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Some Notes On Spam

February 24th, 2008

So this blog just passed 100,000 spam comments trapped by Akismet. That’s a milestone of sorts. Over the months dealing with spam I’ve seen its nature change from time to time in efforts to get past all the defenses in place.

About a month ago, my scourge was trackback spam from many blogs that were nothing but shells copying blog posts and providing a link back. Most of those splogs calmed down with the new version of Akismet.

The latest annoying spam I’ve noticed is definitely a human. They look at my list of top commentators and leave a comment that is of the same name, but links to their spammy site. Luckily I know the type of comments either Liza or Mike would leave and so a spoofy comment sticks out like a sore thumb. So ultimately the best strategy is to moderate by hand.

At the end of the day, spam is just one of those things any blogger has to deal with on a regular basis. I’ve come to a resigned feeling that it will never end but I try to stay a few steps ahead. Thanks for hanging in there as the battle rages on behind the scenes.

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  • cas
    hmmm, so I suppose the amount of spam received relative to the popularity of the site. I guess I am not very popular then! :)
  • Do you use anything outside of Akismet, or do you find that it catches most of yours? I've seen a few pieces slip through here and there on my blogs, but one gets enough that I've considered adding additional protection so I can go back to using the DoFollow plugin without worries.
  • I'm also using WordPress Hashcash and SpamKarma 2.
  • The spam you are talking about was attempt to hijack Top Commentators list to exploit shortcomings in the plugin... Did smammers got success in getting their urls to be listed on Top Commentators list? If yes you need to update the plugin...
  • Yes, their spam was successful in getting through the Top Commentators plug in. I already have the most recent version installed.
  • To fight against Top Commentators list hijacking it would be better that commentators on the list themselves watch periodically if the link is right or not and if they find link hijacked, just post another comment and that would get the link back right.
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