It’s been too long since the first post of the “I Tell It Like It Is” Series, which sure got some people fired up. If you’re not sure what’s going on, read that post along with this - basically I’m talking about bloggers who don’t know what they’re talking about.

And tonight we’re looking at the blogger I have dubbed “the viagra blogger” due to this post about the previously named pill.

Here’s what he says:

People often tend to feel ashamed talking about sex, but there is no need to be. Especially if you have an ED, Erectile Dysfunction. Erectile Dysfunction is a condition where the person is unable to develop or maintain a hard erection.

Yeah right! ED is like a web host with 0% uptime. And no one will stand for that. Be ashamed, be very ashamed!

I mean, your most important body part won’t function properly. What could be worse?

But if it happened to me, the first thing I’d do is move to one of the 100 best places for a woman over 35 to find a man.

If they’re over 35 and haven’t found anyone, chances are they have some problems that even Viagra can’t take care of. If so, they might be willing to settle for me. The granny pictured above totally wants me though, so there might be a cat fight.

And if there was, I would blog about it. Something like “ITILII #3: Sexy Older Women Mud Wrestling.” That would bring in the traffic.

Oh yeah… that reminds me, we were supposed to be talking about blogging from the beginning. Here we go…

Top bloggers. They make lots of money by telling others how much money they make. And we take it all in.

And that will continue for a while. This dude has 7 reasons why they will fall from the throne, but none of them are worth thinking about. “It’s time consuming” for example. Top bloggers are barely writing the posts anymore. They just collect the ReviewMe checks and let others guest post. Or they write super fast ramblings with horrible grammar, which can’t take all that long.

Also, “people are smarter.” Um… last time I checked, the “gurus” are still scamming newbies. And as long as newbies are still looking for the get-rich-quick solutions to make money at home in their pajamas, all authority figures will be reaping the rewards.

Just one more and I’m done… “readership is falling.” Not long ago Shoemoney and John Chow had an RSS subscriber count contest, and both blogs really increased their numbers. I might be wrong, but I don’t think a huge increase in readership counts as “readership is falling.”

I could go on, but I think you get the point…

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Just after writing all about how to deal with splogs, I found a new plugin that will let you add stuff to your feed.

This is great for dealing with splogs, because it’s much easier and faster than manually adding a note at the end of each post. Plus, it only shows up in your feed, so regular site readers aren’t inconvenienced.

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I’m a little late to the BuyBlogComments debate, but there’s no way I could resist chiming in on such a topic…

If you haven’t heard, BuyBlogComments is a new service letting you pay people to go comment on blogs and leave your URL, supposedly increasing your SERPs. They claim it’s not spam, even though it sounds quite a bit like spam.

Blog comments help your site rank better in the SERPs. We hired a few people who go through a list of blogs in a database we set up and pick out blogs that are in your niche. They then read through blog posts and leave a comment that has to do with the blog post they read, that way it won’t get deleted. Your backlink will then be on a targeted blog, giving you more weight in the search engines.

OK, so we all know what good comments are and how to spot comment spam, and we have a good idea of what this service does. Or do we? Until we actually see case studies, we’ll never know if their comments are any good.

And that’s a big deal considering the price. It costs $20 to get 100 comments. If you are a high roller and order 1000 comments, you’ll pay $199. Yep, you save an entire $1 by buying in bulk!

While we might not like the service, being the savvy bloggers we are, we know what linkbait is - I’ll be the first to admit that this service is working as a nice piece of linkbait for this Jon Waraas character!

I don’t really need to go into the debate of whether or not this is a good idea, because Darren at ProBlogger.net already gave a good opinion on it. He has a good debate going there, so check it out.

But what I will go into is what can happen if this service doesn’t fulfill its promise 100%…

And I’ll do it by telling you a little story about what happened today…

Around noon, I noticed a weird comment that slipped past Akismet. It was a well-written comment, but it was about golf, and I don’t write about golf on here. So that gave it away that this was a spammer…

Hello Everyone,

I am a golfer myself and I like to play whenever I get a chance.
A short while ago, a very good friend of mine told me about a great golfing equipment and accessories website that has discounted prices on all their products, same day shipping in most cases and there is no state sales tax, they are paying that.
So if any golfer here is ready to save some money on quality products at highly discounted prices, you might want to check out their site at; http://hoffmangolf.com

(Click here to see the screenshot.)

This idiot pissed me off enough to go to the site, ready to complain. But when I clicked his link, that URL redirected me to GolfOutletsUSA.com, a real golf store. I was a bit puzzled… then I saw a link to their affiliate program!

I think we have an unscrupulous affiliate here that is partaking in blatant blog comment spam, trying to get traffic through his link to the golf store, so he can earn a commission. I doubt the merchant approves of this tactic. (I’ll be contacting them just to check, though.)

Now how does this relate to BuyBlogComments?

Well, let’s just consider that the commentators working for BuyBlogComments are human. And humans make mistakes sometimes.

If one of those commentators leaves a lame comment, or leaves the wrong comment by accident, your site could be in trouble!

Think about it - bloggers are going to be extra vigilant about their comments now because of this service, and if they think you are spamming them, they might just let everyone else on the internet know about it. It could be considered as publicity, but it could result in people hating you…

Your choice

[This post originally appeared at InternetMarketingSucks.com]

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For anyone new to Wordpress that isn’t using the Akismet plugin, I have some advice for you: Start using it!

When I first started with Wordpress, I didn’t know what Akismet was. I only knew that you needed an API key, and since I didn’t have one, I just ignored it. Boy was that a bad decision.

I heard about the wonders of Akismet when I was searching for ways to stop all this blog comment spam, so I bit the bullet and started using it. It was extremely easy to get started, and your blog probably has Akismet bundled with it to begin with.

First, get an API key. To do that, just head on over to www.wordpress.com and sign-up for an account. If you only want the API key, you can choose “just a username, please.” Then they will email you your account information, including the API key. (The key is near the bottom of the email.)

Then just go to the “Plugins” tab in your blog and activate Akismet. Enter your API key where necessary.

Like magic, your comment spam will disappear!

Well, it won’t really disappear, but Akismet will hide it so you never have to deal with it. It will save lots of time and will save you from the let down when you get excited about comments which just turn out to be spam

Since 95% of all blog comments are spam, I recommend installing Akismet right now!

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