The short answer is… No, it wasn’t. But let me give you some background real quick.
If there’s anything WordPress sites are known for, it’s that you’re definitely going to get spam comments fairly regularly on your blog page. Or really any page that you allow comments. Most grifters on the internet know how to scan for WordPress sites. I imagine it’s something in the metadata of web pages that are indexed, stack up those sites and throw messages at them, so they basically throw comments at that wall until one of them sticks and is clicked. Sure it’s one in 10,000, but that’s stillI good odds with the absurd amount of people that want to throw their opinion out in the ether with a WordPress site. I would say that just like everyone else I accrue somewhere around a random comment of spam about every other day. Most the time they have a ridiculous titles, bunk email address, they’re posting from a bunk IP address, and the comment is usually like somebody smacked their face on a keyboard essentially creating a brand new word or a rehashed copy/pasted sentence or two that makes you wonder if it’s a real person. Here’s a couple examples below:
It basically checks off all the areas though, right? Ridiculous titles, fake email addresses, IP addresses from who knows where… But what’s this? Flattery? Well now we are talkin’! I just kind of want to click all of your links that will hold my computer hostage for some fraction of a Bitcoin! I mean how often do people appreciate a post or comment you make on Twitter or Reddit (outside the small niche subs)? I’m going to go with not very often, regardless of the topic, if somebody gets the information they want or don’t like what they hear, I would say you’re not going to get a response. But if you do, it’s definitely not going to be thanking you for explaining why they’re wrong in that RoboCop is in fact a superhero.
It’s nearly impossible to find educated people in this particular subject, however, you seem like you know what you’re talking about. Thanks.
-Israelnightclub.com
I’ve got to say that’s a pretty flattering comment from the wonderful people over at israelnightclubs.com, if only it in some way had anything to do with my website. Looks like more spam, bummer. So, we’ve determined that most of these comments are completely bogus. There’s a lot of giveaways, or just general tip offs that maybe we shouldn’t take these comments seriously. Maybe it’s the poor formatting, the lack of a real email address, or even the advertisement for discrete apartments in a foreign country…
So wait, why do you have a website at all? Well, I just needed a place to post all my personal work in case my dream job working on robots that will eventually take over pops up. Every once in awhile it would be nice to refer to something I’ve worked on without having to go to my personal computer, scroll through a bunch of my projects, and eventually find the one I’m referring to before the person has lost all interest and doesn’t even want to tell me about Jehovah anymore. So what I’m saying is the website here isn’t really for anyone in particular, it’s mostly for me. So when a comments come in the likelihood is that they’re all fake. I’m just saying that all of them are fake… Or are they?
Wait a minute.
Hold on…
What in the hell is this?
Okay so comment just came in and the title is a person’s name, no last name. Well, okay, I’m not going to disqualify it, let’s keep going. The email name seems pretty bunk, in fact I know it’s fake because it’s awesome. But most likely the person filled it out because they just wanted to get the comment in and the fastest way is to provide a uncheckable address to move forward. Okay, so that’s two weird issues. But what do we have here? A body full of helpful information, and valuable insight into something my website is having problems with? Somebody break out the S’mores Schnapps because it looks like we have a real one! Behold, an actual comment from somebody that miraculously got to my website somehow:
So Frank is absolutely right. The link that I posted had either been changed or most likely was blown up because of how popular AI facial recognition and creation has become. So that was accurate. And then the next topic is that my SSL Certificate is broken. I’m by no mean a technical wizard in web development, but after searching around my internals he was absolutely right! Granted the website still worked, but it was an important piece of feedback so that my website could be accessed safely by a wider group of visitors. Everybody prefers a secure connection. Especially my wife…
Generally, friends of mine who also run WordPress sites get overrun with spam comments that are just doing whatever to get you to click purposefully or even accidentally to somehow extract some kind of funding whether it’s through advertisement or again holding your computer hostage from clicking on a dangerous link. I got to say that it’s pretty amazing that Frank came out of the woodwork for somebody as unimportant as myself with actual legitimate information for my website. I really wish there was an easier way to connect to groups that just enjoy giving feedback or just reading random articles from people like me, but if not I’m really glad there are people like Frank out there. I feel pretty optimistic.
Thank you, Frank.
-mh
