I think that comment spam is one of the biggest problems with blogging today.
It can easily dishearten new bloggers who are not prepared to handle large number of spam comments. It will also use a lot of resources to have them cleaned off a busy sites.
And if you leave spam comments on the site for too long, it can affect new incoming visitors who will think that the site is unattended.
Here are few tips on how to recognize spam comments.
- Author name - The easiest way to recognize spammy comment is by the author name. If it is not a human name chance is already 50% it's spam. If it's sounding like a product or service name, the chance is 99% that the comment is spam and was made only to obtain a link. Examples of spammy author names (straight from my spam comment queue): Webmaster Book, Gift Ideas, Pure acai berry..
- Author URL - Some spammers are aware that author name can reveal a lot about their intentions so they will use a normal name, in an attempt to still at least get a link to their site. However, looking over your comments you can still fairly easily notice spam comments by looking at urls. Examples: google-search-engine-pro, ipod-touch.110mb...
- Comment content - Sometimes you can identify spam comments by their odd content. They will usually be very short, or very generic. In some cases you can notice they were made by some kind of automated software that even inserted the name of your post to try to make it look more real. So next time you get "That was a great article!" comment, don't get too excited and check that author name and url.
Examples of Spam Comments
"Blogger , I agree with this article, just sometimes I read so fast everything and I miss things that after read them again, I can understand it better.. ;). Your n Central - WordPress Plugins Blog Stumbled up and Bookmarked, so I keep updated on every article you write from now now on ." - who calls me Blogger? :) This is so obviously spam, it's terrible.
"Just wanted to say I loved the information you had here will deff help me out. Thanks! :)" - typical generic spam comment.
"Saturday I was searching for blogs related to Web Promotion and specifically optimizing search engine and I found your related blog." - spam comment detected by horrible English in combination with automatically generated keywords.
"Good piece!" - thanks, but no thanks. Be warned, lot of spam comments are coming from these kind of encouraging messages.
Ways to prevent SPAM comments
Turn off comments! No really, if you run a type of site where users comments are not important just turn them off in your settings.
Otherwise I use a combination of two WordPress plugins, namely Akismet and Bad Behavior, with satisfying results.
I still need to manually flag two-three comments daily but that's a price I am willing to pay to keep the spam away.
Suggested reading:
- Using WordPress plugins for advertising
- Smart ways to enhance your blog’s RSS feed
- WordPress plugin recommendations
Posted in: WordPress
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10 Comments
Some time I get comment which start with [...] and end with [...] in between i found my post url. Should I delete those comments? Are they spam comments?
am quite unhappy with some of more used plugins because I lost count how many times they nuked my perfectly valid comments at other blogs.
I've really minimised spam by a combination of Akismet, keeping the maximum number of links allowed in a comment to a sensibly low level, and having to enter an anti-spam word, even for registered/logged in users. I found something like "Peter's Custom Anti-Spam" is very user-friendly because it allows a 'themed' dictionary, so all the ant-spam words can be related to the type of posts.
Before that, I was plagued - now, at worst, I usually just have the odd genuine multi-link comment to moderate...
I am really tired of spam....13-20 per day. But I don't like turning off comments...I use Akismet but still tired of deleting.
Does requiring a login help?
Although I can 2 ~ 5 comments per day, but spam is an issue to me also. I get around 2 spams per day now. But luckily Akismet helps me a lot to block all the spam.
I run a community site and had someone comment on what a great job that a local business provided for them, service-wise.
The URL was a link to their own business that did the same thing - in a completely different location (another state).
I almost missed it though - since it seemed to be a testimonial for a local business listing. I did skip past Akismet.
Hi Vladimir,
It really is a shame that we have to be so cynical; but like you, any time I see a comment that starts out with some sort of compliment (not that I don't deserve an occasional "atta boy"), I always take a closer look for additional signs of spamminess. Unfortunately, my initial suspicion is too often proven to be warranted.
Todd
Good Piece!
hehehehe, sorry, I had to.
I'll checkout Bad Behaviour. I have 2 to 5 comments daily, so spam is not an issue yet. But I'll take a look at Bad Behaviour.
Thank you for this post!
I use Akismet and Bad Behavior too in my blog.
I am quite unhappy with some of more used plugins because I lost count how many times they nuked my perfectly valid comments at other blogs.
At my blog I ended up writing small plugin that counts number of links in post and if it's over X then it gives message about that and denies comment submission. Most of spam gets eliminated without even getting into database, rest is easy to handle with blacklist and occasional manual decision.