger comment settings, Moderate comments, Delete or mark comments as spam

Why do Spam comments exist?

Spammers leave comments on blog posts looking to get backlinks pointing to their sites in order to rank higher in search engines.Many spammers can be using bots to comment. Short for robot this software application is programmed to execute specific tasks as part of another computer program. Bots are designed to automate tasks without human intervention. 

So, my blogger friends, it appears that no matter how often Spam comments are marked, spammers/scammers will continue to leave their annoying comments on blogs. Hopefully, the weekend occurrence was a one-off and won't happen again. While time consuming to mark each one as not spam—it was done for all. 

Thank you all, very much, your comments are read and always appreciated, no matter how short or long. Blogger has become very frustrating lately.

Your turn — Has this happened recently to anyone else?