This has been a thing since blogs became a widespread thing 25+ years ago. Especially with the advent of Wordpress. It was even a “commonly accepted” SEO tactic for awhile.
Sneaky spam in conversational replies to blog posts
11–20 of 83 posts
Re: Sneaky spam in conversational replies to blog posts
#12I subscribe to handful of investment-related YouTube channels. This pattern has been common for years. A bot will reply with a comment loosely related to the video and about how something worked for them. Another bot will reply asking how they did that. Another bot (not the original commenter) will reply that they worked with so-and-so or invested in such-and-such, and then there will be maybe four or five more comme…
I’ve been seeing this kind of spam on forums all the way back in 2004. I wonder if it was a feature in Xrumer or whatever they used to post spam back then.
Re: Sneaky spam in conversational replies to blog posts
#13I subscribe to handful of investment-related YouTube channels. This pattern has been common for years. A bot will reply with a comment loosely related to the video and about how something worked for them. Another bot will reply asking how they did that. Another bot (not the original commenter) will reply that they worked with so-and-so or invested in such-and-such, and then there will be maybe four or five more comme…
Oh I love these comment threads! I like to add another reply saying something like “oh my goodness, I used Elizabeth Ferguson for my investing too!! She went to my college, so I thought I could trust her. But then I found out she was cheating on me with my wife! We got a divorce and i lost half my assets in the separation. Elizabeth Ferguson probably is enjoying them now :(. Just one experience, but buyer beware!”
I'd be careful with that. Sounds like you could be mistaken for a bot that is part of the scheme and get your Google account banned.
Then again, you should live under the assumption that your Google account could be banned at any time with no recourse. You do have local backups of all your Google account data and don't need your Gmail account to access anything important, right?
Re: Sneaky spam in conversational replies to blog posts
#14This also is absolutely rampant on reddit in the past months.
I’m not a heavy Reddit user but I’ve noticed a sharp increase in comment spam disguised as real discussion. I think the turning point was when they allowed accounts to hide their comment history. Before, when you could click on an account and read all of their other comments it was easy to tell when an account only existed for fake conversations about a product they were spamming. Now the spam accounts hide their com…
Just a thought, but I wonder if Reddit are hiding this information deliberately to prevent anyone from publishing a study estimating what percentage of their traffic is driven by bots (anecdotally, it's a lot - and they used to be mostly organic even half a decade ago).
Re: Sneaky spam in conversational replies to blog posts
#15I subscribe to handful of investment-related YouTube channels. This pattern has been common for years. A bot will reply with a comment loosely related to the video and about how something worked for them. Another bot will reply asking how they did that. Another bot (not the original commenter) will reply that they worked with so-and-so or invested in such-and-such, and then there will be maybe four or five more comme…
It's been well know to happen on reddit too for many years. Whole posts and comment threads copied verbatim with new accounts. Nowadays with AI you can make it way more dynamic.
Re: Sneaky spam in conversational replies to blog posts
#16I also see a ton of this here on HN as the political topics have ramped up.
Not enough people are flagging those when it aligns with their bias. It's even less likely to get flagged when it's a double whammy of politics and AI. Loosely being about AI should not give it a free pass.
Re: Sneaky spam in conversational replies to blog posts
#17This also is absolutely rampant on reddit in the past months.
I’m not a heavy Reddit user but I’ve noticed a sharp increase in comment spam disguised as real discussion. I think the turning point was when they allowed accounts to hide their comment history. Before, when you could click on an account and read all of their other comments it was easy to tell when an account only existed for fake conversations about a product they were spamming. Now the spam accounts hide their com…
I agree, anecdotally I noticed a big uptick coincident with the comment hiding feature and with the Q4 2025 leap forward in LLM quality.
Re: Sneaky spam in conversational replies to blog posts
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh I love these comment threads! I like to add another reply saying something like “oh my goodness, I used Elizabeth Ferguson for my investing too!! She went to my college, so I thought I could trust her. But then I found out she was cheating on me with my wife! We got a divorce and i lost half my assets in the separation. Elizabeth Ferguson probably is enjoying them now :(. Just one experience, but buyer beware!”
I'd be careful with that. Sounds like you could be mistaken for a bot that is part of the scheme and get your Google account banned. Then again, you should live under the assumption that your Google account could be banned at any time with no recourse. You do have local backups of all your Google account data and don't need your Gmail account to access anything important, right?
That makes me realize that banning is a punishment only usable on people who care about their account. Scammers don’t, a new bot account is a click away. But basilikum would be sad to lose his account.
Re: Sneaky spam in conversational replies to blog posts
#19I subscribe to handful of investment-related YouTube channels. This pattern has been common for years. A bot will reply with a comment loosely related to the video and about how something worked for them. Another bot will reply asking how they did that. Another bot (not the original commenter) will reply that they worked with so-and-so or invested in such-and-such, and then there will be maybe four or five more comme…
I’ve been seeing this kind of spam on forums all the way back in 2004. I wonder if it was a feature in Xrumer or whatever they used to post spam back then.
If you have a forum and haven’t found a thread that is just one guy arguing with himself on twelve sock accounts; well then you haven’t been looking or only have one user.
Re: Sneaky spam in conversational replies to blog posts
#20I also see a ton of this here on HN as the political topics have ramped up. Not enough people are flagging those when it aligns with their bias. It's even less likely to get flagged when it's a double whammy of politics and AI. Loosely being about AI should not give it a free pass.
I haven't seen this. Can you give some examples?