The Proliferation of Parasitic Promotionals

I wonder sometimes about people. Seriously.

In the past month, I have received well over a dozen comments which have absolutely nothing to do with the post to which they are attached. No longer is junk mail relegated to my email in-box... now it is actively pursuing me!

Each contains a link to something entirely unrelated.... links to credit card rate information, appeals directing us to donate your used car to charity (a worthy cause, I'm sure, but just how does this pertain to the contents of my journal?), home improvement...

Each starts with a chatty little bit.. I just ran across your blog and it is great, I enjoyed visiting your blog, Hi there! Tiny icebreakers designed to disarm and put the recipient in a amicable state of mind, develop a positive attitude toward what is to follow: A blatant backlink stuck in the middle of a post and completely foreign to the topic.

I'm all for promotion, self- or otherwise, and I applaud those who gain those links through legitimate means. I use links to my sites in my forum posts; I attach them to the end of emails. But I don't pepper them into conversation where they don't belong ... .. how 'bout them Dodgers? Boy! when the topic is string theory or recipes for caramel fudge.

Blog-parasites: read the post, then comment pertaining to the post. If you have a link you wish to attach as part of a signature, that's great. That's fine. I don't mind at all contributing to your Alexa rating or Google PR. But please PLEASE don't couch the backlink in phony stuff. Don't tell me how great my blog is and that you're trying to get your own going but haven't got a clue how to get it to happen at my credit card info search cars for sale home improvement gaming addiction consumer advocate credit card marbles(!) data online... it looks bad, for everyone involved, and certainly doesn't lead me to want to click on a link to find out what's on the other end. (That link leads to the game website, by the way, not a place to improve your credit rating.)