Feb9
Are you getting human spam on your blog? I am.
If you are running Disqus right now and have some pages with page rank there is a good chance that you are getting hit with human spam from site owners trying to accomplish some bargain basement SEO requiring the bare minimum of work. This isn’t limited to Disqus, but since Disqus continues to leave NOFOLLOW off of the link to the user’s website in their username they have become a specific target.
It’s pretty trivial to mark these guys as spam and the worst of them are easy to recognize because they’ll move from page to page leaving the same worthless comment, but there are a few that have an interesting perspective on what they are doing and it’s worth thinking about before you start blowing away all the comments that they leave.
In comments left on my blog and on a thread I started about this problem on Disqus’s forums I’ve seen an attitude of entitlement from the Spammers that put the smallest amount of effort to customize their spam comment to the content of the page. Their logic (?) is that comments add value to a site and by leaving a comment that is somewhat on target they “earn” the link and the SEO value that it instills.
There is some truth to this perspective, comments mean a lot to a blogger. They add new content to a page and keep it active and updating something that Google likes to see, they can also provide new search terms and enhance the keyword usage on the page, helping it rise in the search results.
What human spammer’s fail to take into account, and where their perspective diviates so far from that of mine, is that comments are encouragement and validation of a bloggers work. That engagment is worth more than all the SEO benefit a spammer can offer me and why I take such offense at their half hearted attempts and sense of entitlement and why so few of their comments will be allowed to stand here.
That’s my perspective – what’s yours?
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Jan29
Today’s Whimsday post is a celebration! I started this blog on a whim, it seemed a good way to share and learn new things. Last week I reached a minor milestone, my WordPress stats show that I’ve had a quarter of a million page views since I started the Knetwork. To celebrate I’ve changed my theme, something I’ve intended to do for a while now. I hope you enjoy the theme and thanks to everyone that reads this for making running the site such a rewarding endeavor!
-David
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Jan22
Before the end of last year I had started playing with a cool new piece of technology called Triggit that made adding advertising and affiliate links easy to do without spamming them all over the place. As my blogging decreased towards the end of the year, I was mainly focused on quick pieces and didn’t touch Triggit.
You may have noticed the blue search bar at the top of my site (if it’s loaded yet, I need to track down what’s been slowing my load times lately) That is called the Sitebar and Triggit has switched gears and is focusing on this new tool. What does it do? Well, right now it only searches but I’ve boon told to expect more functionality soon, I’ll update more as I get the information 
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Jan21
I suppose that someone knows because I saw one today and it was the first time I’ve really noticed one and thought about it. So for today’s Wednesday Whim I decided to add one for the Knetwork. All you need is an animated gif, scaled down to the recommended 16×16 pixel size, uploaded to your existing favicon location. Then add a html line to your header. Just copy your current favicon code, paste it below itself, and alter the file name to your animated gif.
FYI – mine is a little knight hacking away at something…. it’s probably dead by now. I’ll probably replace it or remove it but lemme know what you think!
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Jan20
I’m having a little fun with one of the latest viral trends going around Friendfeed to express my general belief that the term ‘meme’ has been corrupted to be nothing other than a glorified fad.
- Meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene
- It is defined as conveying the idea of a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation
- It is derived from the Greek word “mimema” meaning something imitated
- The study of memes is known as Memetics
- It is intended to provide a definition for the way ideas and trends move through society as genetic traits move from generation to generation through genes
- Genes are considered to move vertically from generation to generation, although with current genetic research it’s possible they may even move horizontally within a generation at some point in the future
- Memes are considered to move either vertically or horizontally
- Good examples of memes that move vertically are cultural trends like racism, speech patterns, pizza crust preferences and the type of BBQ sauce you consider to be the only true BBQ
- Good examples of horizontal memes are fashion, slang, and the belief that Al Gore truly deserved a Nobel Peace Prize
- A fad is considered to be a phenomenon that becomes popular for a very short time.
- A fad technically fits the description of a horizontal meme since it is transmitted and imitated
- The short time period indicates that it is a failed meme, a dead end on the cultural evolutionary tree
- Thankfully!
- Although Jams were awesome – why don’t we wear those anymore?
- Calling your short lived internet fad a meme will make you feel more important
- You’re not
- Calling it a meme will make you feel more sophisticated
- You’re not that either
- Calling it a meme might confuse more people into taking part though
- So I don’t blame you for doing it
- But I still find it a little annoying
- And I just wanted you to know…
- That the meme you are participating in is just a glorified fad
- And as long as you are OK with that, then go for it!
- If “internet memes” are your thing you might want to spend some quality time with Encyclopedia Dramatica
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