Working at Home on the Internet » Akismet

Are Comment Spammers Slacking Off?

Joe Hauckes — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 18:47:55 +0000

Probably Not…

Last February, on Super Bowl Sunday we had a Milestone around here. We hit and soon passed 100,000 Spam Comments blocked by Akismet.

In the short post marking the occasion, I mentioned a fellow blogger who had lamented about NOT getting any spam. I assured her that it was nothing to worry about, they would soon start their attack.

In the last 8 months, Spammers had been consistent enough and as of today we are at 120,223 spam comments blocked.

BUT…

For the past week, I have only been averaging 4-5 spam comments per day. What’s up with that? It WAS 40-50 minimum daily, and often times there were multiple pages of spam a day. Not that I’m complaining, but what is going on? Did I do something to offend them (I hope) or did they lose my URL (I wish). Maybe it was something else that I’m not aware of.

Some thoughts and possibilities:

I haven’t been posting as regularly as I’d like, there are days that I miss posting for various reasons (read excuses) and they lost interest.
I activated the No Index feature to stop Google indexing my feeds on FeedBurner to stop Scrapers (I have since deactivated it because I lost over 100 Subscribers and they are more important than the bad guys). Could the spammers be using the same back door?
Maybe the comment spammers run in cycles. It seems that even though they have slowed their efforts here, they have Picked Up on the MCBS Blog. I’m getting at least a page (50) spammers over there every day.
Has Akismet finally found a way to actually block comment spam so we can’t even see it? I am not sure if I’d like that, too many Real comments get caught as spam. I want to have the option of make a determination myself.

As I said, I’m not complaining! I’m just curious as to the reason for the sudden drop off of comment spam. Have you ever noticed such a phenomenon? Any other ideas? Maybe we can find a way to beat them once and for all (yeah, right)!

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Here We Go Again, Akismet Is Eating My Comments

Joe Hauckes — Wed, 23 May 2007 15:35:39 +0000

Â Way back in November of 2006, Akismet started eating my comments. I have no idea why except somewhere, somehow, I got stuck in someone’s Moderation or Spam cue and ended up being reported as Spam to Akismet.

At the time, I wrote a post about My Comments being Eaten. I got some good advice from my friends, but it just took a lot of perseverance and de-spamming to get the problem solved.

I do moderate my comments and try to de-spam everyone who makes legitimate comments, but it is starting to get a little overwhelming with well over 500 spams caught a day. It is getting to be very time consuming and takes away from other business responsibilities.

I know exactly When it started, but not Why. I was participating in Open Comment Night over as Successful Blog and had No Problems. But after I left and answered a comment on my own blog, My comment didn’t show. I immediately went into Akismet (after my last experience) to see if it was there. Shore enough, I was caught, right there in my own Akismet cue.

The last time, it went on for over a full week which led me to write a rant called Akismet Sucks. I was so fed up with not being able to comment anywhere I almost stopped using Akismet. However, not too long after that post, things started showing in my comments that I had written, then they started showing in other peoples comments on their blogs.

The problem went away all by itself, really with a lot of perseverance and monitoring of comments, and I got happy again and stayed with Akismet.

So, help me out here, if I comment on your Blog and it ends up in your spam cue, Please release me, let me go.

Hopefully, it wont take as long as the last episode. I don’t need the aggravation.

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I Was Forced To Write a Comment Policy

Joe Hauckes — Sat, 05 May 2007 14:56:27 +0000

Â Did you notice the little icon in the sidebar?

It’s been there for about 2 weeks. I thought I would quietly reward all of the people who contribute to the Blog by Commenting. And I intend to keep it there for as long as I own this site.

I never really got the reason behind “no follow” other than as a tool for the SE’s in the Fight Against Spam. Since I have Akismet, that is not really a problem any longer for me, so allowing links to get credit as a link back to the commenter is not a problem either.

However, there are always Some who try to take advantage of the kind-hearted nature of Bloggers and people that have a community built up over time by trying to get link backs for things that are Totally Unrelated to the Content of Posts or the Intent of the Blog Itself by posting Totally Irrelevant Comments just for the Sake of a Link. (sorry for the run-on sentence).

Therefore, I Have Been Forced to Write a Comment Policy. I never wanted nor did I find the need for one before, but I feel it has become a necessity. So, I will have a link to the page in the sidebar for those who have questions if I Deleted Their Comment(s).

Sorry for the inconvenience to any and all of the regulars who visit. Please don’t be discouraged from commenting. We are still a strong community and the “Do Follow” will Stay as Long as I Own This Blog.

[tags]do-follow,comments,spam,splogs,Comment Policy[/tags]

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WordPress Plug-ins I Use

Joe Hauckes — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 11:03:03 +0000

I know there are zillions of Plug-ins out there for WordPress Blogs. My problem has always been finding the useful ones to do tasks I feel I need to accomplish, in the easiest manner, and save some time. To that end, I thought I would share the Plug-ins I use to help save you having to look all over for some of the more useful Plug-ins.

These are not in any particular order of importance because each one does something unique.

Akismet… They check your comments against the Akismet web serivce to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use this service (it’s free). The only real problem I ever had with Akismet is when it ATE MY COMMENTS and it considered ME SPAM (they did fix it after some prodding). Other than that, it has saved me from almost 13,000 Spam Comments so far. What’s a little aggrevation for such a great service.

bdp-comments… It lists recent comments and posts for display in the sidebar. I am only using it for recent reader remarks at this point. With this, readers can see what conversation is going on, who’s there and what post the comments are on so they can join right in.

FD Feedburner Plugin… This is suposed to convert all RSS feeds into FeedBurner feeds for easy tracking of subscribers. I installed this last week and haven’t seen any real changes in stats. Maybe it only changes New Feeds? The jury is still out on this one.

Filosofo Uncheck Default Category… I am really glad that I found this one. It takes one of the most annoying aspects of using categories in WordPress, having to uncheck the default of Uncategorized, and Unchecks it automatically when you click a different category. Only saves 2 seconds per post, but it’s well worth installing.

In Series… Provides navigation controls for next/previous within a connected series of posts. It’s fairly easy to install and use if you do any ongoing series of posts. I never got the next/previous within the series right, but I didn’t go through all the steps of installing all of the code. It’s on the to-do list to finish, although it works fine the way I have it.

SimpleTags… This allows for the insertion of Technorati Tags within posts. Very easy install, just a little code in the post to make it work. I don’t know why it took so long to find, but you can take it with you if you want to use tags for T-rati.

Subscribe To Comments… This makes it easy to allow readers to follow conversations in comments on your blog. All they have to do is check the little box, and they will be notified of any new comments by email.

WordPress Database Backup… I don’t have to tell you how important backing up your information is. This makes backing up your WP database easy.

WP-ContactForm… When I was having tons of spam coming in through the Blog, I went on a quest to find something to alleviate the problem. This is easy to install and easy to use for your readers. And it does help keep the spam down a bit from blog email.

wp-notable… If you want to include some of the more notable Social Bookmarks like Digg, deli-o-cious, etc to your posts, this will give you choices of which ones you want to include and even show the icon for each site.

There you have it, the Plug-ins I have and use to make my day a little easier. Whether you Work at Home or just Blog for Fun, you may want to try a couple of these out for yourself.

Have you found any WP Plug-ins that make your day a little easier? Want to share?

Related Posts:

Save 10 Seconds per Post

Fighting Spam: One Step at a Time

Installing the In-Series Plug-in

Basic Tools I Use

[tags]WordPress,Plugins,Filosofo,In Series,Akismet,Simple Tags,bdp comments,WP ContactForm,wp-notable,Subscribe to Comments,FD Feedburner Plugin[/tags]

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Akismet Sucks

Joe Hauckes — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 18:15:51 +0000

When you are caught in their little web…Â

Beware: Rant Ahead…

It’sÂ no longer an inconvenience, it’s a problem.Â

Most of you already know that Akismet is eating my comments.Â Then again, how could you, Because My Comments Don’t Show Anywhere.Â I left a comment on Successful Blog for Liz, and nothing.Â I left a comment for Ben on Instigator Blog, again nothing.Â Â The same thing happened to the comment I left on ProBlogger for Darren.

Since last week, I have had problems leaving comments on Any Blog that uses Akismet.Â That means just about Everyone who has a WordPress Blog.Â Another problem is that Trackbacks don’t work either since they are part of the comment section of a Blog.Â I doubt the above links will be noticed by the respective Blogs through Trackbacks.Â They’ll never know that I linked to them unless someone happens to click the link and it shows in their stats.

Even though I can comment on my Blogs by logging in, I can’t comment anywhere else.Â That is a problem.

Trackbacks don’t show on other Blogs.Â That is a problem.

I am considered Spam by Akismet.Â That is a problem.Â

I did a test on my Blog to see what is causing me to be banned.

I tried commenting (without logging in) with my WAH Email address and the Blog address.Â No comment, is a problem.

Tried with the WAH Email and the old Blogger Blog address.Â No comment, is a problem.

How about mcbs Email and this Blog address.Â No comment, is a problem.

Last try mcbs Email and the Blogger address.Â Hey I can comment.Â Still a problem.

The same holds true on All of my WP Blogs.Â Big problem.

I don’t want to use the old Blogger Blog address.Â It’s not really active even though I didn’t delete the Blog, I never use it anymore.Â I also don’t want to have to use the mcbs Email because that is not associated with this Blog.Â I want to use the Email that goes with the Domain I bought.

I am not sure, but I think that this has something to do with the Email Spammers that have Hijacked my Email from the Domain.Â But, my Email still works, so I don’t know.Â It could be the Domain itself that is showing as Spam, so the Email doesn’t work in comments because it is associated with it.

I did as the FAQ on Akismet’s site suggests and De-Spammed my Comments.Â I have done that for a solid week.Â I also sent them 2 Emails asking for some help with this problem.Â As of 5 seconds ago, no answer from them.Â I am out of options, hence, this Post and Title, maybe I can attract their attention and get an answer on how to fix this that works.

Update:Â Last night Carolyn asked if I commented on their Blog.Â I did, and it took.Â It was still there last night when I signed off for the night.

Today, the Comment Is Missing.Â If it showed last night, it passed the Spam test.Â They must have deleted it because it was not a favorable remark.Â It seems that they don’t like criticism, they will edit it out if they don’t like your opinion.