Fighting SPAM Not Commenters
TheSpot-er on June 23rd, 2008Comment spam is quite annoying and while plugins such as Akismet do a fair job of reducing it - they still a lot to be desired. As result we see a whole lot of plugins coming out to address the missing functionality and add even more protection to Comments on WordPress blog. Problem is…
Sometimes We End Up Fightings Commenters and Not Spam!
In this quick post I want to address this issue and ask for your feedback…
As I have progressed in using WordPress I have had a chance to experiment with multiple plugins that help you fight Comments and Trackback spam on your blog. Some faired better some worse but each did the job to some extent. Unfortunately it is very hard to automatically determine what is “spam” and what is legitimate comment.
Sometimes it even depends on how you personally perceive the comment left on your blog by a visitor. While is it not automated submission it can easily be an “SEO Spam”, where commenter provides no value and simply leaves generic crap such as “I like this post” just to get his chosen keywords to be linked to his site or blog. Some even outsource the process… innovation, huh?
To make long story short - I have successfully used several plugins to fight the spam and at same time share link love with legit comments on my blog. But as I was forced to install WP-Super-Cache plugin on my blog I have discovered that one of my favorites - Math Comment Spam Protection plugin created a few false positives and as such deprived legit people of leaving comments.
Finding solution to this one might not be as easy as one would think. Super Cache plugin creates static pages and it appears some visitors don’t get the correct SPAM protection number. I have looked at some captcha plugins and other dynamic option and didn’t like any.
So, as it stand now - I have disabled Math Protection and installed following plugin that claims full compatibility witch caching:
- WP Spam Free - “An extremely powerful anti-spam plugin for WordPress that virtually eliminates comment spam, including trackback and pingback spam”
I would appreciate your feedback if you encounter any issues while commenting on my blog. And as I have promised, here are other plugins I personally use to battle the spam and still share link love with fellow bloggers:
- Akismet - spam protection
- CommentLuv - Plugin to show a link to the last post from the commenters blog in their comment. Will parse a feed from most sites that have a feed location specified in its head html
- KeywordLuv - Reward your commentators by separating their name from their keywords, in the link to their website, giving them improved anchor text. For example, leaving “Stephen @ Custom WordPress Plugins” in the name field, will result in the following: Stephen from Custom WordPress Plugins.
- Lucia Linky Love - Permits a blogger to “dofollow” comments for regular visitors. There are many options.
- WP Spam Free - An extremely powerful anti-spam plugin that virtually eliminates comment spam (Alex Note: still to be tested
).
So please do comment, and let me know if any issues. I do know that my feedback form works with no problem if your comment fails!
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Hey! Thanks for the shout out to WP-SpamFree. Let me know if you have any plugin conflicts with your comment love plugins. I’d be interested to know. Thanks!
So far - so good!
It seem to work as promised and what pleases me the most - works with WP Super Cache.
One thing: since bloggers (including myself) so used to see false positives - would be nice to have an option to see what type of comments were rejected as spam and make sure it wasn’t false positives … not sure if doable or not … or if it is even needed
but a thought…
Alex
Thanks for the feedback!
Yes, I’m working on adding a logging feature for the version 2.0 release for all those who want to manually audit the plugin. If you’re curious, I explain in a bit more detail why you won’t see false positives with this plugin in the FAQ section of the plugin page. Feel free to contact me directly with any feedback or suggestions.
WebGeeks last blog post..Thoughts on Blog Comments, Moderation, and the Conversation
Thanks, I actually seen it - quite interesting concept and I agree that finding javascript and cookies disabled at same time rather rare .. so, hopefully no false positives here ….
Alex
these are extremely important issues. thanks for the links to the different plugins that you use.
one thing I do for “seo spam” is to leave their comment if it has key phrases that will help me and then remove their link.
of course I only do this when it is obvious comment just for seo.
big jason
I personally use the keyword luv plugin on my Redneck Bar and Grill blog, and I use Akismet on all of the ones I run. It seems to do a pretty good job. I check the queue once a week, and sometimes have to rescue a legit comment but usually it is all garbage.
The math filters are usually pretty annoying, from a commenter’s point of view. Do they really help the blog owner more than akismet?
Tims last blog post..Playstation Game Cheats for Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity
Tim - math comment protection works In Addition to Akismet, not as replacement. It simply helps separate real humans from “bots” and works like a charm. Problem begins when you use caching mechanism… which brought this post.
Freaky yo, I JUST came from leaving another Akismet/spam related comment LOL.
I’ve never needed anything else personally. Akismet + moderation (email notification of every comment) is working just dandy.
Only the 1st comment from a new commenter actually goes into the “moderation” queue.
@big Jason - very cool, I’ll remember that one
Dennis Edells last blog post..12 Ways To Outsell Your Competition
Btw, I’m a happy camper that you removed the math thing. I can’t tell you how many times a comment has been wiped out because I forgot it was there.
Dennis Edells last blog post..12 Ways To Outsell Your Competition
Thanks Dennis,
Since I have switched off the “Math Thing” number of comments nearly doubled while number of spam comments didn’t increase (thanks to the new plugin I use). That shows to me that I have lost a good number of great comments from people and what perhaps even worse - annoyed my visitors.
Lesson learned and will be shared with my subscribers
Up to now I had always rewritten the comments, but yes it was getting o the point of me leaving.
Good job
Dennis Edells last blog post..12 Ways To Outsell Your Competition
Thanks for sticking around Dennis!
I’ve been seeing more and more grumbling about Akismet giving false positives. I’ve heard a lot of good things about Spam Karma. I haven’t heard much about WP-SpamFree, I hope it works well. The problem is definitely a serious one that needs to be addressed effectively.
Tiger Lilys last blog post..Foods That Help You Lose Weight
I used to use Spam Karma, unfortunately after 2.5 it stopped working properly and I had to look for a better supported solution. Combination of Akismet and Math Comment Spam Protection was picked and worked quite nice but with implementation of WP-Super-Cache thing got broken.
Now am using Akismet and WP Spam Free.
UPDATE: I had to disable WP-Spam Free plugin as for some unknown to me reason it would go into loop and begins to kill my VPS server.
Unfortunately I had to disable the WP-Super Cache plugin AND WP-Spam Free. While it did very nice job in keeping spam out, its resource utilization simply unacceptable.
Back Comment Math Spam Protection, minus the WP-Super-Cache.
Alex
Hi Alex,
I think you may be misdiagnosing the problem. WP-SpamFree actually doesn’t use much server resources at all…in fact it uses less than almost all the other major spam plugins. If you’re getting a problem like this there may be a server misconfiguration so you still have a problem that may show up again later.
If you have problems with the plugin, be sure to contact me either directly by email or through the support page and I’ll try to help you figure it out.
- Scott
WebGeeks last blog post..Info on Google’s New Ability to Index Flash
Scott,
Perhaps - but since I had disabled it my server works fine. On misconfiguration - that could be the case as well, WP-Super-Cache didn’t work properly on this specific blog either. It is very possible that issue is directly related to this blog - it has been upgraded from version 2.1 to the latest 2.5.1, with multitude of plugins installed in between. No matter how you clean your blog it might be a time for “reformatting” the blog.
As I have mentioned - your plugin performed like a champ! And I still use it on couple of my other blogs (still testing) with no issues so far…
Alex