How am I getting spam with comments disabled?

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  metabart · Member · Jun 29, 2018 at 8:04 pm

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  I don’t have comments enabled on my blog, but Akismet has protected me from 4 spam comments so far. Where is the spam originating from if not from the comment section? I am confused.

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

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  gemmacevans · Member · Jun 30, 2018 at 8:18 am

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  Hi metabart,

  I can’t see any comments in the spam folder on metabart.wordpress.com, so I just want to double check this is the site you are referring to? If so, did you delete the spam comments?

  Thanks!

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  metabart · Member · Jun 30, 2018 at 10:33 am

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  Yes, that is the correct site. I am referring to when I click on ‘spam’ in the dashboard, it says ‘Akismet has protected your site from 4 spam comments already. There is nothing in your spam queue’.

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  gemmacevans · Member · Jun 30, 2018 at 7:13 pm

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  Would you be able to take a screenshot of the message you are seeing and upload it to your Media Library?

  Take a Screenshot

  I haven’t been able to find it :)

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  metabart · Member · Jun 30, 2018 at 7:49 pm

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  Yes, I’ll do it now.

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  metabart · Member · Jun 30, 2018 at 7:57 pm

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  I’ve uploaded a screen shot. I’ve titled it ‘spam’.

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  staff-zinnia · Staff · Jul 1, 2018 at 3:42 pm

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  Right, there are no spam comments pending because Akismet preemptively caught them. Does that help clear this up? Thanks for the screen shot too!

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  metabart · Member · Jul 1, 2018 at 4:26 pm

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  That doesn’t answer the question I asked though, does it?

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  kokkieh · Staff · Jul 2, 2018 at 7:55 am

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  Have you ever had the default comments option on your site set to enabled? If so, comments might be enabled on media attachment pages for images you uploaded during that time.

  It’s also possible spammers are using bots that try to submit comments directly via the WordPress.com API.

  Either way, the spam filter blocks those comments so they can’t get through to your site.

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  metabart · Member · Jul 2, 2018 at 8:42 am

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  @kokkieh I have never had comments enabled, right from the start of the blog, BUT it’s possible there was just one post that had comments enabled on it, but that post was removed from my blog, and also removed from Google. There have been 8 spam caught by Akismet now. I just couldn’t understand how I could get spam comments when the comments are not enabled. Thank you for your help, I’ll just ignore it now, because as you say, Akismet blocks them, and you have explained how it’s possible they get through. Cheers.

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  kokkieh · Staff · Jul 2, 2018 at 9:31 am

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  Then they’re most likely being submitted directly via the API, but that won’t succeed, both because you have comments disabled, and because Akismet is doing it’s job :)