Quote of the day:
Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories. -Sun Tzu
Today lets revisit the widely annoying topic of comment spam in our blogs. Wouldn't you wish to have no more comment spam on your posts?. I know that I would. A common feature of this type of spamming is the gibberish that gets left behind in your comment section. It could be a phone number, email address, or links to what is referred to as 'sblogs' - fake spam blogs created solely to promote affiliated Web sites. It may even include malicious links. It is the open nature of blog comments that leads them on -which I will discuss further below. You can learn more about link spamming here. Google's Webmaster Central Blog also has a great article on webspam trends.
Moving on. As long as your blog is active and open to the public, you can barely avoid comment spam. Old and sometimes even new posts are not exempt from this . A lot of bloggers, myself included find it really frustrating to be honest. Putting a stop to spam comments on your blog is important. If your comment section includes checks and balances to stop spammers having a field day, you are not at fault as protecting your blog from harm is paramount.
Such comments add nothing to your blog, or post. It mostly is just nonsensical text and dubious links you should be careful not to click on. I mean even my post on how to put a stop to spam comments on your blog, had spam comments!. They are truly relentless. They not only put your blog in danger, but also your visitors too. Not to talk of the possibility of Google ranking you lower in online searches due to too much spam and outbound links in your blog post comments.
But lets face it, tackling this beast can be a herculean task, especially if your blog contains hundreds of posts. So what is the solution?. I see a lot of comment moderation put in place by bloggers -this is a great step in curtailing unwanted comment spam. No more open comments, as it only enables comment spammers. Lets look at some of the players involved.
Google has a system in place called reCAPTCHA which appears to be the most popular and effective deterrent so far. It is triggered especially when you comment on several blogs at a time -Google gets suspicious, and honestly can be a bit of a pain -especially when you don't get the answers right at first. Selecting matching images to get moving basically. This doesn't stop spam, as it will allow you to post your comment after solving the riddle. But ideally, it should reduce the amount of comment spam, especially from automated spam.
Credit: Google Blog
If you are on blogger, you can protect your blog even further -while making it less painful for your visitors to leave a comment. Under settings you can make the necessary changes. For me, comment moderation was not needed in the past, but it is now in place for posts older than 2 weeks -which from experience is what spammers tend to target. Fresh blog posts get little or no spam. With less spam on older posts, and with controlled moderation, this has been one of the best steps to protect my blog from spam.
On Blogger: You can set comment moderation that works for you
Wordpress
Current versions of Wordpress come with a spam comment tool known as Akismet Comment Spam Fighter. For wordpress users, their FAQ page tells you all about this tool and how to combat comment spam and the use of blacklists.
Its about time to take the fight to the spammers. What do you think?
Useful links:
Control Comment Spam on Blogger
Google Webmaster Blog
Tools to stop blog spammers
Peace. Love. Light*
Current Listen: Ella Fitzgerald: Summertime
36 Comments
Thank you for the tips. I hate spams too!
ReplyDeleteHi Nancy, we all do too and hope you found the tips useful! Thanks.
DeleteThe wordpress tool sure works well. I just denied anonymous users on blogger, usually does the trick.
ReplyDeleteIm on blogger so have less problem with spammers more problems with trolls
ReplyDeletethank you, I did not know about the blocking of spam on only older posts. I will do that to mine now.
ReplyDeleteHi Sandra, glad to be able to share. Thanks and best wishes!
DeleteThanks for this helpful information
ReplyDeleteExcellent post! Yes, spam is no fun at all.
ReplyDeleteExactly.
DeleteExactly.
DeleteThanks Lois. It certainly isn't fun after putting in so much work maintaining a blog!
DeleteVery helpful. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMary, I know that feeling. Visiting a lot of blogs to leave comments, Google can get suspicious of the activity, hence the reCAPTCHA. Sometimes it has nothing to do with the blog or blog owner itself. Comment moderation is certainly the way to go!
DeleteI've been pretty fortunate when it comes to avoiding spam, but these tips are greatly appreciated!
ReplyDeleteBlessings!
I don't really get much comment spam. Occasionally. I just delete it. I do have any posts older than 30 days need moderation for comments. But I really hate Captcha, especially during the April A to Z. I always get caught having to do that, and it's annoying.
ReplyDeleteSpam is such a pain, so this is a good, informative post! I use Wordpress and get maybe one or two comments a week in my spam folder. WP's Akismet is good about catching it.
ReplyDeleteGreat tips on stopping spam. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the tips, very helpful post!
ReplyDeleteI once had a Yahoo Shine blog and started getting tons of spam. What I did was put up a post in which I prayed for the spammers. Every spam comment I got, I prayed for, and forgave them. Soon all the spam stopped and one of the spammers sent me a different message. He asked my forgiveness and said he realized what he had been doing was just wrong. He said he had stopped and thanked me. It was worth it going through all that time it took me to pray for the spammers if I reached even one of them. Praise the Lord!
ReplyDeleteOh wow, that's an interesting way of getting them to leave your blog alone-and for the spammer to even reach out is a miracle. Definitely worth a try. So do you get spam on your blogger? Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteI haven't so far and I've been blogging for about 8-9 years. Maybe I have some "special" protection. (smile) Or I'm just lucky.
DeleteSpam is a bane to everyone whether in blogs or emails and I agree that it is annoying. Ainused to have all comments sent to my email to check for unwanted ones, but it tended to get in the way of other emails as I had to continually delete them after reading. Thankfully, I never received a huge amount. Now, I check each post the same day or within a week or so. If I find any spam comments they are immediately deleted. That's not to say I have caught them all, but then this shouldn't become too much of a chore either. That said, thanks for your helpful tips.
ReplyDeleteUseful info. Thanks. Shared.
ReplyDeleteThis was very informative, thank you! I think I will use the feature on older posts.
ReplyDeletepeace, light and love...
Interesting but I just hate those 'reCAPTCHA', takes so much longer to post a comment when you are busy.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this useful info!
ReplyDeleteSpammers not a problem. Main problem is trolls.
ReplyDeleteInteresting.
ReplyDeleteGreat tips, thanks:)
ReplyDeleteThanks!
ReplyDeleteUseful stuff to know!
ReplyDeleteI do exactly the same as you and have comments moderation switched on for posts older than two weeks, and I agree that it does help. Good information here - thank you
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, I hadn't heard of comment moderation for older posts, I'm definitely going to do that! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteHi Blogoratti - thanks for this - I keep an eye open, don't acknowledge and delete them as soon as I've seen them. Now having set mine up - I'll see what happens ... cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteGood posted blogoratti which i hate spamming act in blog coloumn comment.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting and commenting.
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