Many of you know that Blogger has taken to randomly depositing perfectly good comments into the spam folder, but it's hidden somewhat so it isn't easy to keep an eye on.
If haven't found it yet and are wondering why people aren't commenting . . .
- From your dashboard hit "comments" on the left sidebar
- If you don't see the left-hand menu (they seem to love to hide things), hit the hamburger menu symbol (the three parallel horizontal lines at the top left)
- Find the teeny gray arrow to the right of your blog title. Clicking that will give you a dropdown menu from which you can access all of your comment folders
- Each folder tells you how many comments are in it. If you have some in spam or moderation, you'll likely find your missing comments there.
It's gotten so bad, that I find my own comments to my own blog in the spam folder! Also lots of comments from well known blog visitors who have previously been marked "not spam."
Actually, the spam button doesn't seem to do anything either, because the same true spammers keep coming back.
Not sure how the biggest, most innovative tech company on the internet could have such a dumb AI spam detector, but they do.
Bloggers, Check Your Spam Folders! © Oct 2024
27 comments:
Thank you for the heads up on this. I could not believe how many were in my spam folder that were good comments, along with my own comments. Good grief.
Kristina, you're welcome. AI run amok?
I am shocked! You are right, and I had my own comments in my spam folder!
I know! Just be sure to keep an eye on it. Marking something as "not spam" doesn't keep it from happening again.
I check for spam daily and find my own comments in there sometimes. I'm surprised at the number of bloggers who don't know there's a spam file and how to find it! I've explained this to several people who've been amazed to find dozens of good comments in there.
Hi Leigh - good information, and I think it's just a little different for Bloggers who aren't using preapprove-before-posting; on my blog, I don't think there is a Spam Folder (I did just look where you described) but some comments will simply not post. I discovered this when a commenter emailed me with some information she had already put in a comment days before but which had never shown up on the blog. First I knew that this was even a thing, and kind of embarrassing, because I really value my commenters! Anyway, I went to the dashboard and found the missing comment - and a few others. Even if they don't post, they show up in the Comments list. Now I just check my blog every day or two via the dashboard so I can click the lost comments as okay to post - I guess it's post-approval posting? And by the way, ALL my own responses to comments show up in my email spamfolder! Bizarre.
What?!!! I had no flippin’ clue! Took care of it thanks to your precise instructions. May your week be SPAMless!
Quinn, interesting. I don't use pre-approve for posts under 5 days old, but I do have a spam folder. (Dashboard > comments > spam). I'm curious as to where you are finding your unpublished comments. Dashboard and then ???
I have noticed that another way to tell is to go to comments and hover over the time frame. That shows which buttons are available and whether the comment has been published. Most of what blogger thinks is spam, though, is put in the spam folder.
Really glad you figured it out. Your comment will likely help someone else. And good point about checking every day or two.
Daisy, isn't spamless a state of nirvana? lol. So glad my post helped!
I check my spam folder daily. Over the years, I've noticed that often my own comments that get put there are a month or two old by the time they go there which makes it even more odd. Also, some people are more likely to end there than others and from what I can discern, Blogger tends to think those who leave short comments are more likely spam than those whom might leave a longer comment of a sentence or two. So if you are concerned about ending up in the spam folder of a blog, try writing a couple sentences in your comment.
I do approve all my comments and also have a spam folder.
Ed, I've observed the same thing, which seems a pretty amateurish definition of spam. No rhyme or reason, so I agree with your advice to check the spam folder daily.
I commented! It would be ironic if my remarks about spam are in spam!!
Liz, it's amazing that they've hidden it so well and keep it a secret! I have similar problems with gmail, although not quite as bad.
Liz, HA! Your first comment did end up in spam! And it was such a nice long comment too. I would have found it eventually, but I'm glad you said something here. Odd that of your two comments the first would end up in spam and the second published.
Thank you so much for this public service message. I did recently get feedback from one of my readers that said some of her comments were missing. I will definitely check this out.
Wow! I am glad I read your blog today, I "assist in administrating two of my friends blog, Bustednuckles on Wordpress and a older blog we had called Vulgar Curmudgeon on Blogger and I followed your instructions and there was old comments all the way back to April 2013, 598 spammed comments up to just recently, I spent about an hour approving them to clear out the spam folder. It did wonders for our stats but sadly there were comments form old bloggers that are no longer with us and it was a melancholy chore reading basically something from the grave. I checked and the tutorial that Blogger has doesn't mention it at all. I say we all go on strike to force Blogger to get their act together!
RT, I hope this does the trick! At least she was keeping track. I usually forget to go back and check on the comments Ileave.
Kevin, that's a lot of comments! Sounds like it was a rather nostalgic chore, to go through them all.
I rather doubt blogger cares about our complaints. If they cared, they wouldn't hide stuff in the first place. Probably the best thing to do is to hit the feedback button to point out this is a serious problem. Well, serious to us, anyway.
Leigh, it has happened to me as well more than once - and yes, Blogger happily dumps my own comments in there as well.
I need to look this up.My blog doesn't have heavy traffic but then I still haven't gotten into posting often. I don't think any of my comments have disappeared. Since my mind sees the world in a different way is the sample in your blog ?
Checking the spam folder seems to have become another chore for bloggers. Can't say the whole thing has boosted my confidence in AI.
Goatldi, yes, do look. And check routinely. Blogger has an odd way of suddenly "cleaning up" years old blog post comments for you.
Leigh, it's the Comments page in my dashboard. When I click that little arrow in your photograph, I do not get the drop-down list you show. The only reason I can think of is that I don't use the Moderation feature for my comments.
Quinn, someone emailed me with the same problem. I suggested your idea and am waiting to hear back if it's the same for her.
Question, do you have a "mark as spam" button when you mouse hover over the time stamp of each comment on your comment page?
One experiment might be to enable comment moderation to see if it changes the menus. (It can always be changed back).
Yes, the hover over the timestamp gives me the option to Remove content of this comment, Mark comment as spam, or Delete comment. When actual Spam appears (on dashboard or blog) that's where I delete it. Just to clarify, though - I'm fine with the way the system has been working since I started checking my comments from the dashboard instead of on the blog itself. I even notice comments that have been added to older posts, which I might not be notified of by email - that email notification on my blog and on other blogs always seems random to me!
Quinn, thank you for taking time to explain. I'm a little curious if marking a comment as spam might create a spam folder for you, but then you have to take another step to delete it. Then too, the blogger bot would have a folder to transfer comments to. So maybe you're better off without it! The main thing is that you're satisfied with your routine.
Their email notification is quirky too. Several times I tried to use a non-google email address for it, but when I did that, google marked the email as spam and dumped it into the gmail spam folder. No amount of checking "not spam" changed that! That was beyond annoying, so I finally turned email notification off. Like you, I've worked out a comment checking routine that works for me.
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