Tag Archives: Spam

Imagine life with Akismet!

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I keep getting blown away by how awesome Akismet is. I run a number of different blogs and without Akismet spam management would just innundate me with work. Akismet has kept all my blogs clean for years and year; and you don’t realise just how awesome it is until you see all the spam that it has captured for you. For example, on Ugh!!’s Greymatter Honeypot Akismet has caught more than 150,000 spam comments. Imagine the time and effort that would have been needed if I were to try and manage those comments myself.

I must admit, with that volume of spam, I don’t actually check my spam folder for false positives. There might have been an important comment about New Orleans hotel deals while I was going there, but I just wouldn’t have picked it up. The reality is, however, that with that amount of spam, I’m winning in the long run anyway.

Top 5 WordPress Spam Killer Plugins

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Do you ever receive any comments on your blog that don’t seem to make sense? Do you get any of those that have a whole chunk of links to site you don’t particularly care about? How about when you get a sequence of identical comments from the same stranger? Well, they are all comment spam that every blogger will receive at some point. And the more popular your blog, the more spam you’re going to get.

So, what can you do about it? Well, there are a few great plugin out there designed to keep you spam free. Here are some top choices:

  • Akismet – Akismet comes as a standard plugin which ships with WordPress. It’s a pretty effective barrier against spam and analyses comments and blogger reactions from tens of thousands of blogs on the Internet to decide whether a comment is spam or not.
  • WP-SpamFree – This plugin works by blocking bots from accessing your website. It uses a combination of Javascript and cookies which don’t affect a real user’s experience on your website but which provide a formidable defense against scripted attacks.
  • Bad Behaviour – This is not just a WordPress plugin but can be used on other websites too. It uses a bot blocking technique with an added flavour. It also checks that the signature on the caller to make sure they are legitimate. For example, if a bot claims to be a Google crawler, it checks the source IP address the bot is coming from to ensure it really is being sent by Google.
  • Sabre – Sabre is a plugin that you can use if you require commentors to be be registered. The registration form is made spam proof using anti-bot measures and  also includes a CAPTCHA form to ensure registrations belong to real people. I’ve never really used this, so look forward to any more feedback from people who have used it in anger.
  • Antispam Bee (english translation) – Antispam Bee is an interesting plugin. It works on a very simple premise. It changes the comment field to something else which makes it invisible to bots. Normal users won’t notice that something has changed, but it provides a barrier for spam that few bots and match.

Interesting plugins, all of which use different techniques to keep your blog spam free. So if you keep receiving comments about pharmaceuticals, Ecco shoes or a competition to win a stink bombs, one or a combination of these plugins can help keep you blog squeaky clean.