Saturday, December 1, 2012

Dealing with spam


Stay anonymous.

When my blog was a teeny tiny little thing, the only comments I ever got were from Conrad the Beloved. As it grew, I started getting comments from people I knew, then some from people I didn't know, and now, I get at least two spam comments on every post.  

They are all ridiculous and ambiguous. You can tell it's a spam comment because they never actually mention anything specific from your blog. And they're always Anonymous. 

"Ηi there, I discovered youг wеbsіte vіa Google whilе looking for a related matter, youг website got heгe up, it sеemѕ gooԁ. I have bookmarkеd it in my gоogle bοoκmaгks. Hello there, just changed into alert to your weblog through Google, аnd found that it's really informative. I am gonna watch out for brussels. I will appreciate should you continue this in future. Many folks will likely be benefited out of your writing. Cheers! Look into my page."

"Ι like the valuable info yоu proνіԁe іn yοur аrtіcles. Ι'll bookmark your weblog and check again here regularly. I am quite certain I will learn lots of new stuff right here! Good luck for the next! Have a look at my homepage." 

They always have a link that will likely lead an unsuspecting reader to a virus or a suspicious site. Blogger has a pretty good spam catcher that keeps the comments from making it to the home page, but every once in a while, one slips through the cracks and makes it to the blog. I'm pretty good about catching them and taking them down. 

Be very careful to NEVER click a link if the comment is suspicious. If there's any doubt, don't click. You can download a virus that can wreck your computer. Some even risk identity theft. 

There is one way to make sure spam stays off your blog, and that's to disable Anonymous comments. The only thing is, I want people to be able to post if they want. Even if they have something mean to say. Even if they say something personal and want to remain unnamed. What do you do about spam comments and anonymous comments? Do you allow anonymous comments? Why or why not? Am I an enabler for mean comments?

11 comments:

  1. I've always been up in the air about that but I'm getting more spam too and I don't like it!

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  2. yeah i was getting some spam to so i disabled anonymous comments and use IDed users only. the only anonymous comments i ever really got before were spam or mean people hiding behind their anonymous name so i didn't at all worry about it. theres no sense in allowing any more negativity into my life or the lives of my readers. and since i offer a way for people to contact me anonymously, i can still get people that give me their thoughts when they don't want to be known.

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  3. Agghhh I hate them, I get at least 1 a day

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  4. I only have 21 followers and I get my fair share of spam. I don't mind, because like you said it doesn't usually post to my blog, just my email. Its not hard to hit delete and I want people to be able to leave anon comments should the feel the need. I don't know why to be honest, maybe because I don't want to look like I'm scared of conflict. Bring it.

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  5. Really?? I've only had 2 spam comments ever. That's super annoying! Boo!

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  6. Thank you for this information. I consider it highly usable. I have bookmarked this article for future reference. I am positive that a great number of readers will reap greatly from this valuable insight.

    LOL, I won't tell you to check out my homepage because 1) I don't know any blogger that calls her blog a "homepage" and 2) that just seems tacky.

    I have always had anonymous comments disabled. I actually used to require a captcha to comment but I decided to be a little more "friendly" and disable those, but if I start getting spam they are going right back to being a requirement for comment :)

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  7. Thanks for the post. My blog is very very small so I have yet to experience spam. It's something I need to watch out for. Right now I have don't have anonymous disabled because if someone wants to comment I want them to be able to.

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  8. I don't allow anonymous comments, but I do allow OpenID so that opens it up to people outside of Blogger/Google. My e-mail is all over my site so I know that readers can contact me if they want. I just don't want to have to worry about the spam in the comments.

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  9. I used to have the same problem. It was so annoying. A friend told me about Akismet. I use it with Disqus. Zero spam. I still allow anonymous comments. Hope this helps. :-)

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  10. i am fed up with getting spam comments,I have changed my settings just a few days ago to not allow anonymous commenters. As all my real comments have always been from registered users so hopefully this shouldn't effect my readers just the spammers

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  11. How about moderating comments? More time intensive but would still allow anonymous comments... just a thought!

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Thanks for your comment!