Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with blog and spam

Best blog platform for easy commenting but little spam

bystander — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:12:42 -0800

Best blogging software to allow easy commenting by strangers but avoiding comment spam. I want to start a new non-commercial blog that encourages comments from readers, but avoids as much comment spam as possible. I realise this is tough, but what is the best current solution? I am not up to date on this area, but I want a middle ground that perhaps avoids a registration stage or moderating every comment. Is there possibly a comment option that allows a comment to be written, but it only goes live after a link delivered to a valid email is clicked? Is there a better solution? I feel captchas are not as effective as they have been, yet I want to avoid robot spam, but also make drive by valid comments be possible. Is this a pipe dream?
I can probably install any suitable software, but my preference is a *nix based solution or hosted. Free is better but not essential.

Thanks for the pageviews, no thanks for the spam.

tip120 — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:26:21 -0800

I have been getting weird Wordpress referrer spam the last 4 days, but there are no injections or anything of the like on my site. I have a site running wordpress. No comments or users, I'm using it as a simple CMS.

I'm using the StatPress plugin to check out who is coming to the site. This morning, I noticed an abnormally large number of visitors the last few days.

People seem to be visiting pages like mysite.com/?myfjkfosljfsfjd (NB : not a string I've seen, just an example). When clicked, it will go to my homepage. Checking the source, there is nothing out of the ordinary (no spam links, etc). If you google that end string by itself, you get one result, to my site, with a summary that lists a whole bunch of viagra type words.

Any idea what is going on, and how I can stop this?

I was running 2.8.2, upgraded to 2.8.3 this morning.

You can get my details from my userpage if you want specifics.

Attack of the spam

hibbersk — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:25:29 -0800

A particular post on my (wordpress) blog just got hit with over 10 spam comments in 3 minutes. I've disabled comments on that post for now, but what's going on? These aren't the typical website-pimping viagra-toting comments - they're all along the same lines - for example "Thank you for this site, such as multi information! Thank you!", "Oh hell yeah", "nice post, thanks for sharing" etc. Also, the authors have similar sounding addresses - either host238-96-dynamic.16-87-r.retail.telecomitalia.it or 84.123.82.200.dyn.user.ono.com with different numbers at the beginning, sorry I don't know the correct terminology.

I have Akismet enabled and can't remember the last time it let through one spam comment, never mind 10 in the space of a couple of minutes..

Why is this happening, and what should I do about it?
thanks!

My blog's been hijacked!

grrarrgh00 — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:49:58 -0800

Somehow, some spammer hijacked a feed of mine that posts to my Wordpress blog. Help me diagnose what happened. I have a shared folder on Foxmarks that I've set up to automatically post to my Wordpress blog, using the FeedWordpress plugin. This morning, a reader alerted me that my blog was full of Japanese spam posts. Looking at the posts, they were somehow injected into my blog via the same pathway that I use to post from the Foxmarks folder. (Each of the posts bears the custom fields that mark a post as coming from FeedWordpress - the syndication source, syndication feed ID, etc.)

Any clue what the source of this spam might be, or how I go about diagnosing this, and then inoculating my blog against it?

What is the point of the comment spam I'm getting?

ChasFile — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:59:10 -0800

I've got a personal site/blogg-ish thing and I get comment spam. The odd thing is that much of it doesn't contain any links. It's just some random words. What is the point of this? Here's some samples:

exclamatory transitory economic Dada stabling zone kappa thrown 



Posted by diet no ionamin pills prescription @  61.86.48.145 on Thu Sep 25 07:47:31 2008.

mightiness work swooped hark hells pariah 



Posted by 30 phentermine sale @  202.105.182.87 on Thu Sep 25 07:46:42 2008.

I mean obviously in this case it's from some sort of shady online pharmacy, but there are no links to that pharmacy site anywhere in the comments, nor even it's name. So what is the point of this link-less, sales-pitch-less spam?

How can I get rid of a Blogspot spam blog?

Locative — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:05:15 -0800

How can I get rid of a Blogspot spam blog? A year ago, I had a blog related to my professional interests set up on on Blogger. I posted a while, but eventually deleted it. It was not at all popular and used a very obscure address (i.e. obscureblogname.blogspot.com). A few months ago, I Googled myself and in the results found an old link to my blog from a prominent blogger in my field (from when the blog was still active). Since the link was dead, I didn't care -- until I realized that the same URL is now being used for one of Blogger's many spam blogs.

Essentially, I don't want people (especially prospective employers) Googling me and finding a link to a blog full of debt consolidation crap. I tried asking the prominent blogger to take down the link, but he never replied. I have flagged the blog, but it remains up months later. Is there anything I can do to expedite the removal of this blog from the site? Thank you!

Blog Spam is Annoying.

miss tea — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 11:56:11 -0800

Blog spam question-- why would blog spammers only be posting on a single (months old) entry on my blog? I have a blog hosted on Movable Type. I get 3-5 spam comments per day, but the weird thing is that they are only ever posted on a single entry. Just curious if anyone knows if there's any reason for this?

In a related question, why do MT's spam filters suck so much? How hard is it to tag something with the word Cialis in it? I have it set to most aggressive, but that flags all of the real comments and lets through half of the spam ones.

Some type of spam bot (er, something) has taken over my blog.

bamassippi — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 14:02:04 -0800

Some type of spam bot (er, something) has taken over my blog. When people visit my blog landonhowell.com it then takes them to some generic page.

How did this happen?
How do I fix this?

What is a comment spammers modus operandi?

maxpower — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 08:31:09 -0800

Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster. -- Sun Tzu I get a lot of blog spam on my website and it got me thinking; if I am to fight it more effectively I need to learn more about it. How is it actually sent, what software or scripts do people use, and where do these people hang out on the Internet? I don't need any information on how to fight comment spam (I can do that just fine) or why they do it (for links and $$$). But any info and the technical aspects of spamming would help me learn about the enemy.

Stopping the blog spammers

bamassippi — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 13:08:24 -0800

I want to start a Wikipedia page featuring the domains of blog spammers. Does one already exist?

supplanted by a deathly paleness his hand?

brundlefly — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 16:07:10 -0800

I have been receiving experimental poetry through my blog. Who is sending it and why? I have a contact form on my blog, which is rarely used. Of late, however, I've been receiving strange, nonsensical messages through it. I'm assuming it's automated somehow, because the messages declare themselves multi-part (they come in batches, although they don't seem to have any content in common).

I've put some together into a single prose poem. Keep in mind that each paragraph is the entirety of a single post:

vridge, who was down there f r tin minyits wanst an spoke very highly an

it began to show itself there among the little wooden houses. t is a road hewn out of the rocks. he giant apoleon carried it through the backbone of the earth. he eagle, apoleon s bird, flew like a living armorial crest over the gigantic work of the

small yacht belonging to the merchant lay, just unladen, near the bridge of boats. tto found aren and the young lady from olstebro sitting in the arbor. omewhat

distinct streets and quarters, so had they also here. he street which led to the market place, and which in every day life was called the hoemaker treet, answered perfectly to its name. he shoemakers had ranged their tables side by side. hese, and

were colored with a sudden crimson, which was immediately afterward supplanted by a deathly paleness his hand

acknowledgments for the honor they

find out my real sister will have proof in hand of the truth will show myself as a brother will care for her future ring to me her baptismal register bring to me one only attestation of its reality and that before eight days are past ere is

demands his right replied tto, and pressed the man s hand. hings go, doubtless, well with you, orten hraenseu he whole cart full of eels, and some smoked carp t is also good to meet with you, r. tto. pon the

WTF is going on? I'm not complaining, mind you. I find them very entertaining. I'm just curious.

Why am I getting hits from poker sites?

buriednexttoyou — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 16:26:30 -0800

In the "links from external pages" section of my blog's statistics, I'm getting hits from a lot of different poker websites. They don't seem to actually be linking to me, though. Is this some sort of strange spam thing? What is going on?

How can I stop referrer log spam?

Anonymous — Sat, 04 Dec 2004 23:09:55 -0800

"Reffy is a Windows-based mass referrer spammer.... Reffy comes with a pre-generated list of 3047 active blog websites...." My blog is on that pre-generated list. These people are spamming my logs and filling my referrer page with crap. Paypal has, unsurprisingly, not responded to reports that they're being used to transfer money to spammers, and .htaccess deny blacklists are no good when your URL is being distributed to spammers all over the place. So, (1) how do I stop them, and (2) what legal recourse would I possibly have to get my cut of the money they're making by putting my website URL in their application?

MoveableType Comment Spam

Orange Goblin — Thu, 08 Jul 2004 08:35:03 -0800

My MT powered blog (version 2.51) has just been hit by over 200 comment spams. Is there some sort of "delete last x comments" command, or do I have to delete them all manually? And how do I stop this happening again? To install MT Blacklist I have to update MT, and I can't do this under the new license because it is a group blog with numerous authors. Please spare me the dullness of repetitive delete button clicking!