Everyone likes to get mail, or to see a comment on a blog post that is waiting for a response.
But
noticed lately the spam comments to hit and run with a link to another totally unrelated site? It seems drug and porn product spammers have found our MeInMaine WordPress blog to be a target to burdock with a consistent pattern of comments to steal some thunder, get noticed by search engines. Comment spam for your WordPress blog...what's the remedy short of shutting off all comments, disabling the feature altogether for a spell?
Valtrex..which even mentioning it helps their efforts to get noticed, linked too, talked about is the number one "free loader" that we get an alert for as soon as it gets planted. And like a busy bee gardener or lawnmower, we quickly weed it out. Label it spam, delete it. Usually once a day.
Anyone else seeing the same pattern and how are you dealing with in? A spam plug in to shield your blog is something the guys on the other end creating the comment spam can download, study and manipulate too. It's what they do full time for a job. And this is a new way of create links to help their cause..being paid for hook and by crook SEO using low tech, high concept ways to achieve the end result. Pills and porn top the links found in many blog comment sections.
Forcing folks to register is not going to stop the link spam practice either.
If you think just deleting the comments will eventual discourage the guy on the other end..consider that it is a robot. Not someone with high blood pressure, wearing glasses, forty pounds over weight driving a Ford Focus to work somewhere on the planet.
A program on the other end that works around the clock in salt and pepper fashion. Here and there, everywhere spam links like Johnny Link-Seed attaching his finest links to totally unrelated product or service commercial sites. Thousands, hundreds of thousands at a time. Oh.So the captcha "figure out the combination of numbers and letters" kicks in as a defensive measure in some cases. You hope. But I don't know about you, it seems some are pretty obscure. Hard to read combinations and difficult to read. And you don't always get them right the first time, second time which frustrates the blog follower. Which is not part of the plan for writing creating one, uploading posts in the first place. Here is a Word Press captcha-free option. Or the "can you add up the two numbers for a math quiz" exercise another route to foil the robots..for awhile. Until they figure out the answers to the math and program them into the link spam software.
Oh, THANK YOU Andy for that tip! I have been overrun with the bots since I transformed one website into a WP blog . . . right now I have comments disabled but that isn't the interactivity I wanted either.
I havn't experienced this problem yet but I just setup my WP blog recently. I've noticed my facebook groups get spam like crazyyy. I went to your web site to leave a comment about the cruise ship thing. (Just did that exact tour last spring on carnival.) Anywayes on WP it kept asking me to log in and my info it said was incorrect. Yet if i went to my blog chriswatters.wordpress.com - I was logged in. Weird, don't know what's going on?
Glad I'm not the only one that has this issue.
Andrew, it just seems that whatever we do to prevent these things, these fellows are quick to invent something new that circumvents our security. It's like a never-ending battle.
You don't want to disable the comments because there goes the connection with your readers, followers and it makes it one way communication. The comments like in these posts can really be even more beneficial than the lead in thread posts. Working under the hood on the MeInMaine blog to add math exercise or captcha or something new.
Its like a parasite that hitches a ride..your blog is the "host". If it is a minor irritation, you delete, spam it and put up with it. But if you don't want those sites on your comment links..which who would for porn and drug sexual enhancement remedies...geesh. You have to stay a step ahead. Plugs ins by the dozens come on line to patch in, and then chuck when something better comes along.
Thanks for the article. I learn a lot from Active Rain blogs. Best Regards,
I just found a nasty javascript re-direct on my wordpress site this morning. It was one of those slippery little "unescape" scripts. What fun.
Thankfully I could edit the header page and get rid of it.
I have one of the spam plug ins but the punk broke past it...
Like goats on the farm, they are way way too smart, treacherous. Post on you make out.
Andrew & Mike - thanks for this post! Am setting up a WP blog, and was hoping for a tool to insulate it from the trolls... This looks GREAT!