Comment spam? Take out the trash

Comments are great. Comment spam is toxic.

photo: donald giannatti

Comment spam harms your blog.

Here's how to wrangle the garbage, step by step.

Comment spam on Blogger:Keep it clean

photo: andrej lišakov

Comment spam hurts your blog.

Block and manage it by

• moderating comments, or requiring commenters to solve a captcha (no need to do both)
• marking spam, which trains Blogger's spam filter.

NOT feeds: exclude

In brief

• Use the NOT operator - (minus sign) in the feed url to exclude a search term.
• For multiple search terms, use AND NOT (+-).
• Follow the feed in a reader or use it to create a dynamic list in your blog.

Image: Kismalac (public domain)

B excluding A

A feed that combines two things

In brief

• Use the OR operator | (or "%7C") in the feed url to filter the union of two search terms.
• Follow the feed in a reader or use it to create a dynamic list.

image: openclipart-vectors

A feed of overlaps

In brief

• Use the AND operator + in the feed url to filter the intersection of two search terms.
• Follow the feed in a reader or use it to create a dynamic list.

Image: Kismalac (public domain)

A AND B

Tailored blog feeds

photo: pexels

The insight that your blog is a database unlocks special blog pages tailored to combine subtopics.

Not just a page showing all the posts you've labeled "bread" (an old trick, and a handy one), but a page combining posts with two labels ("bread" plus "cheese").

Or, a page restricted to posts bearing both labels ("bread" and "cheese"). Or one that excludes (all "bread," except if also "cheese").

Well, you can do the same things with your blog feed.

Make your blog better

image: geralt

Step back and ask yourself, “How can I give my users what they want while getting what I want?”

I found this excellent advice in an unlikely place.