In the few past days, I was busy to keep up with the blog. By mistake, I disabled moderation on blog comments; results: more than 100 comments, totally SPAM.
Bloggers are happy with comments, this mesure the user interaction with the blog post and the success of the writer in attracting attention, but when it happens to be SPAM, then it’s not good and it’s even worse: lose time and bandwidth.
How you get SPAMMED?
- Mainly, you forget to put the “nofollow” tag on your comments link.
- You don’t moderate comments and allow them to show automatically.
- Other bad comments exist which encourage SPAMMERS.
- You don’t have a SPAM protection plug-in.
- You don’t check if comment posters are HUMAN.
How to solve those problems?
If you are using Wordpress as a blogging platform, the most popular platform, then a few steps are required to fully protect yourself. Even if they won’t protect you from SPAM for %100, they’ll decrease the number efficiently and increase comments quality
- Put a “nofollow” Tag
To do it and stay compatible with every template you install, just install and activate this simple “nofollow” plug-in. “nofollow” tags, will make searh engines dismiss comment links. If so, SPAMMERS won’t be interested on your links. - Turn moderation “on”
Moderate your comments, if you have 100 or more in each post, you can disable them and create a forum where your users can discuss the blog post. Good comment moderation will discourage SPAMMERS to attack your blog. - Activate “ASKIMET”
Askimet is very useful so turn it on, it’ll need 5 minutes if you don’t have a Wordpress API key (don’t worry, all you need is a wordpress.com account) - Check commenters identity
This is another important step, SPAMMER may not look for links but for traffic, even if it’s small from one comment, it will be big from thousands. Adding a good captcha will help blocking the malicious boots.
When to use captcha: Only when you got attacked, I have been attacked on a blog last year, spammers sent boots that change ip, user name, email and submit hundred, yet thousands of comments! Askimet may protect against SPAM and catch them, but the quantity of comments attack will eat your bandwidth and may cause a huge traffic usage.
Conclusion: If you got spammed, it’s most likely your fault! If you want to help fight SPAM, just begin by securing your system and your code.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Pretty cool post. I just came across your site and wanted to say
that I’ve really liked browsing your blog posts. Anyway
I’ll be subscribing to your blog and I hope you post again soon!