I Got Spammed!

I’m writing about blog SPAM because I hope my experience can save you time, money and any negative impact to your personal brand.

My blog got SPAMMED in a major way approximately 12,448 pieces of information about cyalis, phentermine, acai berry, supreme headquarters, allis, herbs and many, many other products I’ve never heard of as well as various sexual things one can only find at a low-key Adult Store off of a highway rest stop.

Because these comments somehow got past the SPAM filter in WordPress they are actually located in my Comments section and also got approved as a result of the settings I had chosen on the back end of my blog. Bad move on my part.

I’ve asked around but there doesn’t seem to be a bulk delete option for Approved Comments only for SPAM. The greatest amount of bulk deleting you can do is 20 per page which means I have 619 pages of comments to delete. I’m estimating that would take about 11 hours of computer time.

At this point the only other option is to rebuild the blog from scratch which is also time consuming but will likely take less than 11 hours. I hope.

One major result of this problem is that I’ve stopped blogging because in order to rebuild the site each existing blog post will need to be individually downloaded and reentered on the new site with a backdate – more time consuming work.

How can blog SPAM impact your personal brand?
- Once you start blogging you shouldn’t stop if it’s an effective communications tool. Being consistent in your communications is necessary when building your personal brand.
- If the comments are visible it can attract unwanted attention.
- Since most people who read your blog don’t know you on a personal level they have no idea that comments on your postings that include profanity or information about products you don’t use are SPAM. People may assume some things about you based on the SPAM comments.

To avoid blog SPAM download a plugin called Akismet. A friend and YOUnique newsletter colleague Kristen Jacoway recommended the Akismet plugin after I told her of my dilemma. Ever since adding Akismet to my blog I’ve had no SPAM.

My glass half full interpretation is that every blog site I build will definitely have an Akismet plugin. Live and learn.

Writing vs. Writing

I’m new to the blog world. After several years of writing articles for everything from a college newspaper to The Wall Street Journal, writing speeches for Boston’s current Mayor to United Nations Secretary Generals (Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan), writing press releases and website copy for many, many websites I find writing a blog post intimidating. You’re probably asking yourself, “Why?” The answer, because writing for my blog is much more personal than writing in someone else’s voice or writing a piece of journalistic fodder for the masses. Writing a blog post feels like I am about to walk out on a stage, in front of lots of people who I can’t see. So here it is: the beginning of my blog.

Over the next several months look for posts pertaining to entrepreneurship, strategically growing a business, leadership, personal branding, social media marketing, building websites, networking, juggling work and family, and quick, healthy food recipes among other topics.

Mostly, this blog will be full of nuggets, discoveries, intriguing insights and a holistic approach to life because I firmly believe that you can’t separate your life into two buckets – work and everything else that isn’t work. This blog will combine both buckets because, after all, part of my personal brand is being authentic, sincere and honest. Everybody’s personal brand should reflect who they really are.

Enjoy.