Why am I getting so many spam comments?

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  clairelazebnik · Member · Apr 4, 2015 at 4:32 pm

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  Every day I have about five to ten new comments on my blog that are clearly spam. They’re barely coherent. Because I like to respond to real comments quickly, they’re sent to my email address, but now almost all of them are fake–the real ones are getting lost in the flood. I’ve been using wordpress for years and years and never had this problem before. What happened to your filter? Are you aware of this? And what’s the goal of the spammers? To get someone to click on their website? They’re not ending up on my blog–I review before they can post–but it’s really annoying to deal with.

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

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  lizthefair · Member · Apr 4, 2015 at 6:21 pm

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  Hi Claire,

  Fighting spam is a constant battle, as soon as we (or any spam blocking system) blocks one hole, spammers find another way. Because of that spam goes in waves. As we get better you see less spam making it out of the filters, when the spammers get better the numbers go up again.

  When a spam comment gets through the filter, be sure to mark it as spam rather than deleting it. That helps the filter learn to identify new kinds of spam so you won’t see so many of them.

  And what’s the goal of the spammers? To get someone to click on their website?

  That is the goal. They post the same message on thousands of websites and hope that some of them get published and someone clicks.