It seems that the amount of spam comments my blog receives is directly linked to how old the blog is - the older it gets, the more junk it gets thrown at it.
Akismet has done a marvelous job in blocking most of the spam - it’s caught nearly 40,000 spam comments so far - but alas, it’s not enough. Every day, I get 1 or 2 comments to be moderated that are total junk; apparently someone really wanted to spam my site during the night, because when I checked my email, I had 10 comments to moderate, all of which were spam.
To (hopefully) cut back on the amount of spam I need to manually check, I’ve just installed the Bad Behavior plugin, which catches spambots in the act, long before they’ve had a chance to actually post anything. I don’t really know how this works - at the time of posting this, they’re claiming it works via black magic - but if it works, I don’t really care. I’ll be thankful.
In the unlikely chance that Bad Behavior blocks you from commenting, you can get in touch with me at: myfirstname @ my domain name. I’ll whitelist your IP address for you.
To my dear spammers who have stuck with me this long: hah! I hope I don’t see much of you anymore.
Update: So much for my hopes. I checked my email today (the day after setting up Bad Behavior), and found 2 spam comments to be moderated.
Bad Behavior is indeed working - it’s caught around 200 spam bots so far - but I also had over 100 spam emails hit Akismet. 2 of those got through, and I’m not really sure why. They’re not subtle in anyway, they’re just comments with tons of links about porn, photos, etc. Akismet has literally blocked thousands of comments just like these, and yet some keep popping up in my moderation list. It’s strange.
Tags: bad behavior, comments, plugins, site updates, spam, System 13, WordPress
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February 2, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Cyrris
I was actually using Bad Behaviour long before Akismet came about, and while it was being actively developed it worked wonders on its own. I am not sure what it’s creator is doing these days, but I have had to install Akismet to catch what Bad Behaviour now lets through.
I think I have to deal with one or two spam comments getting through both BB and Akismet every couple of months. It’s hardly a problem.
February 2, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Josh
One or two spam comments every couple of months? Awesome. I can deal with that. The constant trickle, however, was really getting frustrating.
(As an aside, when I saw the moderation email for your comment on this post, I briefly thought, “Great - Bad Behavior has let through a spam comment on the post I wrote about stopping spam with Bad Behavior.”
)
February 3, 2008 at 12:13 pm
Noah Ark
Akismet is awesome, it even track duplicate trackback - pingback. Anyway IMO trackback spam is getting worse I got 10 - 20 comment spam and more than 300 trackback spam within 15 days periods. technology has it price - turing game
February 7, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Nils
Hm, I’ll have to try this then.
It seems Akismet on privately hosted blogs works less well than on wp.com — although that’s just a hunch and I’ve never seen anything to corroborate it.
Two spam comments a day is a lot and it would nag me too. terrible business and an ever-lasting bore it seems.
February 7, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Nils
Btw, I just caught a guy commenting without a url and an email that said username@spam.net… The comment seems valid — and even witty enough — but I get paranoid!
What a world.
February 8, 2008 at 8:04 am
Josh
Yeah, while I don’t have any hard facts on it, I do recall Akismet seeming to catch more when my blog was on wp.com. But, that was a long while ago, and it seems I’m getting more and more spammers hammering my site.
I’ve gotten comments with similar emails, or something like noone@spammy.com. Some folks just don’t want to leave their real email addresses which, I suppose, is understandable. You’re basically handing it over to the blog owner, and if you just came across the site via search, you don’t know the blogger.