Has anyone else been getting excessive spam over the last week?
They used to go directly to the spam box but are now popping up in the comments. Out of desperation, I turned on word verification with the last post. Please tell me there's another way around it because I hate those squiggly words and numbers almost as much as spam.
How are those of you without even comment moderation keeping spam out?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
5 Hours Later. Step 1.
Thank you Jan, Kirsten, Jean, Ra, Anny and Friko for your advice.
Have removed word verification YAY! It worked though. No spam the whole night. (Of course, hardly any comments as well BWAH haha!)
Since the latest explosion of spam has all been Anonymous, I am now trialling using only Registered Users as suggested by Kirsten. Hope it works!
If anyone reading this has problems commenting, please let me know. Perhaps by email? If it sucks mightily, I shall try something else.
24 Hours Later. Amazing.
Not a single spam since I changed the setting. Not even in the spam box. It definitely works. Downside? Comments have also drastically dropped. I have no idea if it's because other people are also finding commenting too much of an effort now, or if it's seasonal. According to the stats, the number of hits has actually gone up! One of life's mysteries.
I also wonder how or if this affects Bert and Olivia and Petey, whose lovely comments always seem to end up in the spam box. Maybe they'll be kind enough to drop me a comment (or send me an email if that doesn't work) so I can find out.
Googled Akismet (thanks Bunny and Kristine) which has some interesting reading about what spam really is. Unfortunately, Akismet doesn't seem to work with Blogger. Not for the first time, I wish I'd started blogging with Wordpress. I might try a new setting with the next post. Am in a mood to experiment. Wheeeee!
Another 15 hours has gone by.
It's been so quiet. I just published a new post and reinstated the original comments setting. BOOM! In 15 minutes, the spam came back. So no go yet. *sigh sigh sigh* I have to be patient.
Haven't found anything that allows me to close comments on older posts either, as a couple of you suggested. Could that be a wordpress feature?
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.jpg)
19 comments:
I hate word verification too--it is a real deterrent to commenting on many blogs I like to visit! I have avoided the word verification route by going to my blogger Settings, then Posts and comments, and under "who can comment?" changing from "anyone" to "registered user." I hope this hasn't prevented any of my blog friends from commenting, but I don't think it has, and it has eliminated spam comments.
I'll endure your word verification below, for now :)
I resorted to the hellish word verification because of spam, but I've also had to stop checking the box on other blogs that notifies me when there is a new comment on a post I've also commented on. One of those blogs, without word verification or moderation, recent was receiving up to two hundred spam comments a day!!
You'd think in this age of high tech and well paid computer gurus, someone would be able to find a way to put an end to this nonsense. Surely the companies that own the blogspace can trace the IPs and block them?
Harrroooo mates, we've set owner moderation for comments on posts older than one week and left posts younger than one week unmoderated. We've noticed that this filters out most of it. Play bows,
RA
Actually..the spam buster on blogger works very well. Why are you getting those spams i do not know. Maybe spams are lobing your site :D
and seriously.. i hate word verification... i can't see them very well.. mebbe i use the sound thingy... my ears are still good still...
am i spamming you with a long comment now? hehehhehee
missya both.. + cushion too!
I keep getting lots of Anonymous but as they automatically go into my email, I can delete them there without opening them.
I have a lot more now than ever before.
THANK YOU KIRSTEN, JEAN, RA, ANNY AND FRIKO for braving Word Verification and for your advice :D I might have to try the different ways you've suggested and see which is the least disruptive.
ANNY, Blogger spam used to work beautifully. That all changed about 2 weeks ago and has gotten completely out of hand in the past week.
FRIKO, Anonymous spam is what I'm now gettting. They come in as fast as I can delete them. Quite different from the ones I used to get, these are blocks of nonsense and less entertaining.
Wow I'll have to remember this post and the helpful comments typist, in case this spam business ever happens to me (which it hasn't) but gosh I'm wondering if its only a matter of time. What is spam? Comments that are advertising oriented? I really don't know and let's hope I never do.
I was upset enough when a couple of emails came through (supposedly) from people I know!!
I thought because you, and lots of other blog owners had the "blog approval" thing that that stopped anything?
@ Ann - the sound thingy is even harder to decipher than the printed word verification!
ROSE - Blogger's spam block has worked perfectly well till now. I thought moderating the comments helped as well, but obviously not. Some of the spam I used to get was quite funny, actually. These days, they're all anonymous blocks of info and yes, advertising. May you be spared this horror!
JEAN - I've never tried the sound thingy myself. I often have to change the word and number though. Nothing stops me commenting on blogs I love :D
It's a little different for me, because I'm on Wordpress, but spam is a huge pain! One unexpected benefit of the problems I had last week with the blog seems to be that the ones who were hitting me so hard moved on. I was getting over a thousand spam comments on a certain page a day. I was ready to delete it and redo it in hopes of getting rid of all of them, but a day of not being able to post at all seems to have ruined the fun for them. None of them ever make it to the blog -- I have Akismet for that, but I still try to look through them and make sure a legitimate comment hasn't been blocked by mistake. Ugh! Anyway, I hate spam with the fire of a thousand burning suns!
BUNNY - A thousand spam messages a page a day? Good lord. I am immediately going to stop complaining! I haven't had a single spam since shutting comments down last night. No one else is commenting either but I think I prefer the quiet over the intrusions :)
Hope you have sorted the problem out, nothing more annoying than Spam! Thankfully I have a Secretary to deal with these issues for me...lol.
Yep, the spam has definitely been getting worse lately. If I didn't have Akismet I don't know how I would handle it. Nasty. I hope you are able to defeat the spammy monsters!
We've noticed a huge influx of SPAM -- and not the spam in a can either. Spam -- neither kind -- does not make me wag.
:)
Tootsie
was going to tell you that i hate word verification too. I just moderate comments on both blogs. That helps to keep the spam away!
THANK YOU EVERYBODY!
KRISTINE - I just googled Akismet. Unfortunately, it appears to be a Wordpress thing. Not for the first time, I wish I had started blogging with WP!
Howdy Georgie, we hardly get any Spam. Don't know why. Glad yours is sorted though. We hate the word verification thingy too. We're having a bloomin hot day today. Hope you are cool. No worries, and love, Stella and Rory
Spamming has become a real problem lately. On The Daily Oskar which is a Wordpress blog we are getting about 100 spam comments a day!
The spam filter catches most of them, but it's a real pain to go through them all & delete them.
Nubbin wiggles,
Oskar
Ahhh. If only I had something useful to add here but I am with Wordpress and the only thing going 'round my head now is 'SPAM spam spam spam SPAM spam spam spam'. Curse you Monty Python.
Post a Comment