The first time I had to deal with automated comment spam.
I’ve been getting “comments” on some of my blog entries from automated spammers. The messages are pretty consistent: “Hi! Great web site!” blah blah blah, then a bunch of links to websites.
It was pretty easy to kill — I just rejected any comments that contain “http://” and that takes care of it. Prevents legit guests from posting website links too; c’est l’merde. I could have made it “log in to register,” but then I’d have to build a whole login system. A lot simpler to just regex the comments.
The odd thing is that these spam sites aren’t even up when I go to check them. What I’ve found is that either they’ve been taken down already, or they never existed. They usually have links like somejunksite.cheaphost.org — and even cheaphost.org isn’t available.
Pretty ineffective marketing, even if it worked.
Best thing you can do? Never click or order anything that came from a spam, no matter how it arrived. Too many people are stupid enough to order Viagra or golf clubs or spamming software from spam — so we get more and more of it until the medium becomes unusable. That’s not crapping in your own nest. It’s crapping in everyone’s nest.