Hypotheses 
47 Comments Is spam a measure of success?
Since starting my blog a couple months back I have been steadily increasing the number of visitors here each day/week/month. The amount is still quite low – but I’m happy it’s an upward trend – thank you readers!
As my blogging has continued, I’ve been commenting on many other blogs and really trying hard to get my name out there. Admittedly – not hard enough – but hey. According the the web wonder that is Alexa, I have no incoming links to this site. Meh! Queue Google – Webmaster Tools
So you’re probably wondering where I’m going with this. No longer fear – I usually stick with short posts 
Webmaster Tools says that I have just under 1000 (yikes!) incoming links. Clearly I’ve been out and about being a blogging hussy!
Whilst I have steadily built backlinks, I have also started to gain more traffic. With this traffic you see the usual things,
- More comments
- More social engagement
- Alexa rank falls
- Google stats soar
- Spam spam spam
Whilst the jury is out over the validity of Alexa as a measure of success, more robust means such as Google Analytics can show quite easily that you are going in the right direction.
But – I put this to you – can spam be used as a measure of your success? I say yes. Here’s why. To get spam, you need to be noticed – somewhere, somehow you have attracted the horrid brutes that are spam robots.
Maybe you’ve commented on dofollow blogs. I know I have – it’s the intention to get some link love and share it amongst my fellow bloggers. Practise safe blogging!
Whilst success is not about getting yourself spammed – I’ve some 150 comments held in the spam folder back stage – the two things go hand in hand.
What you can learn from spam, and its steady increase on your blog is that your backlinking is working. You are starting to get yourself out there – you’re getting recognised. This is great for ranks in the search engine results – especially if you are getting backlinked from a high page rank site.
Maybe I’m wrong on this issue – maybe I’m not. What are your opinions on spam? I’m open to discussion, as I learn more about blogging. Please leave a message below – I look forward to chatting!
Image Credit – selva
haha! I get probably 30+ spam comments a day… but I can’t really put it as a measure of success because I have a dead blog that get’s almost as many!
I personally measure success by targeted traffic. How many people are visiting my blogs through the keywords that I am targeting?
I’d be interesting to see how others see blogging success.
Hey Tom,
I think that’s what real success is. As a newbie – everything that can be viewed upon can be a success – but I see the issue of 30 spams a day.
How is your keyword targeting?
Hi Mark
Lol, I must get 5-20 spam comments a day, so going by your assessment I am starting to make an impact on the blogosphere!
This is an interesting and unique take on measuring blogging success and very much enjoyed it.
Thanks for sharing.
Michael
P.s Congrats on your success so far…keep it up!
Hey Michael,
Good to see new faces – think I’ve seen you around the blogosphere – welcome to my neck of the woods!
By my assessment I’d say you’d great success lol. I would imagine by the time you get significant traffic, spam is a pain.
I’m glad you enjoyed the post. I’ve been having a tough few days – writers block – and needed a pick me up – Looking at spam as a success came to me – although, it’s probably better suited to newbie bloggers than those with larger followings.
Thanks again
Mark,
I’m developing a new business model in spanish. I’m planning to launch it in this month. I’ll let you know when the spam starts comminng!
hey man, nice blog…really like it and added to bookmarks. keep up with good work
Hi Mark,
I feel that receiving spam is a measure of success. It means your presence has expanded.
Even when I was a newbie blogger spam didn’t bother me; I was being noticed
Beats the months where I received no comments at all.
Ryan Biddulph
Hey Ryan,
I think as a newbie it can be an encouragement to get some spam – for the very reason you mention.
More spam means more people know about your site and they want to get links from your site.I even had to turn off wordpress comments at times to prevent spam.But you can directly relate spam with your traffic .
Hey Bishwajeet,
You’re quite right – it’s a sign that you’re getting some incoming links. I’ve noticed also that as my traffic has increased, even stayed steady, the spam still comes – it’s probably more closely linked to backlinks than traffic.
Haha, I agree with what Ryan said about allowing spam-ish comments when you are just starting out, I was so excited to have some comments that I didn’t really care!
I also agree with Thomas – I think that targeted traffic is the best measure of success, because just getting noticed period wont necessarily make your blog successful if your targeted audience isn’t finding it.
Anyways, this is a really neat post. I’ve never thought about spam possibly meaning you are on the right track with your blog, but its definitely an interesting concept!
Hey Libby,
Glad you enjoyed the post. I can see it from both sides too. I’ve allowed spam in the past, but have since removed it because I did get spammed properly lol
Tom makes a great point – targeted traffic is the key
Hey Mark,
You’re absolutely right! The more success you attain with your blog, the more spam starts coming in. Right now, I can kinda manage my own spam comments with Akismet and other WP plug-ins. I can only imagine what the spam looks like for bloggers like Darren Rowse and Chris Brogan. I agree with Thomas. Targeted traffic is what I use to measure success for my blog. Even the smaller blogs get some spam. My other blog gets a lot of spam per week and I haven’t touched it in months. lol.
Great observation, Mark! Thanks for your insight.
P.S. Do people still care about their Alexa rating? lol
Hey Kevin,
I can’t imagine what the spam is like on those bigger blogs. They often hit 100 comments per post, so spam must be insane.
Re. Alexa rank – I think people are always interested in it. I’ve heard that a good rank generally gets you somewhere with advertisers, but I’ve no personal experience of this.
Best
~ Hieu Martin
It’s more than I’m getting! Or was – I was getting about 5-10 a day, so I installed the captcha lol
Hahahaha ever the optimist Mark! I love it.
SOrry, I mean… this was a really well written post and I shall tell my friends about it. It has really helped me with my college assignment. There should be more posts like it, I have bookmarked this and I will be back! Oh…buy a dirtbike and some off shore property!!!!
what’s that plugin? the share one on the left? I WANT!
oooh, oooh – I just thought of a better response.
Based on your assessment of ‘Spam’, I would say it depends entirely on whether the can is half full or half empty.
lmao some clear spamming there Alex :p
The pluging is called “Digg Digg”, using the floaty thingy setting.. I’ll find out!!
Is spam a measure of success?…
As my blogging has continued, I’ve been commenting on many other blogs and really trying hard to get my name out there. Admittedly – not hard enough – but hey. According the the web wonder that is Alexa, I have no incoming links to this site. Meh! Queu…
I was just posting this comment on blog engage but wanted to share it here as well lol it’s rather interesting.
I don’t think it’s a measure of success but it sure is a measure of marketing. The more you market the more they are able to find you. So in one shape or form it is a success but not entirely based on your blogging skills.
Hey Brian,
You’re spot on I think – it’s a better measure of marketing than success. Cheers for the vote btw!
You’re so correct in your analysis of the spam:success ratio. I myself have noticed that as the commenting on blogs with the commentluv enabled and other snappy plugins grows, so grows your backlinks.
But the oddity to this is the overwhelming amount of “spammy” submissions from all over the world. I wonder where these bots/people get the links from to submit these vile comments.
Do you know of any other way to get down to the referral link for these “posters”?
I haven’t found a way to track back to where the bots come from – but it would certainly be interesting.
Fortunately, most of the spam I received was just complete junk – like someone typed randomly on the keyboard.
That’s true.If we get more spam means your blog getting popular very much faster.
Nice post Mark,i love it
Hey Goutham,
Thanks! I think it shows popularity – but as Brian says, it shows that you are marketing well
Consider that there is software out there for automated blog commenting. With that in mind, you only need to comment on a single popular blog in order to be spammed to death for the life of your blog.
Honestly, you can easily get a good 50 spam comments a day with very little marketing effort. But you will find that it takes a good amount of time to achieve monetization. I guess it depends on your idea of success. From a noobies view, getting any comments at all may be their way of feeling success. It usually fades with experience though.
Hey Brandon,
I agree complete – opinion changes when you have experienced spam. I had so much recently that I’ve reinstated my spam filter…
I rarely have to moderate spam anymore. I use akismet with conditional captcha and it eliminates every single spam comment out there. The only ones that get through are actually not spam, but poor grammar comments. Most of the time…
[...] a few do-follow blogs and this is the result. Ironically, the most spam came through my post on spam being a measure of success!The top commented posts this month, including previous months were,Is spam a measure of [...]
Hi Mark! This was the story from another angle. To some extent you are correct. If the site was not popular and did not left its foot print most-where, how those spambots be able to find and run to enter? As I experience, the age of a site better invites spams. This also is going to the same direction. When a site is older, it has many traces to let others follow. Spam bots especially attacked higher PR older sites. But how fool are they? Older, more experienced and more popular sites; won’t they be more prepared to fight against?
BTW, I hate you place Captcha code for commenters. Why don’t you use Akismet? Let us comment comfortably man!
Hey Suresh,
Thanks for your comment. I hadn’t used Akismet because I had thought it was paid. Your comment made me go check it out again, and I’m now running that.
Hey Mark are you on Technorati yet? I find their authority rating to be a good gauge of things. It is also based primarily on incoming links.
Hey Daniel,
I have an account on technorati – I shall try using it! Any pointers?
[...] BloggersJournal: Is Spam a Measure of Success? I don’t think anyone sees spam as a measure of success, so I [...]
I don’t even know how much spam I’m getting. I hardly ever bother with Akismet and then it’s only a very general look to see if any good comments got caught up (don’t count on me doing this though!)
Spammers use various ways to track down blogs to comment on. Some go by keywords, others hit any comment form. It’s a mass thing, not manual obviously, so just a matter of how “foundable” you are on the net.
Hey Anne,
I’ve recently started using Akismet, and I get about 20 spam a day usually. I found that there are some of my regular commenting readers are getting caught in it.
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Hey I really like your blog and looking for rss to get regular updates..thanks
Thanks for the awesome post, I loved reading it!
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Great post! Thank you.
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Interesting one. I look forward to see more.
I have been working diligently on my wordpress blog of late and I’ve noticed a significant jump in the spam. This article is refreshing because despite the consistent flow of spam nothing else much is happening at the moment as far as conversions.
I run and strength and fitness blog so being in the fitness industry during this recession may have something to do with that. Nonetheless, I am cranking out post like crazy. Its good to know that I may possibly be getting some internet love. God knows I’ve worked hard enough for it. Thanks again for an excellent post Mark!