Website Hammered by Hotlinking, Spammers, and Free Loaders?

My main site recently was hammered by Hotlinking, Spammers, and Free Loaders. This can happen to any website, so we all need to learn how to keep an eye on potential abuse of our sites. Hotlinking Images Hotlinking is the technique of linking to images on your site for use offsite. That’s the simple description. […]

WordPress School: Sharing WordPress Links

In Lorelle’s WordPress School many participants are active in our WordPress School Google+ Community and eager to share links to their work on their test site for others in the group to review their work and help them or support and encourage them. Or just to brag and show off, which we enjoy as well. […]

WordPress Anniversary: Comment Spam Lessons

It’s hard to believe that I’ve learned much from comment spammers over the years. I’ve learned that they are among the most hated folks in the world, yet you have to respect them as well. As I look back on ten years of blogging with WordPress on this 10th Anniversary year, I realized that comment […]

Blog Exercises: Does Your Site Look Spammy?

Does your site look spammy? How would you know whether or not your site looks spammy? It’s time for a spam check. Web design is hard, especially if you aren’t an expert. Yet, in many ways you are an expert if you are a fan of the web. You’ve seen enough sites to know the […]

The Secret Recipe of Comment Spam Comments

Mr. Louis Vuitton just sent me a message in my blog comments I’d like to share with you. I share this touching message because it is highly educational when it comes to the art of spam comments, and serves to remind us of why we love having Akismet, the best comment spam fighter, on our […]

Blogrolls Gone in WordPress. How to Save Your Links.

For the past few months, rumors were flying that WordPress was going to remove the Links/Blogroll feature of WordPress. As of August 2012, it is now gone from many WordPress.com. MacManx, Happiness Engineer at WordPress.com, recently stated: The Links section was removed from the core WordPress.org software, which means that it will probably be removed […]

Do Not Delete Comment Spam. Mark Spam as Spam.

Is comment spam one of the things that gets you down? Are you taking it personally? Are you confused by comment spam and how to handle it? I’ve been speaking at a variety of meetups lately on web publishing, blogging, and podcasting, and the topics often turn to managing comments and comment spam. “I’ve started […]

WordPress News: Lots of WordPress Releases, Love Blogging and WordPress Contest, Scott Wallick, Akismet News, Permalinks, and More

This week’s Blog Herald WordPress News is WordPress News: Release Week News, WordPress 2.7.1, BuddyPress, WordPress MU, and More Releases, and I’ve covered a lot of WordPress news you can use: It’s Release Week. WordPress 2.7.1 Beta 1 released for testing. WordPressMU updated. BuddyPress Beta 2 released. WP Scanner beta released. WordPress.com releases January stats. […]

Comment Spam Alert: I Read a Similar Article

Bloggers should now be familiar with the blog comment spam ruse of “X wrote an interesting post” to lure us into thinking this is a legitimate trackback, and now comes “I read a similar article also named…” to lure us into thinking this comment is legitimate. As Tony Hung illustrated, the comment spammers use a […]

Spinning Spammers Steal Our Blog Content

Last week, an article I wrote for the Blog Herald, Blogging Outside of Your Community By Not Blogging in Your Native Tongue, caught the attention of more than just the readers. It caught the attention of the staff of the Blog Herald by attracting a very unusual trackback from a new kind of copyright violating […]

When Akismet Goes Bad: What to do when Akismet starts spamming your own comments

The reason why I created Akismet Auntie Spam helper script was because I seem to have a problem few other people do — every couple of months Akismet decides that my own comments and trackbacks are spam. This is unforgivable and a fatal usability flaw in Akismet’s design. Comments and trackbacks from the blog admin should skip the spam check process. I challenge anyone who argues differently to have to deal with always having to double check if their own comments are marked as spam. The delay between posting a comment and it appearing in Akismet almost always assures that you will miss one or there will be an inordinate delay in responding to your commenters.

But enough of the ranting about my problems with Akismet. Here are two things you can do to help when Akismet is marking your own comments as spam.

Banning a WordPress Spammer With .htaccess

By John Pozadzides (“How the heck is that pronounced?!?”) Uugh. I’ve got this problem comment spammer. Today alone he posted over 1,000 comment spams on my blog. You can imagine how I felt about that. Did I mention I am a Marine (Semper Fi)! So, even though Akismet was doing it’s job, I was about […]

Fighting Comment Spam: WordPress Comments Mass Edit Mode

Every once in a while, the comment spammers win. Just a little. They use new techniques, new IP addresses, some method that slips by Akismet and other comment spam fighting tools. Your Comments Panel overflows with comment spam. After marking 10 or 20 as comment spam, your natural inclination is to fire off an angry […]

Checking WordPress for Comment Spam That Slips By You

A six month old post got a comment yesterday. Responding to the comment, I noticed a comment spam above it with obscene language in it. Specifically, a request for fetish sex. I was so embarrassed that this person had left a comment and saw that as the last comment. I’m so fussy about monitoring for […]

Terms of Use and Universal Comment Link Philosophy

By John Pozadzides Are you like me? Do you rant and rave against SPAMmers? Do you keep a loaded sidearm at the ready in case you encounter one? If so… please seek help, you’re taking this too far! 🙂 But I digress. You see, for the last several days my blog was being absolutely accosted […]