Two tips for handling comment spam
It finally happened — the attempted spam comments to this blog outnumbered my actual readers yesterday. But instead of getting me depressed, it made me even more grateful to Dr. Dave and Spam Karma. Not much gets through with Spam Karma’s vigilance.
Of course, I upgraded my settings a while ago — now I feel like Zena, warrior princess:
My top two tips for keeping spam under control are:
- Get help.
Even Zena had a sidekick. If you’ve got WordPress, you have the option of adding some tough spam busters, such as Spam Karma, Bad Behavior and Akismet. There’s great information on the WordPress Codex site about combating comment spam. And here are links to a list of anti-spam plugins for Typepad users, and a comprehensive Six Apart article on comment spam. - Close off comments for older posts.
I finally realized that 90% of the attempted spam was targeting one post from April on Judy’s Book. I have no idea why that one. So I’ve finally closed it off. None of the comment spam for that post has ever made it past Spam Karma, because one factor SK considers in determining if a comment is spam is the age of the post. But maybe now they’ll stop trying on that post, at least. - Bonus suggestion: tweak your settings.
If spam is getting through your spam filters, check out what the default settings are, and experiment. Make them tougher, and see if that helps. Remember to closely monitor your caught spam for a while, to make sure you’re not being too tough and missing legitimate comments. It’s worth being a “total beeeatch” sometimes.
![email address: ctbizblogs [at] gmail.com](http://www.ctbizblogs.com/wp-images/email.png)
November 6th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
I absolutely love SK2, it catches all my spam.
I like your Tip #2, I never realized that closing off old posts would be such a good idea, thanks!
Also, try out BB2 (Bad Behavior 2), it’s not anti-spam as such, it prevents the bots from getting to your site BEFORE they have a chance to spam, I use both BB2+SK2 and I’ve been spam free for months.
November 6th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Thanks, TechZ. You’re right about Bad Behavior, but I guess I think of it as anti-spam since it stops the spam bots.
I should also have mentioned that the creators of both SK2 and BB2 have a place on their sites for donations, which they so richly deserve!
I try to keep my comments open, but if people haven’t commented in a year, they probably are not going to, ever. I kept the Judy’s Book comment open far too long. The number of attempts on that post has been going up and up and up.
November 7th, 2006 at 9:52 am
I absolutely hate spam - I turn off comments upto the newest batch - but am beset now with ‘contact us @ spam - it comes from names but its obvious its not real - but then the same awful content as the comment spam. It is more often than not so offensive!
These spybots crawl about my site like a plague - I long ago lost the will to work out what my stats menat!
November 7th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
I sure feel your pain, Heather! I wish I had Spam Karma 2 for email.
I don’t see why all that analytical power can’t be unleashed on my inbox.
Paging Dr. Dave… you’re wanted in Outlook, STAT!
November 7th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Heather, as for stats — it’s certainly tough to know how many visitors are spammers. Luckily for me, Spam Karma 2 sends me a daily email telling me how many attempted spam comments there were. So I can subtract that from my total.
It’s quite depressing when I realize that my numbers have to be adjusted drastically downward. Seeing 82 spam attempts in one day and 30 on one post is just sad.
Of course, I just realized that I’m assuming that each spam attempt is unique, meaning that it isn’t the same bot “sitting” there hitting Submit over and over.
Looking at my stats just now, I see that the same bot is trying several times per post.
So I guess my count of real visitors is better than I thought.
Yay!
November 7th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
sure you guys like spam karma 2, but it blocks me from commenting. my comments are usually very good and insightful. i don’t understand this. how come i can’t comment without getting blocked?
November 8th, 2006 at 8:00 am
jn,
At first I thought this was like a zen koan, since you’re saying in a comment that all of your comments are blocked.
But maybe you’re fitting the spammer profile — like including too many links in a comment.
The best way to get a comment published is to include few links, no spammy terms, and if you include your URL, have it be a real site, not a splog.
Good and insightful commentary is an added bonus.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:13 pm
WordPress Trackback Spam!!!
I have installed plugins that prevent comment spams, but this won't prevent trackback to be blocked. I've been spam by many
MFA websites that most probably is from the same network with trackback, but they are not linking me on their website. May I
know how do they do it and how do I stop it? Without disabling trackback?
Thanks, and I'm using WordPress.
December 20th, 2006 at 6:55 am
Tommy, I’m using Spam Karma 2, and find that it disables trackbacks too. It checks to see if there’s an actual link.
If you have SK2, scroll down on the SK settings to “Trackback referrer check.” Mine’s set to “superstrong.” So far, so good.