I am getting deluged with comment spam every day, sometimes 500 to 1,000 spam comments per day. The filter catches about 2/3 and puts them in moderation where I delete them. The spammers are smart enough to keep changing addresses so the filter does not keep up. I spend about an hour each day deleting messages and have come to the place where I will have to require registration to comment. If that doesn’t work, I will have to redesign the site. The Word Press support is very poor and they do not answer questions. There is no technical assistance telephone number. My hosting company, Blue Host, does do a good job with customer support so I will turn to them if I have to do more than turn on registration. We’ll see how this works and I’m sorry for the inconvenience. Not that many people comment anyway so one registration should do it.
Tags: spam
Its funny you posted this re spam, Mike K, because I’ve commented several times here in the past, and on occasion I’ve seen my comment one day, then deleted the next – or it hasn’t shown up at all.
I just figured they didn’t pass muster! Not sharp enough, insightful, or challenging.
🙂
I’ll keep it open for a couple of weeks. It’s looking so far that closing the old comments is cutting down on spam. We’ll see how it goes.
At our nascent WP-powered blogs at the North County Times, you have to pass a captcha to post a comment. Do you have that option?
I don’t seem to but, if what I’m doing doesn’t work, I’ll go to Blue Host for help. Word Press’ technical help is nonexistent. Maybe that’s because they have so many hobby blogs and don’t feel the need to provide service.
I read an interesting piece in the WSJ this week that landline phone companies are going into the technical help business. For $7.95 a month, you can call for help with anything from TV to computers. They have the technical people around and the landline business is declining. I think it’s a smart move.
Also, my tactic of closing comments on older posts seems to be working.
Can you use this?: http://recaptcha.net/plugins/wordpress/
I’m down to about 35 spam comments a day since I began closing comments on older posts that the spam bots found. The problem seems to be solved. We’ll see.