Spam, Bad
For whatever reason, my blog gained tremendous traffic this past week. Unfortunately, it was in the form of spambots trying to spam the comments. I quickly grew weary of deleting upwards of 50 spam comments per day, so the options were: (1) quit blogging, (2) turn off comments or (3) sign up with Akismet.
Akismet won out. I should have probably signed up a long time ago, but spam wasn’t too much of a problem until this past week. Only one spam comment slipped through since I’ve been using Akismet. It’s nice not to get notices that I have comments pending, only to get excited I’ve got new readers and then subsequently have the rug pulled from under that excitement when I see it was nobody but the spammers.
Now, I have removed the “Money from Spam” list in the sidebar to make room for the little block that tells you how many spam comments were blocked, which stands at 462 right now (was 460 only moments ago). In case anyone is still interested in that final tally, here it is:
- Money: $56,317,120.38
- Loans: $5,052,000.00
When I first activated Akismet, it found over 900 spam comments (which appeared to be all the comments I marked as “spam” previously). I assume that was for the lifetime of the blog. Compare that with the 462 spam comments it blocked since activation, which was just this week! That should tell you how popular I’ve become among the spambots!
So, if you’re using WordPress and are getting hot and bothered by spam, activate your Akismet plugin if you’ve not done so already. It appears to be well worth it.
Hey DCR, I also use Akismet. I use it in combination with Math Spam. The Math Spam plug I’d say almost completely stopped the spam I was getting. If you don’t like the Math Spam plugin, they have other types.
That was one of the things I looked at before deciding to try Akismet first. Akismet is currently doing a good job at blocking spam, so I’d prefer not to add anything else for users to wade through, if I don’t have to.
Dan:
I too use math Spam to block spam. However, I am getting so many trackback spam, which some stole my blog content and links back to me.
I really hate those new type of splugs.
I get a small amount of the trackback spam too. I’m going to keep an eye on it. If it gets worse, I may start filing DMCA complaints.
akismet has stopped something like 500 or more spam comments on my blog in a little over 3 months. i can’t imagine what will happen when my traffic to my site goes up
Be afraid. Be very afraid. It’s already blocked over 500 comments just this week–and the week’s not over yet!
Akismet = good. I also have Bad Behavior, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t do much. Maybe Akismet stops everything from getting through and BB has nothing to do?
Maybe Akismet works too well. It just blocked one of my own comments as spam! Must be “Sorry.” followed by an URL that triggers a filter.
[...] Dan fights spam and wins [...]
Akismet is teh R0xor. Since I implemented it, it has blocked over 100,000 spam. I have moderation turned on, and every few days one or two get through Akismet and into moderation. I would estimate that Akismet misses less than 1%. Very happy with it.
For some reason I don’t seem to have much problem with trackback spam. Or maybe I’m just not aware of it.
Akismet rocks.
I’ve been lucky enough so far and havn’t had too much spam comments, Now having said that just might had jinxed it