No, this post is not related to the recently released SEO Super Comments plugin.
But next time you want to let through that comment on the edge of profanity, you better rethink it.
I just had an unusual experience with a very popular fashion site. The site is huge and receives tens of thousands visitors every day and a big portion of the traffic comes from Google Images search.
Google Images search has an option to set a SafeSearch filter to prevent adult pictures on appearing on search results. It is a very useful option and a very smart move from Google. But have you ever wondered how does Google discern if the image is decent enough to show? They certainly don't scan the images (yet).
As it turns out they are doing it just by analyzing the content on the site which is about the only logical way (you could analyze the incoming links as well).
So as it happens, a younger visitor of this fashion site left a comment on a particular image he didn't like very much and the comment included some profanities. This comment somehow passed the automatic spam filter and the moderator wasn't around to spot it (even if they were it was in a middle of a flame discussion). And since the site uses Recent comments widget suddenly, this comment appeared site wide, across the site's whole index.
Next thing that happened is that entire site is out of Google Images default search. It was not banned or something, it is still there if you turn the SafeSearch filter off. And this sudden drop of traffic was very difficult to diagnose as you can imagine as having SafeSearch to blame for drop in traffic is still pretty new.
Now the offending comment is deleted and I am waiting to see if the site will reappear back automatically.
But this spawns an interesting question - leaving comments that are funny but perhaps walk on the edge of profanity could be a legal tactic to destroy competitor sites (btw SafeSearch also works for normal search if it is set to strict which some people choose to do). I'd be wary.
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Posted in: SEO
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3 Comments
As Rarst wrote the problem is actually in the plugin recent commments. You can still use this plugin to link to your comments, but do not publish them all over your site.
Good post which should make everyone think twice before approving a comment.
I agree, everyone learns on their mistakes but the effect of this one comment was what amazed me initially.
My take is actual issue here are recent comments in sidebar. They exploded single poor quality comment into site-wide problem.
From programming perspective every single bit that comes from possibly non-safe source is heavily scrubbed and sanitized in WordPress. Neglecting to do same outside of what is possible with code can easily be recipe for such disaster.
Was it possible to predict this chain of events? Unlikely.
But it was possible to evaluate usage of recent comments widget site-wide, where there is no foolproof moderation in place.