Dealing with Comment Spam
You could delete spam comments one by one, but WordPress plugins can take care of this for you.
I was not expecting to have so much spam come in the comments so quickly. At this time, it is not like this site is so special, but that is not the reason for this spam. It is a link building technique. Getting an unsuspecting site owner to approve a comment can help a site that is being linked in the comment as being more important. Search engines have their way of determining which sites deserve attention from the sites that do not, but comment spam can come in many forms.
The most obvious is the long list of links to a porn or prescription site. The next most common is when you notice that the same author or ip address is sending very similar messages for different websites. These comments are left by automatic systems on every site they can, because a small percentage of site owners will approve some. Sometimes I feel that the spam was hoping that I would click on a link, so they could get to my computer (infecting it). The real problem is that many sites have adopted these tactics to help their own marketing. I find site owners approving comments which are obviously spam, because these comments are hard to separate from a true comment.
This spam can be a nuisance to a site owner who is new to creating his web presence. The solution from WordPress is to find a spam filter plugin to ween these comments away from the real ones. The filter most often mentioned is called Akismet. I have used it for years, and I think it is wonderful, but there may be one issue with it for a new user: obtaining an API key to make it work. This is not overly difficult, but it sets up a small roadblock for some users. This caused me to search for other means to block spam. I really wanted to find if other spam filters work as well as Aksimet.
I was thinking of adding a plugin that would create a human test. These are the forms which ask you to solve a math problem or write a phrase in an image. Since most spam is deposited on your site by an automatic system, they cannot deal with these tests. A comment that gets through this test would have to been added by a human. This does not always ensure that the comment is not spam though. It could mean that a person is out there depositing the same comment on several sites instead of a computer program. Many filters rely on looking at common phrases in spam comments (“Great site. I will be back!”, “Very informative post. It taught me a lot”, or some other praise with no substance) or other reference terms used to check for spam.
I decided upon the plugin called SpamTask. To this point, I have seen no difference in its performance to my known Akismet. It was easy to install, and there are a few nice options on the settings portion of this plugin, where you can customize a message. Installing plugins has been made so much easier in WordPress. Under the Plugin section, you will find an option for “Add New”. This brings you to a page where you can search by typing in a keyword or you can click on a word in the tag cloud. By choosing a tag or typing in a phrase, you will be brought to a page with plugins that are related to your search. By clicking the “install” link, you will get to view the plugin’s page. There is another install button. After clicking this one, the plugin is added to your site, and you are asked to activate it. Once activated, it will begin to work or it may ask you for some additional set-up steps. This is a lot simpler than using an FTP client.
If you have a blog, the spam will come, so I thought going over this means of prevention is a good first step. The next post will go over a collection of plugins to have your site function well.
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Hi, great post!
I just started my own blog, so kinda need to ask if you still like SpamTask? Looking for the perfect spam filter, so if it’s better than Akismet, I might want to use it.
Yes, SpamTask has worked out well so far. Only one piece of spam came through, but it seems to work as well as Akismet. I still want to set up a few more sites to see what other spam filters will do.
Sounds great. I’ll give it a try. And thanks for the post once again.
The one piece of spam that came through, was that a “test spam” comment you made yourself, or was it actually a real spammer?
(sorry for the question, but I just read that some spam filters don’t catch admins and “trusted” IPs, so it’s actually impossible to make a “wanna-be spam” comment)
It was an actual piece of spam. You are right about the trusted sites and admin spam, but I have not tested it for this filter. Out of sixty spam comments having one get through has not been so bad. Thank you for stopping by.