Blog Spam Revenge

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CHR

CHR

Design matters
Nov 28, 2002
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I posted this on my blog but thought FCer's might get a kick out of it.

UK Florist Spams the Wrong Blog

Here's a lesson on how to exact wickedly funny revenge on blog comment spam.

Seems author Peter McNaked of Naked Blog got fed up with deleting off-topic comment spam placed by a UK flower delivery company. After both emailing and calling the florist to request they stop the spamming, on November 24 Peter decided to fight back.

He placed a brief 'review' of Serenata Flowers on his blog and requested his fellow bloggers link into the post. Since Peter is widely read in the UK, the post has quickly risen in search engine results and is now #3 when surfers query Google for the florist's name. The Google snippet reads "Rubbish florist. Serenata Flowers. Don't go there. Their flowers are late, ridiculously overpriced and completely wilted - so said my good friend Kirsty in ..."

Follow-up posts cleverly talk about the horror of spotting Serenata's ads in his AdSense display. "You could have knocked me down with a bridal bouquet when who should I see advertising at the top of my page on Sunday but Sere*nata Flowers." Peter banned their ad.

Serenata Flowers has hit my blog with their comment spam, too. They've also 'contributed' useless comments to the wonderful flower blog of Julie Ardery, Human Flower Project. The sole purpose of "Hello Julie! Follow my URL and you will find many pictures with flowers and bouquets for all occasions" being to create an inbound link from a respected site. Pure promotion and zero substance.

From what I've seen of Serenata's site, they offer beautiful products in a very user-friendly presentation. The floral designs are original and not the same old Interflora, Teleflorist or FlowerGram fare seen on most UK florist sites. Too bad they have to resort to spam to try to sell them.

According to e-consultancy.com, Serenata is owned by former Goldman Sachs trader and hedge fund manager Peter Ahl. His SEO team obviously knows the value of inbound links but maybe this lesson from Naked Blog will be enough for him to call off the comment spam team and put them to work actually selling flowers.

Looks like Serenata owes Naked Blog a sincere apology and a gorgeous arrangement... just for starters.
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Now this is delicious revenge on a spammer. :fdevil:

If you have a blog, be sure to check it for comment spam, too. The FloristBlogs software catches 99% of the junk thrown our way but I had to hand delete the Serenata spam. It was just a 'me too' post to get an inbound link. Had they made half an effort and contributed to the topic, I probably would have left it.
 
Ummmmm........yes. :confused:

According to the most recent post, the UK's Media Guardian :ukflag: is doing an interview with the blogger tomorrow. He linked into my post today.

Really - commercial sites should stop :spam: -ming comment boxes and leave the blog sphere alone unless they really have something to say. This angry blogger both called and wrote to Serenata to request they stop.

According to Rich Dudley, the comment spam he's seen from Serenata originated in Romania so apparently the company outsources its SEO. But that's no excuse, is it?

It's spammers that really wreck some of the cool opportunities to communicate on the web.

Comment spam here at FC got so bad we had to stop allowing public reviews and ratings in the gallery. They destroyed what would have been a wonderful way for us to interface with the public about floral design.

In the end, I hope all parties kiss and make up. Serenata will probably get lots of inbound links as buzz about them makes the rounds. In the wild, wacky web world, they could well end up ahead. :hammer:
 
Yup same one ... still, it's a great site.

Live customer service helped me out with some questions and such, at 10pm UK time.

Just cuz a florist did some bonehead marketing, doesn't mean they aren't a good florist :)

Ryan
 
Well, Serenata's CEO Peter Ahl apologized for all the comment spamming in an article from the Guardian Unlimited. Now he gets a free link from a very popular UK site as being part of the story. ;)

I posted about it. Ryan was right. It was a boneheaded marketer doing the spam - but Ahl still took responsibility. Great mea culpa, btw.
 
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