Ten Unethical Blog Visitor Behaviors
Ajith | Dec 2008 | Blogging Tips, Miscellaneous
Sometime back I had written a post about Unethical Blogging Practices and it dealt with bloggers’ unacceptable behaviors. Today’s topic is a little more controversial in nature and might sound negative as well but I request my honorable readers not to get offended because I am not talking about serious and genuine readers here!
The following are my list of blog visitor (or user) behaviors that I find really frustrating:
#1 Comment or Email Spamming
Nobody particularly likes spamming – whether it is email spamming or comment spaming. I am not talking about those spam comments that gets caught by Akismet but there are also more genuine readers who spams as well – Probably very short comments when delivered in batches of three or four fall into this category?
Recently I added a Contact form on this blog. To this date, only one or two – out of the 20 plus feedback mails I received – were genuine feedbaks. Rest belonged to online marketing and even links and promotions of rated sites.
Of late, there’s been another kind of comment spamming for those who have video commenting facility on their blogs. Thank god, I do not have one here for it is unthinkable having to moderate rated videos as well.
#2 Marking a blog as Not Safe or Rated
Many a times ‘blogger’ (blogspot) blogs suffer from this misbehavior from the unusual visitor. Unfortunately, once or twice they mark a blog as unsafe, it is going to take some time before the blog can be verified by Google and makes it public again (or at least the rated warning is taken out). This can be a really bad experience for those blog owners who put in all the hard work to keep their blogs up to date with good content. Fortunately, self-hosted blogs do not face this issue but they suffer from the next!
#3 Hacking
Well, this is not the handwork of a typical reader but of those spiteful online terrorists! Hacking is probably the worst thing that can happen to any blog or website as it can result in permanent damage to data or fame.
Continuous pinging by bots and even wicked visitors is another thing that can slow down the blogs drastically. However, this type of attack is not that common these days
#4 Click Bombing
Click bombing is a real threat to many bloggers these days as a lot of them have lost their publisher accounts with ad network such as Google AdSense. Click Bombing refers to the continuous clicks of the ads on a blog via bots or by humans themselves. In some cases the ad network may get your publisher account enabled back but not without a lot of communication back and forth.
#5 Reporting to Google about paid links
This is mostly done by experienced blogger readers themselves though not very common. A lot of bloggers have lost their page and search ranks due to this kind of information passed on to Google. I personally believe that it is not a good thing to do and if the Google folks want to find it out themselves let them.
#6 Imposter Commenting
Commenting in the name of somebody else is more vicious than spamming and click bombing. Impersonation can harm the relationship that the blogger and his/her regular readers are having. Since blogs – unlike forums – have no authorization mechanism, anybody can harm anybody else.
#7 Republishing the content elsewhere
This is mostly done by other bloggers and online content creators themselves and I have touched upon this topic in the ‘Unethical Blogging’ post as well. I thought it needs a mention here as well since it is not a great feeling when you have to read your own content elsewhere.
#8 Public bashing or defaming
Well online bashing, probably, cannot be as bad as the live shoe-throwing incident involving George Bush Jr. but it is a serious issue. This can happen in the impersonated format or otherwise and on your blog or elsewhere. If it happens on you blog it is always better to deal with such negative commenting in a very open manner as genuine readers will understand the motives behind bashing. If it is elsewhere you might want to get the help of the particular blogger to take on such public bashers.
#9 Commenting for the sake of commenting
Well, this happens quite often when you build a community around your blog. Manytimes, people (including me) comment on blogs to get traffic, backlinks (on no nofollow blogs), or to just make your courtesy visit visible to others. The last point mostly is also towards
Sometimes, it can really piss you off as a blogger when you have to moderate many such comments. Of late, I have taken the stand of not approving some of those very short comments but not marking them as spam as it’s again not among my comment moderation ethics. So any of you happens to be at the receiving end, please understand. Another commonly found behavior (by such commenters) is that they do not read through the post properly before commenting as they are busy stuffing their keywords into the link text than adding value to the comment box.
#10 Reader Passivity
Though I had some great ideas to get the passive reader into some action some of you are still suffering from major inertia, I guess 
To be frank, it’s not anything unethical from readers point of view to behave so, but sometimes bloggers expect some kind of response – no matter whether it is a pat or slap – from their readers. So what’s preventing you from commenting now?
If you have any more points to add here, please shoot…
Great list here
I personally do the same as you do in #9. I think if you come by a blog just to write great post or some sort of 5-7 word comment then most times I just delete them 99% of the time. I’ve also seen from any other blog that I have its content somewhere else.
It does piss me off a little bit but in a way I feel sorry for the people who think republishing other content as their own is sad. They do get caught eventually anyways so I just keep posting away.
Point 9 is really true. It is really annoying at time when you see a comment from a blogger who just say a one word comment just for the sake that he has commented to get a backilink. I often get comments such as “LOL” or “Good” and similar words. I simple cannot understand the LOL or GOOD is for what.
Point one also i agree with you. I have just posted a post about how a Press Company in Mauritius is spamming people with its very amateur like email. Please have a look here and add your views please.
And worst the webmaster of the company replied back saying thanks that I write about him and that he will surely continue to spam so that i write more about him. Thats ridiculous. You should have a look at the comments in the post. Some are in creole language but the rest are in english.
Here is a copy translated in english of what he said:
Pheeew…. I still wonder why there are such foolish webmasters lol.
Imposter commenting is also very serious. I often have some people using the name of my regular commenters to comment in a negative way on my blog. However I know those imposters as I know about my regular commenters and I delete or spam those types of comments.
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I do #9 sometimes but still try to say more than “great article”. If someone only does it once on my site, I allow the comment. I’ve moved the follow criteria up to 5 comments so it will take them more than a couple of comments to benefit from it. Some people are just learning and don’t know any better.
And I’ve had #6 happen to me – by someone that I thought was a friend. I have so wanted to make the incident public but I haven’t. I do not deal with that individual anymore though.
I can’t believe someone would do #5 – let google do their own work.
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Following two items cannot be considered unethical:
#9 Commenting for the sake of commenting
#10 Reader Passivity (You’ve already mentioned this is not unethical)
For blogs that has very active users participation (like yours), #9 may be treated unethical. For my blog, where users are not very actively commenting, I’ll be glad to take any comment on the posted subject, as long as they are not spam.
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Everything sounds convincing. Even spammers won’t argue. I only do not understand “cannot be as bad as the live shoe-throwing incident involving George Bush Jr.” As it was good))
Hope the author won’t consider this comment to be #1
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@Bruno, Good to know that you share my feelings as well when it comes to those short comments… Or should we blame it on the Top Commentator plugin?
@Kurt, Thanks for the detailed views on spamming and imposter posting. Yep, I checked out the post that you mentioned and now the commenters have made it even more spammy
I guess I should have seen your post before writing on this topic as I would have got some more points 
@Kim, I agree that taking out ‘Nofollow’ only for those who have commented on a certain number of times is a great idea
I guess I should do that as well.
Imposters are around all over… Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to trace down the culprits.
As for #5, yes it happens and unfortunate thing is that Google sometimes does not easily revert to your PR status even when you remove all the paid links
@Ramesh, #9 for me is still unethical – I mean without reading a single thing if somebody commments and that too in two or three words, for me it’s highly unethical. Hmm, I should try some “nice post” or “thanks for the tips, buddy” type of comments on your blog
@Sova, in fact it was quite a funny incident as there could not have been a better target for a pair of shoes
Thank you all for your participation!
@Ajith: Pheeww… its a comment shower there at that post lol. I think I am going to close the comment section on that post by tonight. Thanks for commenting.
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I like how “Reader Passivity” follows “Commenting for the sake of commenting”… I guess you can’t win. lol.
I think I get most annoyed with the republishing of content. I’ve had some of my articles republished verbatim, with no link back to my website.
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Oddly enough i have found myself in comments before I get there. I’m thinkin’ its a case of #6 but not sure what to do about it.
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Ajith, I agree with every point you’ve made here, but I think the two that bother me the most are #3 and #7. Number seven is the worst because you spend all that time and effort trying to write something good only to see someone else stealing it as soon as you publish it. Frankly, that’s irritating as sin. I haven’t had any experience with number three, and hope to never have that experience, but I’m also trying to figure out why it happens. I mean, what makes someone decide to attack one specific blog, or are they trying to attack many blogs at once and just get lucky here and there?
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Hi Ajith – I think #9 happen a lot as some people don’t take the time to read the whole post. If people are skimming, you could certainly end up getting embarrassed if your comment doesn’t pertain to the post, or if you haven’t read the whole thing.
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@Kurt, haha… Good luck with spam patroling
@Shirley, I know how frustrating it can be to see your content republished by somebody else… I have gone through it as well
Btw, I guess reader passivity (mainly by information junkies) is still okay compared to the two or three word comments…
And I visited your blog. I liked your SEO tips.
@Dennis, er… we have an imposter in the room
Oops I mean, you have been on the receiving end right?
@Mitch, we have talked about content stealing in another contest, right? What to do, we can’t help it. Though there’s a dummy copyright message on almost every blog, that doesn’t hold much value
As for the hacking thing… it still happens on many blogs. People hack with SQL injection etc. And these days, I have started suspecting plugins as well. That’s the biggest threat to WordPress blogs, I believe.
@Barbara, I understand… nobody has patience may be. Because they have to finish commenting on 30 or 40 blogs every day to get back links and reference visitors. Reading seems to be the last thing on their minds.
Thanks again, all of you
LOL yes the receiver.
I like what you said in #9. I have gotten a couple of comments from people who didn’t read the post. One person’s comment on a post of mine was the direct opposite of what the post was about. I just left it up there because I guess I wanted to be an a**.
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Hi Ajith, you have thought a lot before coming with this post. Lot of the points are indeed unethical blog visitor behaviors.
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@Carla, that’s a pity… People need to read before making statements on the content
Btw, your green blog rocks and I liked its theme!
@Nihar, thanks for your feedback… I really appreciate it
Marking a blog as Not Safe or Rated – I was not aware any such system exist, is it so, if it is then Google must turn this tool off.
@Shanker, that’s mainly with blogger blogs. Using the top nav bar (default with blogger) you can do that. Once blocked it’s very hard to get back on track as communication with Google is always a pain in the @$$
I had some problems of mine too on my previous blog. Firstly, I decided against installing Akismet and guess what…one or two spams per day turned into 100 bot spams suddenly. That was a lesson well learnt.
Moreover, unethical practices will continue against your sites, the onus is on you to be one step ahead of the online “terrorists”. Everybody knows that every version of Wordpress before 2.7 is exploitable, and failing to upgrade and patch your installation is an open invitation to hackers. As I speak now, thousands of kids with time on their hands would be sitting away designing exploits for WP 2.7 and munching down cold pizza
Generic comments are also a problem. “Thank you for the tip”, “great post” and similar are often marked as spam in many forums and the same should be for blogs too. While you should be not that strict to establish a military dictatorship on your blog, generic comments by the same commentator on several posts is a definite sign of intention to spam or gain back link favors. No wonder, many bloggers are moving away from do-follow to no-follow attributes on their blogs.
Great Article overall, Ajith. Many know these ‘unethical ways”, but none had bothered to blog about them and create a public awareness. Thumbs up on your initiative to do so
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@DM aka Forsaken
At the outset thanks for the long comment. These days comments of good quality are very rare and sometimes seen ‘unethically’ short. That was one point in this post as well, right.
As for the spam, Akismet sometimes goes wrong as well. Regardless of that every one comment I approve there are no less than 20 spams these days
sad but true. Unfortunately I have to scan through the spam as well just in case one got caught there by mistake.
WP exploits are very common but not as bad as those PHPNuke site hacking etc. I have suffered many times in the past with my old website.
As for the generic comments, even when I comment on a blog to become Top Commentator there or to get a follow back, I make it a point to read the article completely and make my point in no less than 50 words. I write short comments only when I had commented there before and want to follow up (or in worst case, tit for tat – that’s if somebody continuously write short comments for my posts I would do the same for them as well
)
I’ll admit that I haven’t thought as much about plugins harming me and my site as I probably should, but then again, I evaluate plugins by what I feel they can help me do. I probably need to be just a bit more discriminating at times.
@Mitch, your take is the right one. One should be buy into plugins more driven by their features. Moreover, most of the time the open source community will pounce on anybody who is coding non-performing or insecure plugins and that’s the beauty of WP community