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Luv the Comments — Hate the Bots

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LoneWolf (aka Bill Nickerson) is a contract programmer, web designer and trainer. He is on his way to becoming a blogger and writer. He is getting an awful lot of hats to wear (metaphorically speaking). He is a follower of Jesus, a lover of his wife and children, passionate about golf, hockey, reading and writing. And other stuff too ...

Bill has written 2 articles for ComLuv.com
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December 19, 2011 By 47 Comments
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Attack comment spam

I have several WordPress sites up and running — none of them is spectacularly busy … yet 8=)

But I do have to battle with comment spam a lot. And I can’t imagine what it’s like for someone with a busy site to manage.

Luv the Comments

As a blogger, comments are something that I crave. They have so many benefits:

  • They help your SEO
  • They keep readers engaged (and coming back)
  • They introduce you to new and interesting people
  • You can learn from the commentors
  • They validate your writing

I’m sure you can come up with many other things that blog comments do for you.

So it’s natural that we want to encourage comments on our blogs. We write calls to action. We use plugins like CommentLuv to encourage other bloggers to participate. We do-follow their links. We respond to as many of the comments as we can.

Hate the Bots

But then there is the dark side — comment spam.

I remember the first time that I got a spam comment. It really made me feel good because I had no idea what it was. All I knew was that someone had commented. “Great post!” or something along those lines was all it said. But when I checked my stats I realized that the page in question hadn’t seen any traffic.

Bots! Comment spamming bots had found my blog.

As I continued on in my blogging career, I stumbled across such things a Akismet, Captchas, Blacklists, etc. But each of these have their drawbacks and the bots just keep coming. Many have even resorted to using nofollow for comment links to discourage comment spam. Some have even gone so far as to turn comments off. Ouch!

“Why can’t we find a way to keep out the bots that doesn’t punish our readers?” was my lament.

Then I had an idea. Having a programming background, I understood a bit of the inner workings of WP, plugins, etc. Probably enough to be dangerous 8=) But I had an idea that I knew was a bit beyond what I could do myself at the time, but I knew it was possible:

What if the PHP file that is run to submit a comment had a way to see if it had been called by the blog itself rather than directly by a bot?

Because that’s what the bots do — they call the comment submission script directly.

Anti-Captcha Plugin Fights Comment Spam Bots!

Well, someone smarter than me (yes, one of the 3 that are out there in this world 8=) came up with a plugin that does the trick. Filidor Wiese has written Anti-Captcha to help fight off the comment spam bots.

It works by adding some javascript that creates a special token (known as a nonce) which the comment submission form needs to read. It all happens quietly in the background without the user knowing that it’s taking place.

Since most bots don’t read javascript at this time, it effectively blocks them from even appearing in your moderation queue.

It isn’t a perfect solution. For one, it won’t work for legitimate users if they’ve disabled javascript or block cookies. It doesn’t stop those who manually add comment spam either. And if it becomes popular enough, the bot writers will find a way around it 8=(

But for now, it can help reduce your daily chores when moderating comments. You’ll have less comment spam so give it a test run and see how it works for you!

Female Warrior 3 image by EdwinP at stock.xchng

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Comments

  1. Ileane
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 19, 2011 at 3:55 pm

    Hi Bill, It’s a pity that some people feel they need to send spambots out on our blogs and websites in order to get noticed on the web.

    As you might know, I’m using CommentLuv Premium and the GASP that’s built-in keeps the spambots away. You should give it a try!

    I see a lot of bloggers using the plugin you mentioned and I get a little annoyed when I see the CAPTCHA and especially when it’s hard to read and I never know if it’s case-sensitive or not, so most of the time I don’t bother with it.

    Well at least the good thing is that you haven’t turned off comments completely. Best wishes with your blog.
    Ileane recently posted..Content Creation Doesn’t Have to Be A PainMy Profile

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  2. Abhishek
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 19, 2011 at 4:59 pm

    I too hate these spam bots, everytime i log into my dashboard i see so many spam comments,but thanks to Akismet it has protected me from these spams.
    Abhishek recently posted..Get Inspired To Make A Change Through Your Personal BlogMy Profile

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    • Bill Nickerson
      Twitter:
      says:
      December 19, 2011 at 8:21 pm

      Hi Abhishek

      The thing that I like about the Anti-captcha plugin is that it reduces the amount of spam that gets through. Akismet will detect the spam, but you’ll still have to moderate it in case legitimate comments are in there. Using both together should result in Akismet having less work to do since fewer bots will get through.
      Bill Nickerson recently posted..Why I Changed My Backup PluginMy Profile

      Reply
  3. Cheolsu says:
    December 20, 2011 at 5:05 am

    Hi Bill, Comments do help in SEO and getting repeat visitors. When I started my blog, I used to gte a lot of bot comments and no real traffic. Taking away the “Website” field from comments did help a bit. Using Anti-Captcha Plugin is a great way to reduce spam.
    Cheolsu recently posted..Farmville Facebook LoginMy Profile

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    • Bill Nickerson
      Twitter:
      says:
      December 20, 2011 at 5:49 pm

      Hi Cheolsu

      You are so right about comments being valuable. Unfortunately, while taking the website field out can reduce the spam comments a bit, you’re taking away an avenue of rewarding those who comment.

      It’s kind of a fine line between commenting to get the link and getting the link because you comment. People who are really interested in the conversation will still leave a comment. But these are the people who deserve the backlink the most!

      Spammers will also drop their link right into the comment to get around that.

      It is a constant battle to balance. Your time is valuable so the time you lose moderating comments needs to be weighed against the value of having them.
      Bill Nickerson recently posted..Why I Changed My Backup PluginMy Profile

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  4. Anne Lyken-Garner
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 20, 2011 at 10:21 am

    Akismet seems to work fine on my blog. I also have ComLuv+ and I don’t get that much spam. Also, I don’t get a massive amount of traffic so that may be the reason too.
    Anne Lyken-Garner recently posted..Ice House!My Profile

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    • Bill Nickerson
      Twitter:
      says:
      December 20, 2011 at 5:57 pm

      Hi Anne

      I’ve seen a couple comments here now about ComLuv Premium dealing well with spam. Unfortunately at this time I don’t have the budget to try it out myself, but it sounds like it does a great job. Hopefully in the new year 8=)

      Plus is has some other great features, like the integrated KeywordLuv and Top Commentors widget to name a few.

      I’m not sure how the G.A.S.P. works, but I suspect it may be similar to Anti-Captcha in the approach that it takes.
      Bill Nickerson recently posted..Integrity Marketing – Backlinks and Coloured HatsMy Profile

      Reply
  5. Kristin
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 20, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    I am a CommentLuv Premium user (yay!) and I swear by it. My blog gets a decent amount of traffic and I deal with spam comments maybe once or twice a day, if that. Before I added Premium, it was a real headache. I was devoting way too much time to dealing with spam comments. I cannot say enough good things about CommentLuv Premium…it has done wonders for me, both on my blog and on other blogs.

    I did use Akismet prior to getting on the Premium bandwagon. It’s good, but CommentLuv Premium is great. In fact, probably the best investment I’ve made for my blog.
    Kristin recently posted..Penn State: Success with Honor? Not likely.My Profile

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    • Bill Nickerson
      Twitter:
      says:
      December 20, 2011 at 6:03 pm

      Hi Kristin

      Thank you for sharing your experiences. I’m glad that you’re finding CommentLuv Premium works well in the fight against spam.

      The Akismet plugin itself is great for identifying spam once it’s in your system, but Anti-Captcha (and it seems CommentLuv+) stop much of the bot generated spam before it even gets to your site. Which makes the moderation chore so much easier.

      The biggest benefit is that you don’t make submitting a comment a chore for your readers.

      P.S. I won’t hold the fact that you’re obviously a Flyers fan against you 8=) Go Leafs Go!
      Bill Nickerson recently posted..Integrity Marketing – Are You A Digital Thief?My Profile

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  6. Mariusz K
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 20, 2011 at 5:48 pm

    When we use CommentLuv we have other threats like unbalance between dofollow links and content and to many outgoing links on page, comments often are not tematically related, they’re short – it’s really big problem, but we can make some restrictions. I wrote about that problem on my blog but in Polish ;)

    One of the best plugins to fight with spam commenters is Spam Stopper.
    Mariusz K recently posted..Recenzja i ocena bloga w serwisie Aim for blogsMy Profile

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    • Bill Nickerson
      Twitter:
      says:
      December 21, 2011 at 5:38 am

      You’re right Mariusz. The big dilemma is how to allow legitimate readers to easily post meaningful comments, and allow them some link luv in return, without getting overrun by the spammers.

      Removing the link luv, or making them jump through hoops tends to stop the comments you want without slowing down the spammers much.

      But we can’t let the spam get through or the SE’s will penalize us for linking to bad neighbours. It isn’t easy, but it’s important.
      Bill Nickerson recently posted..Your Strengths And How To Apply Them To Your Internet BusinessMy Profile

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  7. Salman
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 20, 2011 at 5:57 pm

    Even I hate spam comments on my blog and everyone does :P … GASP has protected my blog from a lot of spam comments earlier and now CLP does the job of GASP and many other plugins !!

    Great share .. Bill
    Salman recently posted..Tech Crates turns a Year OlderMy Profile

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    • Bill Nickerson
      Twitter:
      says:
      December 20, 2011 at 10:46 pm

      Thanks Salman.

      One thing I’m noticing with the CommentLuv+ and GASP plugin is that there is still a requirement for the user to check a box for it to work (unless they’re registered and logged in).

      Anti-Captcha doesn’t require any extra effort from the user which is one aspect that I really like. I don’t have hard numbers, but it seems that I’m reducing the amount of spam that I have to moderate on the 2 most heavily hit blogs by about 60-75% so far.
      Bill Nickerson recently posted..Why I Think I’m Gonna Like Eric WardMy Profile

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      • Troy
        Twitter:
        says:
        December 21, 2011 at 4:03 pm

        Bill,

        60-75% drop is pretty amazing.

        Any guess on the comment impact of either having the checkbox or using anti-captcha? Simple is good, right? We all long for more comments, but it just isn’t clear what brings them in.

        -Troy
        Troy recently posted..Make The Most Of Your Workouts – Mike Whitfield Interview Part 2My Profile

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        • Bill Nickerson
          Twitter:
          says:
          December 21, 2011 at 4:44 pm

          Hi Troy

          At this point I can only guess what impact that the plugin has on comments. I do know that I’m receiving fewer spam comments on the blogs I’m using it on right now, but I can’t guarantee that this is due to the work of the plugin or just a slow time for the spammers. I’ve noticed a bit of a drop on some of my other, less hit sites as well, but not as significant.

          As for the difference between the checkbox and the nonces that Anti-Captcha uses, I can only speculate that there would be a minor advantage with one less thing for a commenter to have to do. Checkbox is certainly far less of a hurdle than the various other captchas, but keeping it to Name, Email, Website and Comment is still the best if possible.

          A lot of people are having great success with CommentLuv+ (or GASP alone). I think people are relieved when the only extra requirement is the checkbox so it isn’t a big issue.
          Bill Nickerson recently posted..Integrity Marketing – Backlinks and Coloured HatsMy Profile

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  8. Jon Wade
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 21, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    I have never really suffered from spam, Akismet clears most up, but I did recently add the “are you human” checkbox (or maybe the “confirm you are not a spammer”) and that combined with Akismet has pretty much eliminated all spam, and also reduces the load on the Akismet servers. I used to get about 2000 comments a day in the spam queue, not much less fortunately.
    Jon Wade recently posted..25 Ways to Promote Your Business with Traditional MediaMy Profile

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  9. Cosmin Hora says:
    December 22, 2011 at 12:13 am

    The most major problem when it comes to commenting is the spam comments. It’s actually the common problem for most bloggers who kept on getting lots of comments everyday. Though comments could be helpful for their sites, there are times that this could also be very harmful on their part.
    Cosmin Hora recently posted..HAAN Deluxe Total Steam Cleaning System ReviewMy Profile

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  10. Dennis Marshall
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 25, 2011 at 10:05 pm

    Bill I’m going to check this out. I have the Free version of CommentLuv and it does a great job but I need to slim down on some of this spam..

    I get around 40 comments every 2 days.

    Thanks for the recommendation and I was just like you my man. I use to think those comments were regular comments and I got excited.. LOL.. Until I realized that 10 other people were leaving the exact same comment. Something wasn’t right..
    Dennis Marshall recently posted..How To Become A Pro Blogger And Not Just A Person That Writes StuffMy Profile

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    • Bill Nickerson
      Twitter:
      says:
      December 28, 2011 at 12:23 am

      For me the big clue was getting the exact same comment on two different blogs that I was running.

      Than you see the ones that don’t relate at all — they try to be generic, but I get a lot of comments on my About page that talk about how much they were searching the internet for just this information 8=)

      Thanks for dropping by Dennis!

      Reply
  11. amandagordon says:
    December 26, 2011 at 1:06 am

    Spam has been the bane of blogging. Comments are a fantastic way of engaging and interacting with the readers. Comment spam is getting more and more automated by the day. The industrial strength spamming software is more available and affordable now than ever.

    For sites using wordpress, I found invisible defense plugin a good way to weed out comment spam.
    amandagordon recently posted..Backpack Vacuum CleanersMy Profile

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  12. Jon Wade
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 26, 2011 at 1:29 am

    What do you call a lot of comments though? I really do not get many with the Akismet + tick box on WordPress. Do some people not use Akismet and then let all comments be published without moderation? Maybe I should open up comments on some sites and see what happens. ….
    Jon Wade recently posted..A better way to use Facebook and Twitter?My Profile

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    • Bill Nickerson
      Twitter:
      says:
      December 28, 2011 at 12:29 am

      That is a good question Jon. I guess it really depends on how much time you have to spend moderating your spam queue vs. doing other things. For me I’d much rather block obvious bots so that I don’t have to work as hard to make sure the false positives get found.

      On one of my blogs I was typically seeing between 60 to 80 comments in the queue every day before this, now it is around 20.

      Since Anti-captcha doesn’t impact the readers in anyway I see it as a win-win even though it isn’t perfect in terms of catching all the spam.
      Bill Nickerson recently posted..Integrity Marketing – Backlinks and Coloured HatsMy Profile

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  13. John
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 27, 2011 at 10:11 am

    Hi Bill,
    Anti-Captcha plugins are useful to fight with automatic comment submission software but some people used manual spam comment submission. They never read the post, and just give comment by reading its title.

    Reply
  14. Solomon says:
    December 27, 2011 at 2:26 pm

    Just out of curiosity what is acceptable in adding links. I run a website selling baby products and am working very hard to white hat the SEO and build up links from bloggers who review our products and adding ourselves to baby magazine directories and writting good articles etc. Basically trying to be a good net citizen.

    But if I were to add good comments (one which are relevant to the article) and not trying to sell and added a link is that not acceptable behavior or given that I have added content would bloggers be okay with that?

    Reply
    • Bill Nickerson
      Twitter:
      says:
      December 31, 2011 at 1:27 am

      Hi Solomon

      Every blogger will have a different take on that, but for the most part your link will be included when you enter your website info. Links in the body of the comment itself are generally frowned upon unless the link is relevant to the conversation.

      For example, a link to an article about blog comment spam or plugins to fight spam would be perfectly acceptable for this article. A link about baby products would not. You do get a link from your name to your website though, and if your site has an RSS feed then sites with CommentLuv will pick up one of your recent articles and link to that as well. Sometimes it doesn’t get one though, usually because the RSS feed is slow.

      By the way, Funky Giraffe Bibs is a pretty cool name for your site 8=)
      Bill Nickerson recently posted..Integrity Marketing – Backlinks and Coloured HatsMy Profile

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  15. Brent
    Twitter:
    says:
    December 29, 2011 at 5:41 am

    I haven’t really had any comments on my site yet, but I’m sure glad there are effective tools out there for me to choose from!.. Great article, thank you so much for the info!
    Brent recently posted..6 Tips for Creating Photographic Greatness!My Profile

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  16. Blog Lady
    Twitter:
    says:
    February 3, 2012 at 3:15 am

    Has anyone noticed how good Gmail is at blocking email spam? It makes one wish for a comment filter that could be just as effective. Spam isn’t a big problem for low- to medium-traffic blogs. But once you hit like 3,000 visits a day it starts to be a real hassle.
    Blog Lady recently posted..How to Customize the Read More Text in WordPressMy Profile

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  17. Joseph Shaw
    Twitter:
    says:
    February 7, 2012 at 10:57 pm

    Comment Spam is the BANE OF THE WORDPRESS WORLD!!!
    I can’t stand using captha phrases they drive me crazy! Thanks for sharing!

    Joseph
    Joseph Shaw recently posted..Want The Best WordPress Plugins for 2012?My Profile

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