The comment spammers almost got me!



I periodically get comments on the Artist Alley Survival Guide, and I've got it set to moderate comments so it doesn't get hit by auto-spammers. The spammers are usually fairly easy to spot when I get notifications because the comment is blandly innocuous ("Great post! I've bookmarked it!") and the URL in the Website space is obviously spammy (www.great-prices-on-v!agr4.com).

Someone is now obviously paying people to read the post and craft a comment relevant to it. Can you spot the spammy tip-off here?

A new comment on the post #105 "H.2. Getting People to Come to Your Table" is waiting for your approval
http://www.projectbluerose.com/tutorials/anime-convention-artist-alley-survival-guide/h-selling-at-the-con/h2-getting-people-to-come-to-your-table/

Author : asian lamps (IP: 75.70.56.92 , c-75-70-56-92.hsd1.co.comcast.net)
E-mail : [email protected]
URL : www . asianlamps . net
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=75.70.56.92
Comment:
Great information here I notice at the last animation convention I didn't have many people come to my table for hours and yes i was just sitting there next time I will apply these tips

thanks

I did check the URL before approving the comment, which confirmed it was spam and not real (I've put spaces into it above so no search bot parses it as a URL and increases their hits - I am *not* concerned about spambots harvesting their address!), but that comment is a thing of beauty! The run-on sentence! The mis-capitalized "I"! the lack of punctuation! It's almost like they studied the types of comments I get on DeviantArt! the only misstep is saying "animation convention" instead of "anime con."

They almost got me, too. I didn't notice the author name, but it's a good thing I did my usual URL check to make sure it's not hiding malware or spam or the like. :) It's entirely possible someone could be making Asian lamps to sell at cons (and not a bad idea, at that!).