I’m not sure what everyone else uses, but the most reliable service to stop comment spam on my site has been the Askimet plugin for wordpress. I dont know what I would do without it. A little over six months ago I got hit with some serious comment spam and I had to do a few hours of manual deleting to get all the comments off my site. After this experience I decided to fight back in ensure my site was protected.
So far Askimet has really made a difference in the spam moderation on my blog. I don’t know why I decided not to use it from the beginning.
If you don’t have this installed, you definitely should consider it. You can download the most updated version here. Its has really helped with all the comment spam I’ve been getting. I’m not too sure why this is, but it has almost tripled in just a little over the past three months.
How much spam do you get on your site??? Any ideas to why I get so much?
Hey stranger! I use Bad Behaviour in addition to Akismet. My problem I’m having right now is not comment spam, but referrer spam. I’ve resorted to blocking all blogspot sites through .htaccess but that’s an extreme step, I know. I need to look into referrer karma to go along with the comment spam tools, I suppose.
Referrer spam? How does that work? What does bad behavior do that Askimet doesn’t already do for your blog?
I use akismet and I agree. Loves it loves it! Wish my freakin’ host would get my database to stop crashing though!! ARGH!!
Akismet is a lifesaver! Dunno what I would do without it. Btw, how much comment spam do you get in a day?
I average anywhere from 30 to 150 spam comments a day. All in the Askimet Spam area.
On my site, Akismet has already caught 133,636 spam so far.
Like Jenn, I also use Bad Behavior in addition to Akismet.
“Bad Behavior complements other link spam solutions by acting as a gatekeeper, preventing spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place.”
In short, Bad Behavior blocks spammers from accessing your site, and I have to admit, ever since the activation of Bad Behavior on my site, the spam queue in Akismet is reduced, because Bad Behavior blocked some spammers before they can leave a spam. So, I highly recommend it.
According to experts in the WordCamp, the golden triangle in fighting the spam is the following: Akismet, Bad Behavior and Spam Karma.
It’s my understanding that BB blocks spam attempts from even being sent to your site. I have two comparable sites (not my personal site) and BB is enabled on one of them. I have zero Akismet entries on it, and 168 on the site with no BB.
Askimet has occasionally blacklisted some “LEGIT” pingbacks. Would BB do the same? I always check my comment spam everyday, because some legit stuff does get sucked in there.
I’ve tried the Akismet + BB + Spam Karma combination and it eats up too much db space (most of it by Spam Karma).
Like what trench said, Akismet occasionally blacklists legit pingbacks or trackbacks. And for that reason, I go through the blacklisted comments one by one to make sure all are spam.
I used to have the trio installed (Akismet, Bad Behavior, and Spam Karma) but really, Akismet does the job. We just have to check for false positives — comments from legitimate users, pingbacks and trackbacks, but for the most part, it’s a lifesaver.
I don’t keep track of the number of spams I get daily, but two of the reasons why spams attack are traffic and pagerank, if I’m not mistaken.
I just wish there’s also a way to block off human spammers — those seemingly legit commenters with nonsensical comments. ;)
I’ve been using Akismet for a while now too. I think we’re getting a similar amount of spam. Before I started using it, I was having to manually clean up my comments table because the admin page would time out before displaying all the comments. Nightmare. But things have been much better the past few months.
I use anti-spam image, it works fine.
Just anti-spam image? Is that the name of the plugin?
Yep. Wanna try it out? :P
I stopped all my comment spam for my WordPress blog by using “Comment Bot Nuker”. All the other plugins I tried for WordPress only holds the comment spam from moderation. I tried them all even the “add math” and Askimet. Most all the comment spam you will get is actually from the bots that scour the Internet looking for security breaches. Using Comment Bot Nuker it nukes the comments before it is even held for moderation and lets the good comments through. So there is nothing to moderate. I don’t have to go through hundreds of comments held for moderation anymore.
I have to say I concur with most of what is being said here. I am gonna have to have to grab the rss so I can keep tabs. on what is going on here.