Comment Spam is Driving Me Crazy
Recently I've noticed a marked increase in the amount of comment spam I've been receiving. It got so bad at one point that I could have a hundred or (many) more spam comments to wade through in my inbox.
I'm sure part of the problem is the fact that -- like Jonathan Snook -- I leave comments open on old posts.
Unlike Jonathan, this is not so much to collect as many comments as possible but because I like to provide people the opportunity to post a comment on anything I've written, especially if it is a tutorial and they have a question.
I don't like the idea that the only way to post a comment on my site is to keep up with my latest posts.
Recently, however, the spam issue has become particularly problematic due to the lack of obvious keywords in many of the spam comments.
It's hard to catch spam that uses a perfectly innocuous phrase, and do I really want to start junking comments that include words like 'bothered'? Short answer -- want to or not, I've had to. Don't mention that you come from 'Texas' either or your comment will get junked. Sorry.
Askimet Anti-Spam Plugin
Last week I decided to beef up my spam defences and install the Askimet anti-spam plugin for Movable Type. Installation seemed easy enough, but my problem is that I can't tell if it is working.
I appear to have less spam, but the darned stuff is still getting through (5-10 a day) and I thought this tool was supposed to reduce it to almost zero.
So, my question is, how can you tell if Askimet is working?
I'm Not Alone
Fortunately, it seems that I am not the only one suffering this problem, although unlike Elise, my problem is only with comment spam, not trackback spam.
She lists a number of useful resources in her post, and there is a really helpful comment from The Tweezer's Edge explaining SpamLookup's keyword filter.
This is well worth a read if you're serious about reducing your comment spam, and if you do nothing else, you should add his regex filter into your list of keyword filters. Here's how the default version looks:
/https?:\/\/[^\s\'"<>]*(?:spamword1|spamword2|
spamword3)[^\s\'"<>]*/IJust replace spamword1, 2, etc with your chosen spam words and you're set.
I've added several varieties of this to my list of filters -- I'm hoping that it's going to be pretty effective. Is anyone else having the same problems at the moment?
Posted on: May 30, 2006 | 10 Comments
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10 Comments Posted
You can use Bad Behavior (can easily be integrated in MT) together with Askimet. It will prevent spambots to visit your site.
Using WP with SpamKarma and Bad Behaviour tho, but yes spam has increased lately. Also trackback spam.
1. Posted by franky on May 30, 2006
I find it surprising that you get so many spam comments. I use the built in filtering (mind you, I've added some keywords over time) and now with Akismet, I'm down to about one a week. One thing I had to do was adjust the junk scores such that MT's filters rate rate at -2.0 to offset the +1.0 Akismet might give a comment.
regular expressions are most handy as there's usually something unique in these emails (like email address!)
2. Posted by Jonathan Snook on May 30, 2006
franky - thanks for the link. I'll have to check that out.
Jonathan - I haven't played with the filter scores before now. I've gone and turned them down and will continue to do so and see what effect that has.
3. Posted by Christian Watson on May 31, 2006
I experienced the same problem recently with comment spam increasing on my MT blog. I added a free plugin called SCode that adds a CAPTCHA image to the comment form. It's completely prevented me from receiving any more spam. I'd highly recommend it.
4. Posted by Richard Davies on May 31, 2006
Richard - I've seen that plugin before, but have been reluctant to add this requirement for readers who want to post a comment.
General question: what's the general consensus these days on captchas?
Are they such an inconvenience that they would prevent you from posting comments, or are they becoming a necessary cost of enabling people to interact with your site?
5. Posted by Christian Watson on May 31, 2006
It seems to me that they are becoming almost a defacto standard on HTML forms because I'm seeing them used more and more frequently. It's getting harder and harder to find a form that doesn't use them.
So I think that the general internet user population is probably quickly getting accustomed to the idea of using them. I rarely see them as an inconvenience or an annoyance, except in a few rare cases when the CAPTCHA distorts the characters so much that it's hard to figure out what they actually are.
To me, the extra effort required by a user seems insignificant given the great benefit that they provide.
6. Posted by Richard Davies on May 31, 2006
I personally would have no problem taking the extra step to fill in a captcha. If I have something important to say or I have a burning question, I'll take the extra two seconds to fill that in. I say... GO FOR IT!
7. Posted by Houshang Livian on June 01, 2006
A well done CAPTCHA seems to cause no problems for me, however I have run into some where it takes 2-3 tries before all letters/numbers are actually visible.
What are the alternative method for those who are using screen readers or have poor visibility?
8. Posted by Ross Johnson on June 04, 2006
Ross: Isn't the standard way to provide an audio verion of the CAPTCHA? Blogger and Craigslist do this - but I don't know how hard it is to do.
9. Posted by Richard Quick on June 04, 2006
Yeah, blog comment spam has gotten crazy out of control! I wrote a post about this titled "Freakin Blog Spam" in February. I also receive hundreds of comment spams every day and it has gotten worse. I luckily installed spam karma which has worked surprisingly well. I now get the spam karma notice email on how many spam comments I got since the last notice instead of the regular comment notices.
There has been a surge in software that's sole purpose is spamming any open comment field it can. Another great black hat seo technique that really ruins the web.
10. Posted by Jeff on June 08, 2006