If you own a blog you are probably very familar with users on the Internet trying to add links and spam into your comments field. This can be very frustrating, and can often leave blogs with unrelated content and links if they are not moderated properly.

Google however have recented stated through their Webmaster blog that abusing comment fields in websites by adding un-related comments containing links can actually harm both websites rankings. Webmasters who abuse blogs comments fields with unrelated content will now actually be penalise by Google, great!

This statement from Google will probably start getting Webmasters to look at thie incoming links to see whether they are coming from blogs or other platforms allowing comments. Webmasters should also delete any spammy links they have created on blogs, then make a reconsideration request to Google

Below I have listed some tips for Webmasters to stop spam on your site:

• Use Captcha codes to prevent automated spam
• Disallow posting from anonymous people
• Turn on comment moderation in your blog
• Ensure all links in the comment field have the nofollow attribute, this will stop Google associating this link to your site
• Disallow the ability for users to add hyperlinks in comments
• You could also block comments in the robots.txt file
• You could also block comments with the noindex meta tag

It is important to remember that the best way to increase your sites rankings is by creating unique, relevant and original content. You should also optimise your sites structure, to ensure the correct information is displayed to the user at the right time.