How to stop Spam Comments

[Orionjoel]

I am finding that one of my blogs is attracting massive amounts of spam comments. Almost 2000 in 10 days. This is worse then it has ever been before.

Can anyone suggest a way to minimise this happening, or anything. Akismet is catching pretty much all of them on wordpress, however would prefer they don't show up at all, is there anything short of completly disabling comments that can be done?

[ButterflyWoman]

There are "quiz" type plugins you can get for WordPress that require the commenter to answer a simple question. That will keep the bots away, for the most part, and your spam will drop dramatically.

Another option is to install a login system like OpenID or similar that has users sign in with an existing OpenID account, rather than signing up at your site. Again, this will cut back on the autospammers (bots), and it can also slow down the human spammers (at least somewhat).

[Marger]

On 1 site I use this plugin: Bad Behavior. It 'prevents spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place.' I'm not sure how well it performs though, but it says it has blocked 659 access attempts in the last 7 days. If that plugin doesn't work for you, there might be others like it that try to block spambots before they can even post the comment.

[Orionjoel]

Thank-you both for your replies, I have taken a little from both of your responses, an will see how it goes over the next week.

I installed a little math quiz plugin that gives simple math question when submitting a comment, and have also installed Bad Behavior.

So in theory any comments that make it through now should be done by a human, i guess it will not entirely eliminate the opportunity for spam but should greatly decrease the volume.

[Marger]

I read about spammers hiring extremely cheap workers in third world countries to manually post spam comments, circumventing any protection against spambots. So yes, some comments will probably get through. Good luck!

[Orionjoel]

Well the good news is that it is looking good early on.

In the past 24 hours there has not been one spam comment appear onthe blog at all. Which has never happened previously that I can remember.

Thanks for the help it is much appreciated.

[ButterflyWoman]

Originally Posted by Marger

I read about spammers hiring extremely cheap workers in third world countries to manually post spam comments, circumventing any protection against spambots.

Yes. We get them on forums, sometimes. Sometimes they're really obvious, and sometimes it's harder to recognise them.

Originally Posted by Marger

So yes, some comments will probably get through. Good luck!

Some will, but Askimet is very good at catching them, generally. With the combination of quiz and Askimet, very few are going to get through.

[Orionjoel]

My guess is that anything that was appearing on my site was from automated sources, as there is still not a single spam comment appeared. Is very easy to pick at the moment as there has been little actual comment activity at all, besides the spam that akismet has been catching. Not a single comment has come through. I know it will work though with my own testing, and my comments appear fine.

[ButterflyWoman]

Slightly off topic, but I like your blog. I did see some spam comments posted here: Day 4 in Melbourne | Joel Brown

There may be others. (I went to that entry because, hey, I live in Melbourne. And there are fairies at the fairy tree. They just don't make themselves obvious when there are a lot of people around. )

[Orionjoel]

Thank-you for taking a look. It is interesting that you mention the spam comments on this blog, this was not really the one I had problems with. I have only really been concerned with the spam that shows up in spam que for Akismet, but it looks like I may have to do some more manual checks to be sure.

I am actually going to be in Melbourne second week in November (no way am I going to come the week of Melbourne Cup). Is there a good time to see the fairies?

[ButterflyWoman]

Originally Posted by Orionjoel

Is there a good time to see the fairies?

Oh, fairies are pretty elusive. Generally they're about when it's quiet. The tend not to like big crowds.

[Orionjoel]

I will have to just go and sit sometime, while I am there and see if they are around. The day I took that photo I only just got the photo before the area was inundated with a bunch of school kids.

[Peter T]

The best way to fight with commenter is by disallowing the comment feature. I'am tired of spammers. few comments are not even detected by Akismit

[Orionjoel]

Peter you are correct, Disabling comments would be the easiest solution to stop the comment spam altogether.

However this is also a difficult decision if you want to have a more user interactive site. Once a site get bigger, turning off the comment feature and using a forum (such as Steve Pavlina) is an option. However when the site is small with maybe a couple of thousand visitors a month I do not know that it would be the best option.

The solution recommended above of using the Bad Bahaviour plugin and combining with a math test capcha. Has worked perfect for the time being. Not a single spam comment since I implemented it. Admittedly if manually entered spam comments begin coming in, this may not stop them all. However it still allows genuine users to participate at this point.