Editting Spam comments, Is there any benefit ,is it Ethical.

Well, alot of the time those spammy comments are also linked to spammy sites. So even if you do edit the spam comment to make it say something else, it would still be linking to their site from yours. At this point I would say, what exactly is the point of spending my time to make their comments look legit only to give them the upper hand and still link to them from my site. On the other hand, if you would remove the link from their spam coment, what would be the point in editing their comment in the first place?

Cathy, it's your site. You're under no obligation to leave their spam intact. Many, if not most of those spam comments, came from people who didn't even visit your site. Their bot did.

I personally don't see any real benefit to modifying spam comments to provide keywords and such, it is usually pretty obvious when a blog owner is doing this. If one were gonna do this, they might just as well create fake comments that promote the product too (not that I think anyone actually has done this.... nor ever created their own reccomendations... nah, wouldn't happen)

If a site has decent SEO to begin with, I wouldn't expect the additional keywords to help all that much.

I look at seeing these spam comments coming in as positive evidence that I'm getting someone's attention. Now the problem is to convert the spammers into customers or newsletter opt-ins...

I've found that just deleting the links and leaving any relevant content in place works, I'll leave their name in place but put [Spam link deleted] or some such where the link was. After a few of these, I find the number of new spam attempts drops off considerably.

I've set my blogs to require approval of the comments. Yes it is a bit more work, but gives me the option to approve or delete as is appropriate. By setting them to approve-only, if you aren't looking at your site every few hours, you don't have to worry someone is gonna slip something nasty in.

Thats a pretty good idea to counter act spammers and spam comments
but
I would just delete those spam comments. I will not encourage spammers to keep spamming peoples blog.

I edited mine, if the spammer is clearly not a spam bot.

To see the difference between real commenters and spambots, you can try gasp (growmap plugin)

You will see 0 spam bot comments.

I have done it on one site as a test.

It was recommended to me recently. The site where I did it does not sell a product, but is now an inactive domain that I am thinking about repurposing.

I changed their comments to reflect the content in the post, and changed the links to a page where I would like to see links pointing.

It is too early for me to comment on the value of the technique.

just change it. Its your blog. Doesnt really matter

The important one to change it the email.

Very good interesting spot - converting spam comments to real ones. Hmmm.... Changing to your own fit would be time consuming as well. Maybe some intelligent bloggers will make an plugin for wp what mixes the sentences with synonyms and prepare it for own predefined projects (keywords, links, randomized names, ....) - so in my opinion it can be very usefull when having an auto method, that only need small edits or just publish it as OK.

The one thing I am taking from this is that many experineced guys are trying it, but have not had time to fully test it and Pauls comments above make me realize that URL's might have some future benefit.

I am glad that no one thinks it is a massive Ethical dilema if done properly.

Cathy

I did it once - someone left me a reasonable comment, but with a horrible spammy link (some kind of viagra type site). So I approved the comment - and answered it - but I deleted their link.


Paul

Just thought I would do one last bump during American hours see if I can see anyone with more definitive results

I have changed some of mine.

Check to make sure that your theme does not show the ip address in your source code. I've have seen a few that do. Those IP's might be considered from a bad neighborhood and could reflect poorly on your site if there are many of them.

I would say that yes, if someone comes along and posts on my webmaster technology website, and links to a mortgage, or refi site, I do not feel a bit of guilt, in fact I have done it before, and believe it or not one time this guy posted another message complaining that I changed his spammy links, it was sort of funny,

But all jokes aside for a second, comments, can be edited and done with as you please, most of the time I just delete them if they do not fit in more so with drug type stuff, but there are a few that I will let in then just delete it right away, (you get a ping back that way) but no lasting association, and there are a few that I let stand, if the link and post fit in, with the website content, I dont mind it, its just those that do stuff like,

( I am verily impressed with the posting upon your website) with a link to a viagra site, that stuff is just trashed, from the get go.

Interesting post,