Comment spammers are getting smarter

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And it’s a good thing to, because judging by their prose, they’re some of the dumbest mugs alive. Well now they’re wising up a bit. They used to say “Nice Site I’m love it”, but they realised that wasn’t getting past most humans. Now they’re using a big of technology to pull keywords, so the spam is context sensitive. Now it will take 3 seconds for a human to decipher if it’s spam, instead of two.

I’ve noticed this phenomena this week, and so has Greg at Blogger’s Buzz, so I’m sure it’s going mainstream fast.

Some tips for combatting comment spam. The first rule is the smell test. If you’re wondering to yourself if the message is a spam, then it probably is. Normal commenters make normal comments. They don’t read “funny”. So if you’re wondering, just err on the side of caution. If the resource in the URL is crap, avoid the urge to approve the email.

I can imagine that only a small percentage of people will fall for the new comment spams. But let’s face it: a 10% increase on millions of spams could mean 100s of thousands of links. I’m sure this technique is working fine, especially for bloggers who might not be sure what’s happening.

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