Comment Spam: Just Don’t

I added a new blog to my RSS reader today, as it is one of the better ones I’ve found that is precisely on topic for me and my interests. Real Lawyers Have Blogs is really, really good — it deals with topics of marketing, web 2.0, firm marketing, etc. but in the law. I cover the same topics, but it in real estate. And as some of you know, I believe there are many things that the real estate profession could learn by watching the legal profession.

Kevin, the proprietor of Real Lawyers Have Blogs, has an excellent and timely post on comment spamming. As I have to go in and clean out dozens of blog comment spam from random desperate realtors on this blog, I thought to share the key paragraphs with you. But really, seriously, read the whole thing.

There’s lawyers who don’t care how they get the next client or case. Whether it comes via an ad above a urinal, a two page spread in the yellow pages, or a referral from someone who thought the lawyer was pretty good, they just don’t care.

In fact some lawyers would rather see their name at the top of search results or on the back of a phone book than have a reputation as a trusted and reliable authority in a niche area of the law. Wonderful that these cads are in the same profession as you and I who went to law school to right a few wrongs and to take pride in what we do.

Replace the word “lawyers” in the above paragraph with the word “realtors” and the words would still ring completely true.

Over the past several months, as I have gotten deeper into the residential side of real estate, I have come to understand that there are many incredible realtors who take their profession very seriously. They know their stuff, they can truly advise both buyers and sellers, and they do their very best to provide valuable service to people on the most important financial transaction of their lives. And then, you have cads and morons who couldn’t care less. Simply put, those people need to be driven out of the industry in the same way that some lawyers need to be driven out of that industry.

Near the top of my personal list are the blog comment spammers. As Kevin puts it (quoting Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice) :

In the course of a day, I get one individual posting a dozen comments to miscellaneous old posts without any apparent nexus to each other or the geographical or subject matter area of the lawyer. Each will link back to this ‘Miami Lawyer’s’ website. But here’s the rub: The comment is written in broken English and fails to demonstrate any knowledge of the content of the post.

Example: Greet to the webmaster for this wonderful site.Keep up good work.

This is the actual comment left yesterday. To the Miami Lawyer who paid someone to leave this comment and link to his website, this word of advice. It makes you look like a blithering idiot. Is that what you are trying to accomplish?

Yeah, what he said. Thank goodness for Akismet, which has caught over 700 spam comments. And of course, you get the automated “Notorious ROB wrote about XXX topic” followed by a wholesale scrape-job of one of my posts on some site with a name like MakeMoneyInFloridaRealEstateToday.com.

Seriously, that makes you look like a blithering idiot. Stop it. Cut it out. And please, go away.

The culprit is often some “social marketing services firm” that promises you better Google search rankings, more traffic, etc. by linkfarming and comment spamming and other unsavory tactics. Again, here’s Kevin (quoting Scott):

And for lawyers buying SEO from guys that sound and behave like crack cocaine dealers, follow Scott’s advice.

…[A]s a public service to anyone foolish enough to pay good money to some advertising ‘solutions’ company that outsources its work to people who will make you look far more pathetic than you are, let me say this. Don’t do it.

You are wasting your money. You are not going to get any cases from comments that make you look stupid. You are going to have your comments deleted, and then I’m going to ban you from here.

If you’re really trying to market yourself by establishing yourself as an authority in the legal blogsophere, do it the old fashioned way. By working at it.

Could not have said it better myself.

-rsh