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Wednesday, May 21, 2014

How I Deal with Spam Comments

A while back, I started getting an insane amount of spam comments on my blog. Like, crazy insane amounts. I was getting over a dozen spams a day! For a small blogger like me, that seems like an unreasonable amount.



The spam comments are easy to spot...they generally don't make grammatical sense. Also they don't make logical sense, like this one...

"Yo man! How fun to visit your site since we blog about a lot of the same stuff. Visit my site: surfboards for sale"

Um...in what lifetime did I blog about surfboards, surfing, or anything along those lines?? NEVER, obviously!

I almost never got any spams that were inappropriate, and I was fortunate that most of these spam comments were caught by my spam filter. (I just use the default spam settings that come with Blogger.) Every so often one would slip through, and with the amount of spam increasing, the ones slipping through were increasing as well. Even though the comments weren't bad, I want to run a professional, intentional blog, and comments that aren't even close to grammatically correct isn't something I want people visiting my blog to see first thing!

"Excellent beat ! I would like to apprentice while yyou amend your site, how can i subscribe for a blog site? The account helped me a acceptable deal. I had bewen tiny bbit acquainted of this your broadcast offered bright clear idea"
(Yes, that is literally a spam comment I got this week.)

I finally got so fed up with so much spam each day, that I broke the blogging rules and turned on the dreaded captcha.

Not sure what I mean by a captcha? It is sometimes called "word verification," and it looks something like this:
via

I don't know about you, but it is hard to comment on blogs with the captcha turned on. It wastes precious time spent visiting blogs, and gets very frustrating when I can't read the words! A general rule of good blogging is "turn word verification OFF"...but what if you are getting spam? What then, oh blogging guru??

Here is how I handled it:

I tried just leaving the word verification on for a while, to deter the spammers. But when I turned it back on, the spam comments started again. :( Of course!

I really didn't want to turn that back on, so instead, I started moderating comments for posts that are over 14 days old. 

Generally, spam comments come on old posts...even posts a couple years old. Very rarely do they pop up on new content...I don't know why! So now, comments on posts over 2 weeks old have to be moderated by me before they are published. If they are spam, I just delete them. If not, I publish them so they appear on the post.

Let me show you how to set these settings in blogger (not sure what this looks like for you WP people, sorry!)


1. On your blog dashboard click on "settings" (bottom left) and then "posts and comments."

2. In the comment moderation section, select "sometimes" and then enter a number in the box. Set this for whatever you prefer! You can also have your moderation requests sent to your email if that is easier for you.

3. Make sure the "show word verification" box is set to NO!!!!! :)

This should take care of most of your spam! It has drastically reduced the amount of spam I get, and for those that try to slip through the moderation settings stop them from getting posted.

If you are a blogger, do you get many spam comments? How to you control them and respond to them? What comment settings work best for you?


Linked up with the Weekend Wind-Down, Link Party Palooza, Say G'Day, From Dream to Reality

8 comments:

  1. I actually moderate all my comments...if someone has commented before theirs will be allowed through in the future. So new commentors have to be approved the first time around (I have WP). I have weird times when my spam seems to pick up and I get a ton on one post, and then it stops for no apparent reason. Which is totally fine with me, haha. But this way, I can control the spam behind the scenes and no one sees it except me, 'cause ya, those weird, misspelled, non-sensical comments are seriously annoying! LOL

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    1. Great strategy! Glad you've found a method that works for you. Sometimes I seriously wonder what kind of person/robot writes those comments, lol!

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  2. That sounds like a smart idea! I've been getting several hundred more spam comments every day and it's driving me crazy! I do have to say that my spam plugin (Akismet) catches all of them and has about a 99% accuracy. So when I've got too many spam to go through, I just delete them all hoping I didn't delete a true comment!

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    1. Wow, that is a TON of spam! Glad you have a reliable filter to catch them.

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  3. Wow, you really did get some weird comments from spammers! I do the same as you and moderate comments that over 14 days old. I don't get too many now thank goodness.

    My Say G'day Saturday linky party has just started and this would be a great post to share. Please pop by and say g'day if you have a minute!

    Best wishes for a great weekend,
    Natasha in Oz

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    Replies
    1. Thanks for inviting me, Natasha, I'll pop on over! Have a great holiday weekend. :)

      Delete

I appreciate you taking the time to comment! Some comments may need to be moderated, so don't be alarmed if your comment doesn't pop up right away. I can't wait to hear from you!