Spam attacks on one post…??
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For some reason I keep getting spam comments on just one specific post. I can’t figure out what’s going on. The comments show up in my email and I find about a new one each week. Why just one post? Anyone have thoughts on this?
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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It happens some time –
What is the Post you have trouble with?
Sometimes if you let a spam comment by that will act as a magnet – other times a Post or Picture will attract spam even when there are no comments on it (I have a couple of pictures that happens to – but Akismet gets the spam for them)
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The post is Limbs of the Weeping Willow, and I just noticed there are 4 more new comments since I last checked early yesterday. Crazy.
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Please provide the URL for the post in question in the form of an active link starting with http://
Know that is you approve a single spam comment on any post it will become a target for spammers. Also know that 4 is a very low number.
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.
Spamming is big business and spam comes in waves. There are human beings who get paid to post spam. There are robotic programs that post spam. Sometimes an increase in spam can mean that you approved a spam comment and now the spammers are hammering your blog. Other times they simply find a new way to escape being noticed as spam.
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.
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 -
I recently came across a WPcom site that apparently had let through at least a half dozen spam comments on one post (all other posts had none or one comment at the most). When I pointed this out to the site owner, he was like, yeah OK so there is something suspicious, but the comment itself looks legit. He didn’t say whether the comments were in his spam folder to begin with. Regardless, his reply was that unless I could prove those weren’t legit comments he’d continue to post them. That’s when I pointed him to this earlier forum thread, https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/consequences-of-approving-a-comment-that-turns-out-to-be-spam whereupon he deleted my comments! So much for trying.
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@justjennifer
Once maybe a year ago or so auxclass and I tried to help a person who had approved over 50 spam comments. Every approved comment on the blog was spam and it was obvious by just reading the usernames. Two days later I saw all the spam comments were still approved. It was mind boggling, given that any site’s ranking is negatively affected when spam is approved, but that blogger chose to ignore our efforts to assist. -
I’d like to thank you all for the help. I went in to my Discussion Settings and updated them. This should take care of the problem, I hope. I have one more question (I’m such a noob when it comes to this stuff): What is Ham? I tried looking it up online but didn’t find any satisfactory answers. Thanks again!
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@theminstrelscitadel You’re welcome. :)
@tt – do you mean the thread where the user had approved many (hundreds of ) spam comments and found a warning notice in his dashboard? Yeah, I do remember that one. His site still appears to be suspended.
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@justjennifer
Maybe it was the same one. I shook my head and did a cyber click out and walk away on the one I referred to.
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