Are spammers stealing legitimate comments?
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I think that spammers are “hijacking” legitimate comments in my blog. I’ve written a post about it: http://computinged.wordpress.com/2012/08/29/new-kind-of-spam-snagging-legitimate-comments/ Is there anything I can do (e.g., in my settings) to make this less likely?
Blog url: http://computinged.wordpress.com/The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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I think that spammers are “hijacking” legitimate comments
Not really sure what you mean there. 99.9% of comments are Spam. You can usually tell by the usernames and email addresses.
Generic ‘atta-boy’ type comments are almost always Spam. Unless the comment specifically references something in your post, it should be deleted.
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Unless the comment specifically references something in your post, it should be deleted.
Not deleted but marked as Spam – that way Akismet will learn who is a spammer and how they are getting by the filters
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Well, in my case, they’re already marked as Spam and awaiting action.
Maybe OP isn’t sending them to Moderation?
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Sorry on the wordsmith thing – or if they are already in the spam cache like they are for you then clearing the spam cache does delete them – it’s that I have seen some people that were having spam problems and they were just deleting them and Akismet was not learning
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Not really sure what you mean there. 99.9% of comments are Spam. You can usually tell by the usernames and email addresses.
Generic ‘atta-boy’ type comments are almost always Spam. Unless the comment specifically references something in your post, it should be deleted.
Completely agreed — I see a lot of those. The two comments I describe were in my spam cache, and did have these completely spam-like usernames and email addresses (e.g., offshore bank accounts). But the comments are great.
Here’s what I think happened (somehow):
- Some legitimate user made a thoughtful comment and posted it.
- But somehow, a spammer was able to swap out the identifying information on the comment, so that it pointed to their spam site.
- Akismet caught the comment as spam and put it in my cache, but it’s really a good comment whose identify is stole.
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People are hired to write those “great” comments. Their aim is to get the spam links on your blog. Don’t be sucked in by it.
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Also note that we receive spam that contains our own words from posts and from comments. Don’t be sucked in by it either.
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I agree with Timethief and, for what it’s worth, I’ve had bits of my own posts grabbed by spammers and put into spam comments. Do you know what I do? I delete them.
The only comments that get into my blog are ones made by real people, with real URLS and real email addresses. They are comments either by bloggers I already know or by bloggers (or non-bloggers) who are actually trying to connect with me as an individual who just happens to be a blogger too.
As TT says – don’t be sucked in by it.
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Thanks, all! I’m betting that that’s what happened — these are copy-paste from other sources.
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