What Is The Best Way To Avoid Spams In Your Website?

[web_designer 7]

recently, i have a lot of spams in my blog. first i didn't care a lot but after that it getting so annoying. therefore a friend suggest me to use akismet plugin that will help me to avoiding spam.and it did, it works great. but after a while i noticed that it acting weird. the spams counter in my blog shows a different number of spams than it actually is. for example, the spam counter in my blog shows "45" spams where in wordpress dashboard it is only "23". and i couldn't see a lot of comments like before, i wonder if the plugin affect something. i tired to change the plugin configurations but there isn't much to do since the configuration is so limit.anyway, if there is anyone can suggest me a better way to avoid spams i will be appreciated for him. thanks in advance.

[anwiii 17]

ban the ip's. you will notice that spammers post more than once so when you start banning the ip's, you will notice a big difference.

[TomCol 2]

IP bans work to an extent but a determined spammer can easily use a proxy, or just use different computers at school. Have you considered using a members system to comment? That way you can validate using emails and it has a number of benefits:- You can allow only one account per IP- You only allow only one account per email- Even if you hash the passwords, you can still check for identical hashes, and identify alternate accounts.Also, what are the spammers saying? If you can, you might want to put a profanity filter and something to detect random or repeated letters.Good luck with it.

[web_designer 7]

IP bans work to an extent but a determined spammer can easily use a proxy, or just use different computers at school. Have you considered using a members system to comment? That way you can validate using emails and it has a number of benefits:

- You can allow only one account per IP

- You only allow only one account per email

- Even if you hash the passwords, you can still check for identical hashes, and identify alternate accounts.

 

Also, what are the spammers saying? If you can, you might want to put a profanity filter and something to detect random or repeated letters.

 

Good luck with it.

 

thank you for your reply, but i finished school long time ago

and here i am talking about my blog, powered by wordpress. i have annoying spammers in my blog.

[truefusion 3]

The best way to avoid spam is to not allow users to post. That is the simplest solution (that no one wants to take for obvious reasons), no other solution simpler than that. You can do many things to reduce spam, but that will never stop spam unlike the simplest solution. Spam is unavoidable when posting powers are given to the public. Even on my website i get people recommending me random URLs. Some don't have a random pattern to the URLs, so i block those; but some are in the form of aefzsdfklajsdf.com. There is no regex i can think of that can prevent those without preventing every other URL.

[TomCol 2]

thank you for your reply, but i finished school long time ago

 

Sorry, I meant if the spammer goes to school, they can just evade the IP ban by using a different computer.

 

I've never used wordpress so I don't know what you can do, but then I would code my own blog system anyway!

Edited May 27, 2010 by TomCol (see edit history)

[web_designer 7]

The best way to avoid spam is to not allow users to post. That is the simplest solution (that no one wants to take for obvious reasons), no other solution simpler than that.

 

well, i do. the only one who post in my blog is me . i get spams from the comments, i don't know why these visitors bother themselves to post such long and useless comments just to annoy me. therefore i need a solution. thank you for your reply truefusion.

[Little Asterisk 1]

@web_designer

I don't know if you've read this, but the wordpress codex (https://codex.wordpress.org/Combating_Comment_Spam) has some interesting ideas on stopping spam.

Also, http://www.catswhocode.com/blog/top-10-ways-to-stop-spam-in-wordpress has some of the "classic" ideas that were already posted on this forum.

Finally, five general tips n' tricks about the security of your WP webblog: https://wptavern.com/top-5-wordpress-security-tips-you-most-likely-dont-follow.

Since I'm also (slowly) starting a site powered by Wordpress, it's a real heaven asking me for Wordpress links from anywhere.

Hope that helps

[web_designer 7]

 

 

 

thanks you a lot little asterisk, very useful links. i am really appreciated.

[Asad1 0]

Check your site correctly.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

I'd like an effective method to deal with spam posts as well.So far the only working method I've come up with is to set the comments to be moderated (so you must accept them for them to show up). It's a little more troublesome but it works.Maybe if you could block links that would also help -- most spammers do it for the backlinks.

[Little Asterisk 1]

I'd like an effective method to deal with spam posts as well.
So far the only working method I've come up with is to set the comments to be moderated (so you must accept them for them to show up). It's a little more troublesome but it works.

Maybe if you could block links that would also help -- most spammers do it for the backlinks.

Wordpress has a nice feature to block comments with two or more links (so spammers can't at least advertise many bad sites), and I thing that approving (moderating) comments would be the best way to make sure someone does not publish bad content in the comments.

Akismet plugin (or Askimet, not sure ) is a must-have, also.

Other than that, I don't know what much more could you do. Oh, yeah - and you can block IP addresses of the ones who regularly publish spam .

[mahesh2k 0]

If you're using wordpress then there are many plugins available for preventing spam. Some of the plugins that i use :

 

Akismet

You need to register at wordpress.com with account in order to get Akismet API key. Once you entered key there is nothing to worry about. They'll take care of all the spam on your blog. I found that akismet clears a lot of spam comments and their database is huge. If you want single plugin for spam control then akismet is the way to go.

 

Spam karma

This spam control plugin filters the spam bots by IP and location. Some bots are on typical IP range and location so it's better to block them and spam karma helps to keep them away. Spam karma has more other option which you have to look on your own. I only worked with few on one of my old site.

 

WP-HASH cash

This plugin is simple which asks question and filters comment spammers. Not effective for human spammers but atleast it keeps few bots and link spammers aside.

 

reCAPTCHA

They recently got aquired by google and now you need gmail id for using it. You can use recaptcha plugin for wordpress to integrate with your blog or site. recapttcha is effective against human spammers in some cases as it clears some spammers who hate to type captcha. There are some captcha jobs which are used against this plugin but google is using IP filter for their service so not sure if this update will be there for this plugin.

[rvalkass 5]

So far the only working method I've come up with is to set the comments to be moderated (so you must accept them for them to show up). It's a little more troublesome but it works.
Maybe if you could block links that would also help -- most spammers do it for the backlinks.

Make sure you have a decent CAPTCHA to prevent the spam posts being made in the first place. reCAPTCHA is a good choice, and I believe they have a Wordpress plugin that adds the CAPTCHA check to your comment forms automatically. You could also add the newer style "answer a question" CAPTCHAs that computers have trouble understanding. That should help to limit the volume of spam posts that make it onto your site. There is also a Wordpress option to limit the number of links in comments. As spammers, as you say, do it for the links, this should prevent them posting as they will see it's pointless.

[Little Asterisk 1]

Make sure you have a decent CAPTCHA to prevent the spam posts being made in the first place. reCAPTCHA is a good choice, and I believe they have a Wordpress plugin that adds the CAPTCHA check to your comment forms automatically. You could also add the newer style "answer a question" CAPTCHAs that computers have trouble understanding. That should help to limit the volume of spam posts that make it onto your site. There is also a Wordpress option to limit the number of links in comments. As spammers, as you say, do it for the links, this should prevent them posting as they will see it's pointless.

Although this definitely is an efficient tool against spam, I have to disagree with using Captcha, reCAPTCHA or 1+1 assignments when letting the users comment.

Quite simply, my theory is that you want to make the user's commenting process easier, not more difficult. If they want to leave a few words of courage (or complain about something ) on your site, you don't want them to quit because they've entered the reCAPTCHA words wrong. Especially if you're a relatively unknown site (A list apart, for instance, or some other well-known site, could afford reCAPTCHA), where users think this way:

What?! Another reCAPTCHA? Aww... Screw this.

Chances are, if they enter the keyword wrong the first time; they aint' coming back. Unless they REALLY want to know and/or comment something.

In the end it's all up to the site admin, but my advice is: don't do it.
Edited July 12, 2010 by Little Asterisk (see edit history)