Comment spams area headache. But they are reality too. We may get irritated but we need to combat it. As the antispam measures get better, spammers evolve too. It is an everlasting fight with no end in the near future.

Lately, I witnessed a type of comment spam that would appear almost like a real comment. But a closer look determines that they are in fact spam.

Look at these sentences

This sentence can be easily mistaken for a genuine comment

Great posts and expecting more updates form you this year.

This was a good try but context was not relevant.

Does people here have a touch on where Stockmarket is ending?

This might appeal to your heart but beware of the garb

Nothing seems to be easier than seeing someone whom you can help but not helping.

Even people would utilize God’s name

I suggest we start giving it a try. Give love to the ones that need it.
God will appreciate it.

This one is too clever

Just like you, I go forever with out reading RSS. My view is, if it’s important at all, It will hit my twitter stream.

I have been extremely careful with comment spams after I burnt my fingers on spamvertising issue. I was forced to close one of my established site as it had been spamvertised by a user.

One of the hazards of  appproved spam is that it would attract more of its kinds. Moreover the WordPress has an option that allows preapproval  of comments by author who has been approved once. I always have found this option as highly exploitable. Just one mistake of approving a wrong comment and your blog would be full of spam the very next day.

I consider spam as bugs and tics who would like to have a bite of yours.

Let us be clear here.

There are lot of bugs and tics around and some of them would appear to be extremely harmless. You need to protect yourself.

First thing is recognition

While some comments yell and say that they are spam, we are more concerned about identifying the subtler ones.

While they are not absolute, following tips might be of help to recognize if a comment is spam.

Vague

A spam comment is vague even if it is meaningful. It would not say a specific thing. It would be more generalised sentence so that it could fit as many websites possible.

Irrelevant

The comment spam would be irrelavant to the post. It would seem kind of misfit and misdirected. If you come across a comment like this, do not approve but wait. With time you may find similar kinds of comments coming on to your website.

This alomost always happen because a spammer does not have the required patience and would submit the same comment again and again.

Spammy URL

More often than not a spam comment is always associated with shady URL. But this might not be there if a commenter is wise enough to gain trust and wants to get aproved one comment making rest of the entries easier.

Links

I mentioned this because we associate links with spam. All spams would not contain links in them. They are more sinister because we tend to falter on them.

Measures You Can Use Against Spam

Akismet

From WordPress 2.7 this comes with WordPress installation. If you are using versions before that, download it and install as plugin. It would take care of most of the spammers.

Allow Comments By Registered Users Only

While this might seem an easy solution but it may cause a fall in number of comments your websites. People  would not be very inclined to get registered for posting a comment.

If you do not have a very strong and loyal community around your blog, do not consider this option.

Watch! Watch! Watch

Moderate all comments. Do not consider preapprove the comments option. This way you would be able to corect any lapse that might occur in your vigilance.

I wish we could be spam free but this is going to stay almost forever. Put your combat measures in place.

IF you would like to add to this article please do leave a comment.

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