Now, have you ever gotten spam on your blog? DUH!
However, while it is nice to have Akismet and simply ‘delete‘ the spam, if you have a recurring parade of spam, it might be worth your while to take advantage of the IP Blacklist feature in Wordpress. It also has a ‘word‘ blacklist feature that you can use, but be careful.
The IP Blacklist is found under the Settings Tab then under Discussions.
Scroll down the page, and you will find two empty boxes, one called ” Comment Moderation ” and the other ” Comment Blacklist “. These are basically a way for you to stop the spammers before they trigger your anti spam software, like Akismet.
As you can see, I have changed the default option to where if there is even one single link, it has to be held for approval.
There is a reason, which is that some spam, actually only have one link.
I mean these Assholes aren’t stupid, because obviously, if they didn’t make money, they would have gone on to try something else.
The problem with using the ‘words‘ option, is that Wordpress can block legit words. Just the example they give, says it all. However, using some words is okay, like all those annoying words for keeping your pecker hard, are worth adding to the list.
I primarily make use of the IP Banned or Domain Name blacklist option.
Now it may seem like a lot of work, and honestly, it is a royal pain, but it does have results, and is worth it to keep your comment section spam free. And it isn’t all that hard to get the IP of the offending spammer, because Akismet will list it for you.
Only trouble I have, is that Akismet doesn’t generate a list of the IP’s from the posts you mark as spam, or that they mark as spam. So you do have to manually copy the IP that is listed, and then insert it into that empty white box. Keep in mind, one IP or Domain Name, per line.
You know, it would be cool if Akismet did generate a list, of the IP’s that it presents to us bloggers, as being Spam. Be even nicer if we could have it automatically input those IP’s into the blog security section, that would BAN them.
Does it help?
It is my opinion that it does. I am not sure how it works, but once I enter the spammer’s IP into that box, click on save, the crap simply ceases to appear in my Akismet list of spam for me to look at. I am making an assumption, that when the offender comes to the blog, it blocks them, which in turn, makes them go hunting elsewhere. Now whether or not, it makes them think there is no blog there, or whatever, I haven’t a clue, but keep in mind, most of the spam comes from Bots, so they obviously have something that makes them leave.
I like not having those kind of Bots sniffing around my site, and frankly, the comment section is the most vulnerable. So having them banned, works good for me, even if it really doesn’t do anything. It gives me peace of mind, and who knows, it might actually do something.
So, if you got a blog that gets a lot of spam, try to copy the IP from Akismet display, add it to the blacklist comments IP section, and you will soon find no spam being detected.
Mar 23rd by Malcontent