Can Spam comments on your website hurt your ranking?

[MktgRob]

I was just reading a blog that talked about one website that had its ranking affected by the fact that there were spam messages in the comment section of the website. Not only did the spam messages not pertain to the business but they were porn related. As many websites allow for comments to made, is this the threat to rankings that is alluded to in the blog I read?

[phoenix06007]

IMO yes.. and i always delete spam comments in my blog, especially the non relevant one

[bobchrist]

Use anti spam tools like akismat/spam karma 2, this will automatically kill most of the spams.

[m42]

Yes. Spam comments can hurt you. In addition to the negative impacts to your site quality, Google recently announced that even no-follow links bleed PR.

[MktgRob]

Use anti spam tools like akismat/spam karma 2, this will automatically kill most of the spams.

It is funny that you mention akismat because in the original piece I read they talked about the spammers, especially the porn spammers, were becoming more sophisticated and had found some ways around the anti spam tools and they references akismat by name.

The problem I am running into now, and unfortunately no technical fix will help, is that my client is not keen on the idea of allowing visters to their blogs and website leave comments as they want total control over anything negative (instead of addressing each issue as it comes) and the thought that spammers can affect their sites will push them over the edge. I guess along with managing expectations some of us have to also managed fear and anxiety.

[InsightsDigital]

I have an option in one of my blogs where I hae to authorize every single comment. Some of legits but the majority are spam. I never authorize them. It is time consuming but it helps.

[snapshot]

Well, after launching your blog and enabling the commenting option, a constant moderating and maintenance is going to be needed because many of the links people add to their posts might be pointing at low quality sites which need to be edited sometimes.

[Flower]

Spam commenting is definitely affect your website's ranking so check them and remove irrelevant comments.

[bettsnirvana]

yes, i believe that spam comments can hurt your site, if google or any search engine seen your site with a lot of irrelevant link, they will delete it.

[pooja84]

Avoid spamming. It will really have a negative effect on your site.

[Hsekhar]

I don't allow them posted in the first place. I use Wordpress with Akismet enabled with a couple of options like "New comments or comments with links should be sent to moderation queue before they appear on the blog.

So, No chance to spammers at all!

BTW, I don't know if they affect your site rankings since I haven't experienced such kind of situation. May be that's another unproven SEO theory.

[canadafred]

When discussing link building strategies in SEO, Google has started using language like: "These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.".

In this same way, I would think that blog pages that are improperly maintained (harboring link spam in the form of comments) are subject to some form of damper penalty or at least non-rewarded.

[nerdy tech]

Yes some spam can have harmful attachment when you open them open and can spread into your harddrive.

[m42]

Yes. Spam comments can hurt you. In addition to the negative impacts to your site quality, Google recently announced that even no-follow links bleed PR.

We're back to no-follows not bleeding PR.

http://blog.search-mojo.com/2009/06/04/page-rank-sculpting-matt-cutts-response-unearths-frustration-in-policy-changes-at-google/

Blog comments are safe. Now you just need to deal with the spammy aspect.

[Hafsoh]

Spam comments can discourage your reader, but in some cases, they "may" affect search engine rankings.

[AliceDenis]

Have moderation of the comments and post them only if you like and/or remove the links(or other spam content) and publish what part you like =))

[shubh09]

Yes, spamming over the site hurts in many ways, it affects the quality of the site, visitors never turn again over it. I prefer to filter the comments manually instead of using akismat/spam karma 2 like software.

[MktgRob]

A new wrinkle to the original questions is what about the type of spam that I see around DaniWeb occaisionally. This would be the post is helpful and informative but the poster also throws a link in promoting their business. DaniWeb is clear about this type of posting activity, as I am sure many other sites are, but still it is done and the moderators have to go in and edit. Does anyone know of a utility that can be used that would block the placing of URLs in comments or at the very least allow the comment and block any url?