Boycott Spammers!

(This is an edited repost from my professional blog, because this bears repeating.)

I have a spam problem, so much so that I shut comments down on my blogs years ago.

When I tried to find a way to cut out this spam and still leave commenting open for “real” readers, I found two very helpful sources of information — both of which I highly recommend:

• The folks at SEOBook have a nice infographic explaining what this type of spam is — a good introduction to this issue.

• Blogger Derek Powazek has a very informative article about the blog-spamming issue and how it works.

But understanding a problem doesn’t make it go away.

What should you do about spam?

Keep your email address protected in the wild. If you want your email address to be clickable on a website, obscur it using something like this email obfuscator. It will still be harvestable by spammers, but not as easily so that may be a deterrent.

When you get spam, mark it as spam, don’t just delete it. Most ISPs offer spam filtering services, often for no additional cost to you. Use the service, and take the time every now and then to add spammers to the black list.

Letting spammers clog your blog with bogus comments only rewards their very bad behavior. If you have a blog, diligently block those spammers!

Most importantly, you should NEVER buy anything from these people. Even if a product looks really interesting, if it was spammed to me then I refuse to buy it. The activities of spammers cost businesses millions of dollars every year in lost productivity. And every time you miss an important email because it was caught by your spam filter — you can blame this on the spammers who have made spam filters necessary in the first place.