Spam-a-Lot or Not

Apologies for borrowing a word which, most often is associated with something that's entirely different and entertaining; however, my use of the word definitely is not. The other Spamalot is a musical retelling the legend of King Arthur. It's based on the 1975 film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Its title is a portmanteau (a word or part of a word made by combining the spellings and meanings of two or more other words or word parts) in this case, Spam and Camelot.

My use of spam-a-lot refers to the proliferation of spam comments that myself and other bloggers have to deal with, sometimes on a daily basis. This comment ↓ is an example. 

Often, an identical spam comment will be repeated for multiple blog posts. Most times, the comments are left overnight, an indication that spammers are in another country/time zone.

In recent weeks, I've been reporting many of these multiple spammers to Google. In the above example, clicking on the spammer's name, Mostbet, brings up this page where I click on Report Abuse.

Next, this screen to Report a community violation displays to identify the URL of the spammer you want to report and I click on Report.

This next screen presents a selection of violations and one can be selected by clicking on it.  I've been selecting spam, malware, or phishing. However, despite selecting this violation, in the past few days, the same spammer has been leaving spam. So, this week, I selected harassment or bullying and will see if that brings any results in halting this spammer.

After I've selected the reason for reporting the violation, this next screen displays and then I click on Submit Report.

The final step is to go back and delete the spam comment. 

This is the email that Google sends every time a violation is reported. Some days, I have received multiple thank you emails for reporting multiple violations.  

Does this process work?

Yes and no because some days I have had zero spam comments and then other days, there will be anywhere from a few to 6 or more. I've noticed that there has been a reduction from certain spammers with a few exceptions. That's why I plan to select a different violation to report in the future as spam actually is a form of harassment or bullying.

If any other bloggers have gone through this process, please share your experiences in a comment especially whether it's been successful or not in stopping some of the spam.

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Our thanks to everyone for your condolences on the recent passing of my friend and of Patrick's cousin. Also, thanks to those who commented on coincidences in your own lives.