Reporting Spam Blogs – Splogs

Quick Online Tips recently posted “How to Complain and Report Spam Blogger Blogs”, a good look at the procedures you need to take to report, and hopefully remove, splogs. A splog is a “spam blog”, a blog that copies content from other blogs without permission (though there might be a link back), using that content […]

Katrina Comment Spam Assaults Blogs

WordPress does an amazing job battling comment spam, reinforced with a couple powerful comment spam fighting WordPress Plugins if you need them. But the comment spammers are always looking for an angle to get in and make your life miserable. Katrina based comment spam is now hitting blogs around the world. The problem is compounded […]

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 […]

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 […]

Disclosure Now Required on Blogs, Twitter, and Other Social Media Sites

With the news that the UK is cracking down on those blogging and tweeting for pay without disclosure, and California law making online impersonation potentially illegal, social media and blogging are taking a hit. In summary, if you pretend to be someone you aren’t, famous or not, or blog about a product or service for […]

Blogs Offer Communication, Information, and Connections During Disasters

Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today just called me from Northern Louisiana to report that he and his family have survived the evacuation from their home in Shreveport, Louisiana, though Hurricane Gustav appears to have done more damage where they evacuated to rather than where they left from. Jonathan and I were both victims of Hurricane […]

Power Blogging Tips: Comment on Blogs From Within Google Feed Reader

One of the most frustrating aspects of reading blogs through feed readers is the process of commenting on blogs. The typical step-by-step process is: Scan through the blog post titles. Find an interesting title and click on the title to open it and read. Want to respond or read more? Open the post title in […]

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 […]

Is It Time For You To Consolidate Your Blogs?

I’d Rather Be Writing offers “My Blog and Podcast Site Are Now Merged into One — Steps on How I Did It”, an interesting step-by-step guide on combining two WordPress blogs into one, with tips for combining a podcast blog with a regular WordPress blog. Maintaining two sites was burdensome. Whenever I published a new […]

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 […]

Do Business Blogs Need Help Pages?

By Greg Balanko-Dickson I was wondering what might happen if a blog or website had a set of help pages? We expect help pages when using a software or web application. We see About pages and FAQ on blogs but how often do we see a set of “Help” pages on a business blog? Never? […]

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.

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 […]