08/07: Blog Comment and Trackback Spam (Part 3)

Now for the third and final post dealing with blog comment and trackback spam, which looks at some of the best ways to deal with it, enabling you to get on with the task of running your blog. No matter how much or how little you are bothered by this kind of invasion of your blog's real estate, it should never be underestimated. If you are new to blogging, regardless of the platform you use, you will fall victim  - it usually takes a few weeks before the spammers start to find you and if you take no action, within a couple of months your blog will soon be overrun. 

Once upon a time, using a simple .htaccess file could suffice for blocking the IP's of spammers but realistically it now involves far too much time and work and is not a very effective measure to use now that there are so many better and easier options........

So, what do you need to do? We'll start with Wordpress, simply because its use is so widespread. When you install Wordpress, it should already have a plugin called Akismet installed and ready to go. Activate it as soon as you can because it will protect you from spam comments right from the get go. You can configure the options from your WP-Admin and it's as simple as can be. Many people find that Akismet can sometimes be a little overenthusiastic however and will sometimes flag genuine comments as spam - this means that you really do need to force them into a moderation queue to check every comment just to make sure none have slipped through the net, and, if you are getting hundreds of items of comment spam a day, that's pretty annoying. To be fair, it's not common for the plugin to get it wrong.

To counter this, you may well want to look at adding some kind of "captcha" plugin as a first line of defence. You will no doubt have encountered these before, and they require the user to type in some random letters or numbers before submitting something to a blog or website, thus disabling most bots and automated posting software. This will help to defeat a lot of comment spammers even before they bump up against Akismet's filters. There are several Wordpress captcha plugins available so it really comes down which you like the look and feel of most. As an example, I currently use the CAPCC plugin which you can see in action on any of my WP posts, here for example

I find that the combination of these two simple methods keeps my WP blogs pretty clean as far as comment spam goes. For trackback spam, another plugin called Simple Trackback Validation ensures that spam trackbacks that basically don't link from any website to your blog are immediately flagged and put in a moderation queue. As this is a test that most spammers will fail it's pretty effective alongside Akismet. 

For Wordpress these are just my choices, you can go a lot further if you wish and you can find a comprehensive listing of anti spam measures at The Wordpress Codex including the well known Bad Behavior, which is a very effective anti-spam and, as the name suggests, anti other kinds of invasive attacks. 

So, what about other blogging platforms? Well, aside from Wordpress, I also use Nucleus CMS and although there are not  quite the number of plugins available. I use comment control and anti-spam mail which work fine for now. Bad Behavior caused a few conflicts with other areas and I discontinued its use, largely because I was too lazy/incompetent to resolve the issues, but it remains a first choice for others. The full list of Nucleus plugins can be found here

With the other platforms, I'm no expert, but there follows a short list of links which should help users of some of them and if anyone would  like to elaborate for the benefit of others, please leave us your comments. 

For B2Evolution - Akismet, Bad Behavior, Captcha and more all available as plugins 

For Typepad - From what I've read, users still suffering a little from spamming and platform not the best in dealing with it. Users advice and comments welcomed but you can read a couple of related discussions at Technology Evangelist and Strategic Public Relations (suffering enough to think of changing blog platform). 

For MovableType - this was the most useful discussion I could find about users of this platform at the official site. Comment spam on MovableType

For DrupalUsers discuss their spam related Drupal issues here so it's a good place to start (I know very little about Drupal and its modules nor how effective their anti spam measures are)

For Joomla - Bad Behavior is one option I believe, but to find out more you can check the discussions about Joomla spam protection at Alledia.com and check out the official Joomla site directory of extensions here

The CMS platforms mentioned above are far more than just blogs and as such face various fights against spam with guestbooks, registrations,  forums, blogs et al, so there are plenty of ongoing discussions if you can't find your answers here. One place wortha visit for more information is this post at SixApart entitled Six Apart Guide To Comment Spam

The bottom line is that spammers grow more numerous and devious by the minute and this means in turn that you have to do all you can to stop them sucking your bandwidth and ruining your blogging experience for both your readers and yourself by fighting them off with  every tool at your disposal. Maybe one day they'll give up but there are usually plenty lining up to take the place of those that eventually realize it doesn't really work. However, as long as people continue to sell the "blasting" and "submission" software that makes it easy for even non technical web users to spam blogs and forums, the problem won't go away. If you are ever tempted to buy into one of these so called blasters, please think again, their use is rarely legitimate and the claims about results are basically lies, which you will find out once you have tried them with no result other than a hole in your wallet and the possibility of being tracked down and flayed alive for being a spammer!

TCH