I’m so sick of spammers. Over the last month or so I’ve had a steady increase of comment spammers on all my sites, however this blog seems to be getting hit the worst.
Over a year ago I added the WordPress Bad Behavior plugin to my anti-spam arsenal and the amount of spam I was getting on this blog (in comment moderation of course) immediately went down from 400 to 500 comment spam per day to only one to ten. I use Akismet as well to protect my blog from spammers.
Bad Behavior has a fairly recent update so I’ll update the plugin in a little while and hope that that helps combat some of the spam. I’m sure some of the new spam is coming from bots.
If that doesn’t work I might start closing comments on all my old posts. I don’t really want to do that as sometimes I do get real comments on my old posts, but I will if I must. Perhaps I’ll add Spam Karma to my arsenal however I’ve never really liked that plugin and what I’ve been using up until now has done the job.
Notice to any human comment spammers – particularly those getting paid to post comments. Don’t bother stopping here and leaving comments that don’t make sense and links to competing niche websites or questionable websites as I’ll just delete your comment.
I’m a do follow blogger so this blog tends to get more comment spam than ones that remain nofollow. As a result I’ve always heavily moderated my comments. I don’t care for lots of extra links in comments, nor do I like urls to business websites in comments that are gushing about a product or service. Those comments BTW are usually written quite poorly, but not all of them are – either way, if I think you are just leaving a comment to get a do follow link I’m apt to delete the url or the whole comment.
I hope that this post doesn’t discourage visitors leaving real comments. Like most bloggers I love getting comments on my posts (and yes I should reply to the comments more often!). Please don’t stop commenting just because I said I moderate heavily.
It’s to the spammers or those just seeking do follow links that I’m directing this rant.
- People that leave three to five comments with the same IP yet each comment links to a different website, different pages of a website or uses a different SEO term as the link text on multiple.
- Comments that don’t make a whole lot of sense or add anything at all to the post or the comment discussion that’s already been started by visitors who were interested in leaving real comments and input on my post.
- Commentors that leave the same comment on a post on each of my blogs or perhaps different comments (usually spammy) on almost all of my blogs within an hour or so. It’s very obvious that they’re following a do follow list when they do this.
I’m sure I make mistakes sometimes and delete a real comment or remove an url that perhaps was on a real comment that I mistook as coming from a spammer or dofollow link seeker. Please forgive me if I have removed a comment that was not from a spammer.
It’s just that I get well over 100 comments on most days across my various blogs that I must approve, moderate or delete as spam (not counting the ones that are listed in the Akismet section as already being spam). A high percentage of these comments are from paid commenters, spammers and those who are not really interested in my posts but are just seeking links. I have to be a tough moderator.
Spam comments are something that all bloggers have to deal with, perhaps new blogs and bloggers haven’t experienced it yet, but as your blog ages and hopefully becomes more popular you will encounter spam comments.
I’d love to get your input as to how you feel about spammers:
- Anyone else being hit with a lot of extra spam these days?
- How do you handle the situation?
- What plugins or add ons do you use on your site(s) to combat spam?
- Do you moderate your comments heavily as well? Or do you just delete anything questionable?
I’m looking forward to reading your replies.
I know what you mean. I have a relatively new blog and Im using Akismet for spam filtering. On the first two months the spam I was getting was just ok, like 6-10 a day.
Just recently I decided to remove the no-follow tags and it was just oopsie! I was getting a lot of spam and its really a chore sorting through comments for moderation. Most are spam comments Im getting are about products and services and totally unrelated to my posts.
Spam comments with similar url’s I really block and others I just delete.
I really appreciate comments so even if I’m pissed off with spam I still end up moderating and sorting thru it.
I get a fair bit of spam but using Akismet, I don’t see it ever. In fact, I often feel like I don’t see any spam at all, since I never have to look at it, but then I go into my Akismet spam and it’s jam-packed full of spammy stuff. Akismet is the best. Seriously. 🙂
Hey, girl! Thank you for putting your EC on my blogs. You have done that a lot lately and I appreciate it.
We are members of the original do follow bloggers. As such, we are on everyone’s list. I have seen blogposs where they post the list on their front page and encourage everyone to go get 5-10 links and then come back. I quit leaving messages because it just raises my blood pressure. I blame Courtney for starting it. Oh well.
I have a comment policy that no one reads. On the Blogger blogs, I just enabled comment moderation and delete, delete, delete. On my one WP blog, I have Askimet and it has caught almost 20,000 spam comments since I started using it a few months ago. The majority are backlinks, which I do not have to handle on Blogger. Most are really nasty and are hosted by G00gle Groups. I moderate and have been thinking about putting the CAPTHA on my blogs, but I hate it. I need to hunt down that Bad Behavior plugin.
All the best to you, Tricia. I am going to take EC off a couple of my blogs because it just takes up too much time and I miss just visiting blog friends and commenting.
I know one of the more exciting things about being a blogger is the comments, but when they have no point, or are just generated track backs I get a little upset.
I know with my wordpress.com site I was getting a few spam comments, but thankfully with the self hosted site I get none, so either people can’t make it through the hoops I have to leave a comment or I’m not posting anything comment worthy.
Other then that, I have been enjoying my little visit to your site 🙂
I detest spam myself. But like some of your other commenters Askimet seems to work for me. Good luck sorting.
my isp picks up most of it
Two of my blogs are on a couple of Comment Luv / Do Follow directory lists, so my spam folder is usually pretty full.
The way that I deal with it, is that I’m probably a bit too harsh when it comes to moderating. This is unfortunate for the few people I may delete who’s comments really were legit … or at least borderline. If the “name” is full of keywords, and I don’t know the person, the comment is probably getting deleted, or I’m in a particular mood, off to the spam bin.
I like comments, it’s fun to interact with my readers. But, after a while it becomes obvious when someone is just there looking for a link.
Todd
I was getting hit pretty heavy with spam on all my blogs, but it seems worse on my personal blog that was do follow on comments. I use askismet and bad behavior, but I was still getting at least 50-100 spam comments a day.
I switched that blog over to the Disqus comment system, and spam comments have dropped to almost nothing. I’ve had a couple show up each week on older posts, but I haven’t had a single spam comment on any new posts in the last few weeks. I had to give up do follow, but I like the system a lot better as it basically turns comments into a community discussion.
I use wordpress too, but not activate akismet, I think i need to consider your experience using other plugin. Other people’s experience is good advice for me than I try it myself.
For Jenn, what Disqus comment system is? Is it like a forum or something?
I also have had this problem on some of my blogs, but I also have to remind myself, that blogging is part of internet networking, and if other sites also that linked to my blogs or sites also did a nofollow or deleted my url, than my blogs and site would also never grown in pagerank or popularity. In all honesty, at least 90% of all webmasters want to promote their site and use blogs as one way to do so, just as I’m sure you and I would like ours to grow. I really detest any spam bots as well and will not allow their content to be added, but if someone is genuinely writing relevant comments that contributes to my blog, regardless if they are promoting their own site, I don’t really have a problem with it.. It is really a reciprocal relationship with the internet, and most search engines such as Google reward those sites that spider out linking inbound and outbound links as well as for daily fresh new content. Its also the numerious fresh content that encourages prevoius posters to come back to those blogs. Don’t get me wrong, If it’s a random, irrelevant comment, esp from a bot, those are just lazy spammers and are one thing, but if its a relevant and a thought out comment, even if it does promote their blog or site, I don’t really consider it spam, and will still leave the post as is. If I really did not want to contribute to other sites, as other sites and blogs have contributed to mine, I guess one could always do a “nofollow” attribute with all outbound links, but then again, this would also cause many blogglers and webmasters less motivated to write meaningful comments on my blogs, which this fresh daily activity and content is needed for all blogs to retain decent pagerank and search rankings and traffic. So I do feel, that as much as I want to promote my site and for it to gain popularity, its only fair to allow others to promote theirs, if they take the time to write a decent article and/or comment on my site, to assist with fresh, meaningful content.