Reviewing Comments on CardioTrek.ca

So it is the end of the year and I am reviewing comments people have made on CardioTrek.ca.

Over 300 comments from the last two years, 2017 and 2018.

I managed to review (and delete) 100 comments before I got bored of looking at spam comments. Over 90% of the comments are spam / contain links. So by the time I eventually review all 300+ comments, there will probably be less than 30 comments that are genuine and get approved.

The spam comments are selling things like diet pills, detox pills, weight lifting gloves, weight lifting belts, exercise bicycles, health supplements, protein  powders, rhinoplasty, plastic surgery...

And even off topic things like promoting criminal defense lawyers, vacations, spas, viagra (of course!), hair growth pills (for bald people), gambling and such. I am not going to list them all, but clearly some spammers don't care if they are spamming a topic that is even relevant.

All of which gets marked as spam and deleted. Never even seen by the general public.

Because frankly that is how I roll. All comments are hidden until I have approved them.

Which means all the spammers (and spambots) are just wasting their time (and mine).

Even the posts I do approve are double-checked to make sure they didn't hide a spam link in a comment that at a glance looks genuine.

I have half of a mind to just delete ALL of the comments and turn off the commenting function. It would save me time from having to review them and make certain they are genuine comments that don't contain a spam link.

But I do like receiving the genuine comments.

• The people who say thank you.
• The people who say "keep up the great work".
• The people who say "I learned something today thanks to you".
• The people who are asking questions, which potentially can be used for my Exercise Questions posts.

And of course comments from my clients / students, which are often more personal and anecdotal.

Those are the comments I really enjoy, so clearly I cannot get rid of the commenting function entirely. I just have to weather the storm, delete the spam, and not check/review comments for 2 years again.

Two years from now I should be nearing the 1,000 posts mark (currently hovering around 880 and doing 60 per year) so it is a lot of posts for people to leave comments on.


Note

To the people wanting to sell boxing gloves, weightlifting equipment and other exercise equipment... don't spam! Send me product samples instead and I will do a product review. I will even post a copy of the review on Amazon if you ask nicely. Product reviews from genuine sources are a far better way of advertising your product and getting the positive word out there.

But spamming. Nope. Deleted. Good day sir! Hope you enjoyed wasting your time!