Akismet spam

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  candaceworthen · Member · May 1, 2015 at 7:42 pm

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  Why is the spam count so high on akismet stats? According to my stats, I have more than 500 hits or of spam. Please clarify and if there’s anything I can do to reduce spam count.

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  timethief · Member · May 1, 2015 at 7:45 pm

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  The vast and overwhelming majority of information on the internet is spam. Over 80% of all so-called comments submitted to WordPress.COM blogs every day is spam. Spam comes in waves. Spam can be posted by bots and there are also people who are paid to submit spam comments.

  If you approve a single spam comment on a post the original spammer will hammer that post and will sell the URL to other spammers and phishers who will do the same. if you approve comments with links in them the spammers will do the same thing. If you set up anonymous commenting spammer will have a field day.

  Aksimet is a learning engine. If you get spam that slips by Akismet then mark it as spam (do not delete it) and over time Akismet will learn it’s spam. On the spam that Akismet catches on it takes only seconds to click “empty spam” and you don’t even have to click “empty spam” if you don’t want to. Akismet will maintain comments it has caught for 30 days from the time they were received, and then it will delete the comment automatically.

  There is no such thing as eliminating all spam but Akismet works very well. Set up comment moderation, if you have not already done so, because allowing anonymous commenting on your blog is like putting out the welcome mat for spammers.

  Read Five things every blogger should know about spam
  http://docs.akismet.com/general/spam-facts/

  This page > Settings > Discussion is where you set up defaults for comments. http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/discussion-settings/

  I reduce spam by using this setting:

  3. Automatically close comments on articles older than __ days – This setting can be used to have comments closed on articles that are X days old. As an example, if you only want articles to accept comments for 30 days you would check the box and type 30 into the text field. http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/discussion-settings/#other-comment-settings

  And I moderate comments too. Comment moderation http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/discussion-settings/#comment-moderation

  Discussion Settings
  Other comment settings
  _Comment author must fill out name and e-mail
  _Users must be registered and logged in to comment

  Here’s a reality check. The vast and overwhelming majority of all so-called information on the internet is spam. Over 80% of all so-called comments submitted to .wordpress.com blogs every day are spam.

  See here for comment blacklisting http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/discussion-settings/#comment-blacklist

  Also, do not put IP addresses in the blacklist. IP addresses are no longer unique, and you might end up blocking legitimate visitors. In fact for over a decade only about 30% of us have IPs that trace back to any individual computer. Also, all they would have to do is go to a wi-fi hot spot, or connect via a different ISP and they could get around that.