Jul 22 2008
Ms. Spam-a-Lot
My WordPress Akismet Spam plugin has finally reached over 100K on the comment spam.
Actually, that’s probably kinda low since I’m not exactly a high-traffic blog!
I used to check the comments that were marked as spam. At about 200-500 spam comments day…too many to review so I just delete ‘em all without looking.
Does spam work? I don’t see how it works, I don’t click on any of that stuff. But then I’m not into shopping (cars, shoes, purses, clothes…) or drugs or videos (XX+XY, XX+XX, XY+XY, XY+XX+XX, XY+pretty much anything you can think of and beyond) or enhancements.
If you have no idea what the heck I’m referring to, I’m glad. You’re in a Happy Place!
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Oh man! That’s a lot of spam that has been caught. Akismet is reporting that it’s caught over 18K on my blog, but like you, I’m not a real high traffic blog either. I actually am not sure if that’s quite right because it also says that there are over 1,300 comments sitting in the spam queue right now. Hm…
Well whatever the case, I don’t like spam either. I also don’t think that it works. But I guess since it costs so little to put out, they must be making something off of it, right?
I actually listened to a piece on BBC News about spam and why it works. If I’m remembering correctly, Derek, that’s exactly it: only some tiny fraction of a percent (as in not EVEN ONE PERCENT) of spam has to work to make it cost effective because it costs so little to put out. So the story is, if no one responded at all, it would stop. But some tiny, tiny percentage of people DO respond to it, so we all have to cope with the aftermath. At least, that’s what I got from the piece.
Actually, this is making me miss Frogger, especially his male enhancement post. That was so funny. Do you ever hear from him?
Derek: Well…my blog has been around since Sept 2006 and when I started it, I barely got spam. I started to get spam maybe 3 months into it when I started linking and being more “social” - then I got noticed. I think spam bots or whatever find you faster via links to and from your blog. Just a guess.
I know that HMTKSteve of HMTK.com gets lots more spam.
Jill: Dang on people responding to spam but it makes sense - commercials, mass mailings, they are all counting on the tiny percentage. With online spam - it’s really cheap! So it’s probably worth it.
I did email Frogger but his email spam may have caught my email! So no..never heard from him. I remember that male enhancement post and his being able to bbq and fix stuff afterwards. He was funny and nice and very talented writer! Whacky!
That’s a lot of spam. I get all of twelve a day, if that many. Usually on older posts though.
I only broke 6k the other day.
Yeah that’s probably all true about getting there via links. In fact, I know that to be true.
Actually I also realized that awhile ago I changed the target of my comment form to try to thwart some of the would-be spammers. That is, since all Wordpress blogs have the same exact structure, I changed it up a bit. (This might be too much information, but) in the target of the comment form, it’s going to something more like wp-comments-no-spam-post.php instead of the usual wp-comments-post.php. Unfortunately, that also means that I must update that every time I update Wordpress. All this does, though, is add a tiny barrier to spammers.
I also add a comment-timeout (via a plugin) that will redirect comments to old posts (old is defined by me) to my spam queue. Of course, you check all comments first so that’s a moot issue.
Anyways, so have you been more social (online) lately?
There is always some sucker out there that will fall for spam. But most of us do not. I think it’s very cheap to use spam however so it’s here to stay.
Whew!! that’s a lot of spam. It seems like Wordpress gets hammered FAR more by these ad comments. Wonder why?
My golf blog has had only 700 readers in the last 30 days, yet the spam is high. My blogger blogs rarely ever get unwanted comments. (because I love comments)
Hope your week is a great one,
Eric
Yes, I do get lots of spam comments!
Current count: Akismet has caught 1,207,533 spam for you since you first installed it.
Yay! I can comment on your blog! I can’t do almost anything else on the internet, but I can be just as chatty as I please here at Qmusings cafe…
UT: Ever since I wrote this post it seems I get even more spam. Huh.
Derek: I’ve read about changing the database or WP structure (read a tip somewhere) but never implemented it. Akismet is pretty good with catching stuff plus I have “moderate all comments ” on which helps.
I’ve been LESS social online these days! I want to comment on blogs (like yours, Urban Thought’s, Ricardo’s, Jill, Speedy!!) but have been a bit tired creatively.
Ricardo: Yeah, there are many people who will fall for spam and I feel sorry for the folks that aren’t so savvy or get easily confused by computers. I think that this is what these spammers hope for.
Speedy!! Dunno why WP gets so hammered. I don’t have a WP hosted blog, either. Week was pretty good! Looking forward to a great next week.
HMTKSteve: Dang! on your spammage count.
Jill: Glad you can comment here even if you can’t access anywhere else. Always nice to have you visit me!!