I Hate Spam!

When I began this blog five years ago, I did not moderate comments or anything like that.  I allowed anybody that wanted to post a comment to do so.  If I came across a comment that I felt was spam then I would go ahead and delete it.  It really wasn't much of a problem.

Two years ago, when this blog had a lot more traffic thanks to services such as Adgitize and Entrecard, I finally made the decision to add comment moderation due to an increase in spam comments.  Even at that point in time, it wasn't really that bad, maybe 3 or 4 spam comments over the period of a week.  It was enough for me to give moderation a try.

I never went back to allowing all comments to appear.  At that time, I probably had about 100 visitors each day.  I would get a spam comment maybe once every couple of weeks ago.  Now, my daily visitors are running considerably lower than it was two years ago.  Unfortunately, the spam comments have gotten completely out of control over the last few weeks.

This evening, I came home from work and logged into my blogger control panel and saw that there were six comments needing moderation.  All of them were spam.  I deleted them and then went to the spam folder of my comment dashboard and found another twenty or so comments that my spam filter caught.  All were for the same post that I wrote in 2010 called Peacocks and Other Sights.

That seems to be the modus operandi of these folks.  They find an old post from a couple years ago and then make their comments linking their spam site to it.  Another post that seems to be getting a lot of spam comments is my post It's Bloody Hot in Here from 2011.

So now, due to this heavy barrage of spam comments, I am not going to go back into my control settings once more.  The vast majority of these comments come from "Anonymous" so I am now going to no longer allow Anonymous comments.  If that doesn't cut back on the spam, I may have to go back to having to enter those CAPTCHA word verification puzzles that I hate so much.

Anyway, if nothing else, it gives me another opportunity to post some Monty Python.  This is the only spam that I can tolerate, no offense to the meat product by the same name, which I have never tried so can not give an honest opinion of it.

Related articles

• Spam Comments (cornerofconfessions.wordpress.com)

End of the Adgitize Era

In July of 2009, my blog was coming up on its first anniversary.  At the time, I was posting periodically and struggling to get any kind of regular traffic coming to my site.  During that first year, I probably average 300-400 visitors per month.  In a very good month, I might crack 1000 visitors.

During those early days of blogging, I started to notice that some of the other blogs that I had discovered were advertising and displaying ads from various blogging communities.  One of the first ones that I signed up for was Entrecard, primarily because it was free.

I tried Entrecard for a while, but quickly grew tired of the results I was getting from them.  It was in July of 2009 that I started to notice some display widgets for another network called Adgitize.  Adgitize billed itself as "World Class Advertising on a Blogger's Budget."

I started to check out Adgitize to see what it was all about.  There were a couple of different options available with them.  You could sign up to be an publisher only and display their ads, you could be an advertiser and buy an ad for $14 per month, or you could do both.

One of the things that I liked about them was that they had a sort of revenue sharing platform.  You could earn points by performing various activities such as visiting other blogs, publishing posts on your own blog, points for traffic, and points for being an advertiser.  The more points you earned, the more cash you could receive.

Now, one who participated in the Adgitize network would not be able to quit their day job and just Adgitize, but a little reward was nice.  I started off as a publisher only in early July of 2009.  In those early days, I was probably earning a couple pennies each day.  I realized that it would take a long time to hit their payout threshold of $10.

So, after a couple of weeks, I decided to take the plunge and bought my first ad with them for $14.  I noticed two things almost immediately after placing my first ad; first the traffic to my blog increased tremendously to the point where I was receiving at least triple the visitors prior to advertising.

The other thing that I noticed was that my total points and therefore the amount I was earning also increased significantly.  On days that I did not write a blog post, I went from earning a couple pennies to earning $.15-$.20 per day.  When I published a post, my earnings went up to $.50-$.60 per day.

It didn't take me long to figure out that if I participated in the various activities in the network and published a blog post most days that my $14 advertising fee could perpetuate itself in revenue from the network.  Most months, I would earn enough from my points to pay for the next month's ad.  I have been an advertiser with them ever since.

That is, until now.  Like a great many of us bloggers who have faithfully been a part of the Adgitize network and know full well the awesome benefits that being a part of their network, I was saddened to receive an email from Ken Brown, who started and runs Adgitize, informing us that Adgitize will be closed for business when the year ends.

Like any business, Adgitize needs revenue in order to survive.  For a while, it looked like Ken and crew had a winning formula.  The number of advertisers was growing pretty steady for several months.  Eventually, it peaked and came down a bit.  Unfortunately, over the last few months there has been a steady decline in the number of advertisers until it reached the point where the business could not be sustained.

Judging from some of the comments on the Adgitize blog from my fellow bloggers that are part of Adgitize, we all hold Ken Brown in high regard and are saddened to see Adgitize close.  Ken did a tremendous job of creating a community on Adgitize where we could share blogging tips and get to know one another.

In a day where customer service is somewhat lacking, Ken was very attentive in addressing concerns that any of us had.  Ken and his service will definitely be missed by those of us who have interacted with him over the last three years.  I wish him much success in all his future endeavors and hope to be able to work with him again.

Related articles

• How I Overlooked a 1000 Visitor a Day Source of Traffic [And What I Did to Grow it to 3000 Visits a Day] (problogger.net)
• 65 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog (problogger.net)