You've come a long way, baby...
I've made it! I've really made it!
On Saturday, my blog made the big time!
Yeah, there's no better metric for success than this!
I got my first spam comment! Well, actually, it was a trackback spam to be more specific. But, still and all the same to me.
Check this beauty out...
Of course, this is just the e-mail notification of the trackback spam. The real deal can be viewed in context here. And I use "context" very loosely as the trackback really has nothing to do with what I said in the post. Spam about free MP3 downloads on a post featuring me bitching about my early eBay problems? Okay. Whatever.
I feel like a proud papa. It's my first, after all. And the first is always best, isn't it? It's all downhill from here from what I'm told.
So I should savor this moment, right? Yes, I do have the option of deleting it and reporting it as spam, but isn't that tantamount to trackback abortion or going all "Old Testament" on your firstborn?
I don't think I could do that to my first. I may have to preserve this one for posterity's sake.
What was your first time like?
My first time was painful. Very.
Back then there was NO built-in spam protection, so once they found me, I was swimming in hundreds of spams that were being posted as fast as I was deleting them. I actually had to turn off comments and trackbacks so I could catch my breath and solve the problem.
Trackbacks never came back on because they were 98% spam anyway.
Posted by: Dave2 | Wednesday, 08 March 2006 at 09:35 AM
For the record, I use protection...
Posted by: sandra | Wednesday, 08 March 2006 at 11:29 AM
My first time was sweet. The spam was gentle and not too rough. He kept talking about Viagra and what it had done for him.
Posted by: Johnny C. | Wednesday, 08 March 2006 at 12:18 PM
Squashed instantly and without mercy. And I'm still angry about it, because it neccessitated the dread WOBBLY WORD VERIFICATION feature being activated. Dang. I don't think I'm smart enough for Typepad or Wordpress, so I'll likely never have worse headaches.
Posted by: Belinda | Wednesday, 08 March 2006 at 01:12 PM
Dave, you're just too popular for your own good. But there's no question that I would implement some of the same measures you use if I got to the point, traffic wise, that you're at.
I've only gotten three trackbacks in the 9 months I've been at Typepad. Two were from Gary of garysaid.com. So I'm okay with that. I'm almost ready to shutdown trackbacks simply because I never get any. Seems pretty pointless.
Sandra, what protection? I've been to your site a lot and it seems like you practice unsafe commenting. For shame.
Johnny, at least your first was gentle. I think that I may have had a spam comment several months ago as well on a sudoku post I wrote. He was linking to an online sudoku game. But I don't count it as I actually followed the link and still, occasionally, play their game.
Belinda, I hate the wobbly word verification. I can understand it's utilitarian nature, but even I have trouble reading some of those letters. Especially the Typepad ones. They overlay what looks like blood-spattered letters on a grid so you pretty much have to stare at it for several seconds to make out what it might possibly read.
I don't want to ever have to activate it for my blog. What's nice, though, is that each comment and trackback comes with an e-mail notification that has a delete feature right in the e-mail. I can delete the spam without ever having to log into my blog account.
Posted by: Kevin | Wednesday, 08 March 2006 at 01:42 PM