Why can't I post a comment on your website?

In this excerpt from
Answercast #87, I look at the ways that the comment form on Ask Leo! is
programmed to reduce the amount of spam that gets posted to the site.

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Post comments on a website

Well, to be clear, the site, the actual website “ask-leo.com” doesn’t have any registration. You’re not registered with the site no matter how many email addresses you have or how many different email addresses you might leave in a comment.

The site just doesn’t keep track of any that kind of stuff. It’s a free site; anybody can access it so there’s no need for registration.

If you’re thinking of the newsletter subscription, that’s completely separate from the website. There’s actually no relationship to it and there’s nothing about your newsletter subscription or your newsletter subscription’s email address that is actually technically connected to the site in any way so don’t let that confuse you.

The email addresses simply aren’t an issue.

JavaScript to filter spam

So there are two things that come to mind. The JavaScript issue is the technique that I use to prevent spammers from spamming.

What the site does is that when you click on Submit comment, it is actually replaced on the fly by JavaScript with the right thing; the actual post of comment code.

If the JavaScript doesn’t run, then the site is unable to process a comment and you get the error message that says, “Hey, I can’t take your comment because it looks like JavaScript’s not enabled.”

So if JavaScript couldn’t run when you loaded the page and viewed the page, then it couldn’t set up the technique that’s used to actually post a comment.

Website spam

That actually removes a tremendous amount of spam from the website. Website spam is bad enough… but this simple technique actually thwarts a tremendous amount of what we refer to as automated comment spam. Basically, bots that go out to different websites and post comments.

So, it’s still fundamentally about JavaScript in that case.

Now you may have JavaScript enabled – but if something is preventing it from running (and that could be your anti-malware software; it could be anything) then whatever is preventing that JavaScript from running somehow – anyhow – will prevent you from being able to post a comment on my site.

I apologize, but it’s a technique that I have to use simply because of the overwhelming amount of comment spam that would come in otherwise.

Posting numerous links

The other thing that comes to mind is if you’re actually able to post a comment, but you then get a message that it’s being “held for moderation.”

One of us, (myself or one of my assistants) will in fact get around to looking at that comment, and if it’s valid will go ahead and approve it – and it will get posted on the site.

The trigger there is the number of URLs. Again, because of spammers, we have to be careful. Spammers like to throw in lots of URLs into their comments.

Even with human spammers (where they pay low paid workers in foreign countries to run around and post spam on all of these sites), one of the things they do is they post spam that has lots of URLs.

Many websites will in fact hold for moderation any comment that includes more than three URLs. If your comment is being held for moderation, if that’s what you’re seeing, that’s all it is and your comment will eventually get through.

(Transcript lightly edited for readability.)