What Are the Comment Spammers After?

As my loyal Roxiticus Desperate Housewives readers know, I'm a fairly prolific blogger, posting to four blogs on a regular basis: Roxiticus Desperate Housewives, Roxy's Best Of... (my WordPress MU community of local sites), Bay Head Blog, and Roxiticus Best Blogs. In WordPress, the Akismet plugin prevents comment spam from getting through, but I have it set up so I can go through it to be sure no real comments get lost. Over the past few weeks, I've noticed a dramatic increase in the amount of comment spam, and I'm trying to understand it better. What are the comment spammers after? I can understand that they're trying to create links to their pathetic web sites, but really, what is someone getting by using links to phrases such as "spaghetti monster," "Cincinnati bingo dates," "flying circus theme," "red dog saloon alaska," or one of my all-time faves, "selsun blue hair loss."

So if you're a spammer, here's your chance. Leave a comment to explain to all of us what the heck you're up to with the bizarre comments you try to leave.