Howdy, folks. I’m sure you’ve noticed that there has been a bit more comment spam over the last few months. It annoys me as much as you, possibly more, because there have been cases where spam comments have embedded viruses, implemented code that allows hijacking of the blog code, etc. What to do about it, though?
Akismet is one of the primary apps blogs use to catch spam. It’s been running around 97% effective since a big update earlier in the year, which means either a) it’s not as effective as it was, or b) comment spammers are finding ways to circumvent Akismet. So, I have to manually remove them. The other big app is Bad Behavior. Between the two, they are catching well over 7000 spam comments/trackbacks/pingbacks a week. Usually more.
I do have a few other minor apps that do other things, but, sadly, none can catch everything. There are a few measures I can take, but would prefer not to. I can ramp Bad Behavior up to strict, but that might catch legit comments.
I can require registration using a few different methods. Internal WordPress. A different plugin I use that already allows users to comment using their existing faceboook, twitter, etc, accounts, but this would force registration, rather than anonymous. If spam comments increase (I’m deleting 10 or less a day), I may implement Disqus. Which might allow other features, such as threaded comments (the theme I use will not allow it without major rewrite, and I like the way it works otherwise)
I could add another comment spam plugin, though, really, Akismet is the best. This is probably what I’ll look at first.
I could use some sort of captch. People tend to hate them, but I have a deactivated one that is easy to use. Rather not go back to it.
What are your thoughts?
