Comments on: Comment Spam Alert: I Read a Similar Article

By: Editing Spam — Skillett.com

Editing Spam — Skillett.com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:34:48 +0000

[...] read an interesting post today by Lorelle at WordPress (now given the article Lorelle wrote that will sound just like spam, but it’s not….. [...]

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 20:49:41 +0000

@ doggerelist: Identical comments as comment spam have been around for a very long time. In fact, it is the oldest method since it only does one thing. Luckily, enough savvy bloggers are spotting these and reporting them as spam, so there is a huge database record, and rarely do these get through. Most of the ones you find are there because the blogger is no longer blogging, thus not paying attention, or they are old and the blogger hasn't re-processed their spam queue now that the spam flighting databases have updated.

By: doggerelist

doggerelist — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:26:18 +0000

One good way of telling whether a particularly vague comment is spam or not is to google a long phrase from the comment – when I did that recently I found identical comments (albeit with different signatures – be warned) on more than 200 other WP blogs….

By: David Bradley

David Bradley — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:31:09 +0000

One very obvious giveaway (aside from duplicate IP addresses) is when a spammer replies to their own comments *before* you've approved either. It's a creative idea, this conversational spam, but so easy to spot if you hold comments for moderation. I suspect they do slip through on sites that don't use mod.

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:05:49 +0000

@ Jim: CAPTCHAs have been repeatedly proven to not work. I'm sorry you are bored with discussions of comment spam. I'm also tired of it, but as you can see from the comments, a lot of people were unaware. New bloggers enter the market constantly and I serve the beginners who are learning everything for the first time. Thus, there will be some redundancy from time to time, especially when the new techniques that are being used (based on old but getting smarter and smarter) are getting by normally diligent bloggers.

By: Jim

Jim — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:28:14 +0000

First of all I used to love your site and I know your a big time blogger but the spam stuff is getting old. This type of link spam has been around quite a while. Spam sucks but shouldn’t you be using you 10,000 readers to sav the world or something. Or at least feed the hungry.

It’s easy. Use captcha to catch as many as you can. Most people are taking the time to leave a comment to get at least something out of it and most times it’s links.

By: David

David — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 21:55:07 +0000

If it is alright to take away parts of the comment what about adding to it? Something very thoughtful and complimentary for the author of the blog to enjoy for awhile. Something to let his other readers know what, perhaps, they can aspire to…

Just kidding.

By: Lorelle VanFossen

Lorelle VanFossen — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:18:00 +0000

90%! That’s great! New blogs tend to get more comment spam through, though I’m not sure why. I’ve had the same issue with new blogs, but in time, more and more are caught. I’ve not actually counted a ratio of those that get through to those caught as the numbers change daily. Some days, all comment spam are caught, some days, only a few get through. Then other days, a ton gets through and I just switch to the Mass Edit View and go through them quickly.

Comment spammers are working overtime to come up with ways to get comment spam through, as evidenced by this article. With thousands of attacks on my blogs daily, a 10% through rate is awesome compared to a 90% through rate.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 18:02:33 +0000

Spam, akismet gets 90% for me. Maybe when my site gets more popular.

By: Keiron

Keiron — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:49:38 +0000

Akismet is only as good as the people using it..

Personally I quite like it, even if it can be a little over (or under) zealous some days. I haven’t found another solution that is as reliable.

Interestingly I run some email servers and one of the biggest problems I see is AOL users who have received a mail that doesn’t interest them (even if they subscribed to the mailing list in the first place!).
These users will often hit the “Delete as Spam” button, this has a knock on effect back to AOL’s servers, get a few of these marked against your mail server’s IP address and you might find that none of your users can send email to AOL users for a few days!
All because the error was between the keyboard and the chair!