You spent hours upon hours conceptualizing about a post, actually writing it and making sure people will be interested. Once it was published, you promote it on your social accounts and patiently waited for the traffic to kick in, along with insightful comments you were expecting to get from readers. When you checked your email, you got a notification that someone already posted a comment on your blog. You hurriedly check and you see a comment awaiting your approval that looks something like this:

It may look like one innocent comment to you. The comment poster diligently made sure his / her comment was related to your post. It has a link to some site that’s also related to the topic of your post. You check it and it seemed decent. Is this a spam comment? And should you approve it or not?

To answer the first question, YES, that’s a spam comment. But, don’t get me wrong. Not all comments with links should be considered spam. There are legit ones left by people who just want to share more information about the topic of your post. So how can you tell it’s a spam comment? What other comments are considered spam and what should you do about them? Read on.

Annoying Comments

I remember receiving a comment on my blog post about our pet dog who passed away. I thought it was an innocent comment, ’til I checked the website the name of the poster was leading to – it was about funeral arrangements. I also remember thinking to myself if I should let it publish since the poster seemed to have read my post. Whoever left that comment deserves an Oscar, seriously. Besides, that blog of mine isn’t giving out do-follow links to comment posters.

What did I end up doing to that comment? I kept it and eventually approved it for posting. Now, before I go on explaining why, let me break down a few things that I’ve learned while reading about SEO:

• The more active your blog is, the more successful it’ll be, most especially with search engines.
• One way to keep your blog active is constantly publishing updates, at least twice to three times a week.
• Another way to keep your blog active is having or maintaining an active exchange or interaction with readers. That is through comments.

I know this may be considered a sin for most bloggers to allow spam comments to be published on your blog, but hear me out. I do not approve all spam comments. I usually delete those that fall under the following categories:

• Annoying comment #1: Comments that say “Thank you for this great article.”, “This article is very informative”, “I’ll bookmark this post for future reference”, “Good job with this article”, and others like it are SPAM. I know, some people think it’s legit and actually accept it and even respond to them (after patting their backs probably… just kidding! ). From what I know, these are actually left by spam bots to multiple blogs or sites so I immediately delete them, no matter how flattering their message could be.

• Annoying comment #2: Comments that are completely unrelated to what my blog post is about. I used to get a ton of comments like this one, but lately, it seems like more human spammers are doing the spamming.

• Annoying comment #3: Those who leave one-liner comments and then drop links to websites like I’m stupid enough to let that in. I mean, c’mon. If you’re going to spam, exert some effort.
• Annoying comment #4: Comments that are well-written, but with links to a website smartly inserted into the text through HTML code OR left as a link to their names. Why are they annoying? Because you’re torn between keeping them and deleting.

If you have any other annoying comment ideas, share them at the comments section.

How to Deal with Spam Comments

I am using Disqus commenting system on almost al of my blogs (except this one). It uses Akismet to prevent spam so filtering is most effective.

For comments that fall under annoying comment #1, 2 and 3, I delete them right away. For comment #4, I actually keep them for future use.  Since I’m using Disqus as my commenting system on most of my blogs (except this one), I’m able to delete links they post within the comment. But, those links on their names, I can’t change. I hope there’ll be a way for me to change this too on Disqus ’cause using WordPress comments, you can edit everything.

Why do I keep some of the well-written comments in the spam folder? When there isn’t much activity in my blog, I approve one of those spam comments just to keep my blog active. Again, this should be done sparingly as it can affect your ranking in the long run. I only do this on my personal blog and my other low-traffic blogs.

Why You Should Delete Spam Comments?

There are many reasons to delete spam comments. Here are a few of them:

• When you approve spam comments, you’re only letting them know you’re welcoming spam on your blog and they’ll do this again and again. This might sound like traffic to you, but letting them spam your blog, especially when the sites they link to have a bad rating from Google, it’ll hurt you more than you think.
• Those spammers who take the time to read and write insightful comments on your blog are getting paid for posting spam. If you approve their spam comments, it’s like handing them their check yourself. I always think about this when I do consider keeping a certain spam comment. Stop these spammers from receiving benefits from their spam comments you allowed.
• Allowing spam comments may give your actual and genuine readers and followers an impression that you don’t care about the quality of interaction or comments you get. If you’re maintaining a blog that’s receiving a lot of traffic and with a wide readership, you should delete spam comments right away.
• It may be a great deal of work to monitor spam on your blog, but it’s something you should be doing to prevent these spammers from benefiting from your traffic and search engine ranking that you worked hard for.

In the end, we must all be responsible in keeping spam off our blogs or websites. Though we can’t stop spam no matter what we do, we shouldn’t let them win and reap benefits from the traffic and rankings we worked hard for.

Tell me, how do you deal with spam comments? Share your experiences below.

The title may sound harsh, but the truth is, just like in real life, there are times we no longer want to follow a certain Facebook page’s updates. Some of the reasons may be any of the following:

• The page no longer provides you information that you need or you were hoping to get updated about. This reason may apply for those pages that are no longer updated or were abandoned by their owners for some reason.
• The Facebook page posts topics or messages that you don’t agree with. I’ve had this happen to me a couple of times. That’s why, if you have a Facebook page that’s not political or religious in nature, if you want people to continue following your updates, as much as possible, avoid sharing your thoughts that may upset them or make them want to leave your page.
• The Facebook page has been spamming your feeds with promotions, ads, etc. Well, if the blog, website or the page is related to business, promos or marketing, I would understand. Otherwise, you don’t want to continue receiving spammy feeds on your wall, right? So, you’d want to "unlike" the page as well.

Those are my top 3 reasons for unliking a Facebook page. If you joined a giveaway and one of the requirements is to like a page, unliking it after it’s over is unfair. I suggest you create another account for your contest participations. Some giveaway hosts have started being strict about this, even to a point of disqualifying those who unlike their page or unfollowing them on Twitter when they join next time.

Anyway, this post is about how to unlike Facebook pages. It’s a pretty easy step, really. Here’s how:

Make sure you’re logged into your Facebook account and…

CLICK HERE

I know, you can actually see the pages you liked through your info page. But, through the link above, you’d get a more organized way to check the Facebook pages you’ve liked. They’re arranged in alphabetical order so it’s easier to go through all of them.

You’d be directed to a page similar to the one pictured below. Just click on the "unlike" button on the right and that’s it.

Don’t laugh at one of the Facebook pages I’m following. I’ve got tons of them – from TV shows I love, celebrities I admire, movies I’ve seen multiple times, blogs I follow, brands I believe in, artists (from painters, graphics designers, digital designers), online stores (cosmetics, some that offer services like photo booths, floral arrangement, etc) and some that I followed because they post things that make me laugh. I think I need to clean it up a bit when I have more time.

While you’re at it, I hope you’d want to like my blogs’ Facebook pages:

• The Geek Side of blankPixels
• Certified Foodies
• Pinay Reviewer
• Just Another Pixel
• Pinay Online Money Maker
• Internet Cafe Blog

You might have noticed a couple of days ago that this blog, and my other WordPress blogs, was down. First time, when you visit the blog, you’d probably seen the "Account is suspended" error. Second was a database error and then the last, before everything went back up, was an internal server error.

If you don’t know this yet, my WordPress blogs are hosted in a server owned by a very generous and kind person. He is hosting other bloggers’ sites on this server, including his very own blogs as well. Though I can manage fixing errors or problems myself, he’s been very helpful whenever I have questions or concerns. The thing is, though I have my own cPanel access, there are issues I can’t resolve on my own because it’s all in his control. And I can’t thank him enough for his patience.

Before I found out there were problems on our server, I was actually busy writing a blog post on our food blog about this brand that carries one of the high quality foam mattress I’ve ever used. I was all up into writing it that I didn’t even check our blog first, which is usually a daily habit of mine. I only found out the sites were down when one of my giveaway participants posted on my Facebook page for Pinay Reviewer telling me the blog is giving her the "Account is suspended" error.

Anyway, what this post is about is my thoughts about moving to a server of my own. The only reason behind this is I feel a li’l shy about asking my generous host for help whenever there’s an issue. He’s very nice and I know he’s more than willing to help, but he’s uber busy as well.

The only thing that’s holding me back now is the convenience and, of course, I don’t pay for hosting. I know a ton of people will say go for free hosting. The server’s been reliable and I never had any issue actually. Like maybe once a year or once every 6 months, which is almost perfection.

What do you think? Should I make the move or what?

No, you’re not lost. You are still in my geek blog. And part of my geekiness is my obsession towards these drama series on TV.

Late last year, I decided to stop watching TV series like CSI (all shows – Las Vegas, Miami and New York), House, The Mentalist, NCIS (including their LA series) and Criminal Minds. Even when I now end up watching some lame shows because of this, I decided to put an end to my addiction to these police procedural and medical dramas. I still watch Grey’s Anatomy and Private Practice though because they bear more stories than the first ones I mentioned in this paragraph.

I actually got hooked on watching these series because of the seemingly perfect technology they have in finding out the truth about the different cases they handle. All those high-tech equipment (including laboratory furnaces), all the tech  / geek mumbo-jumbo ideas their resident nerds say or come up with, and the immaculate wit of the lead investigators quite enveloped me into spending hours watching these shows.

Most of the things they showcase in these shows may be true, I know. I’ve had firsthand experiences of some incredibly ridiculous things that most people I encounter consider shocking to actually happen to someone they know, let alone me. I don’t know if that’s a good thing, but I hope you get my drift.

I decided to stop because of the recurring pattern or plots. To better explain this, check out this image.

Oh, that image is from 9gag, one of my favorite meme and humor site.

So yeah, it got to a point that I no longer find Dr. House’s humor appealing anymore. I guess it’s been too repetitive. Same with the other crime TV series.

Right now, I’m watching talent search shows like American Idol, The Voice (which I love, love, love!), comedy series like How I Met Your Mother and Modern Family, plus action / suspense series like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead.

How about you? What TV series have you stopped watching and any new ones you could suggest?

You might say I’m watching too much Grey’s Anatomy or Private Practice lately, but I am so amazed by the advancement of technology in the world of health care. Now, we get better or more accurate diagnosis of our illnesses or whatever is wrong with our body. And in more ways than one, technology has played a big role in saving lives.

Take for instance robot-assisted surgeries. Now, anyone with the money or a high-end medical insurance can undergo very complicated surgeries that need utmost accuracy and precision. Though the whole procedure still needs a surgeon’s supervision, there have been a lot of unassisted robotic surgery already that have been truly successful. AMAZING, right?

My dad recently underwent lasik eye surgery and the doctor said it was a robotic laser surgery. I was a bit nervous at first. I mean, it’s the eye so it’s still pretty serious. But, he was released the same day and his eyesight improved a milion times after a week. This made me decide to go through the same surgery soon. I’ve got too high eye grade already.

When it comes to diagnosis, now, we don’t have to wait for months before we get results of any medical tests. Even X-ray results are released a few minutes after you went through the machine.

Last time we were at Metropolitan Memorial Clinic (MMC) in Manila, my nanay and I went through an ekg test, 2D echo and a treadmill stress test. I know, it’s not the most advanced technologies, but it feels great to know that I can get proper diagnosis of any heart issues through these machines. These technological advances have made me very thankful because we are given better chances of improving our health quickly. Now, it’s all up to us if we’re going to take the necessary lifestyle changes to be healthy ( I’m guilty ).