| Does Spamming Pay?
Before I go on, I should say that by clicking that fun logo to the left, you can join the Spam Fan Club, i.e., the Hormel Spam Spiced Ham Fan Club. I have no idea what the perks are to being in such a club. Anyway, I have a new, persistent comment spammer that has been annoying me. This person started out by at least attempting to respond to the content of my posts, and then seems to have just given up any pretense about being legit and started leaving this comment on a zillion posts: Good post mate, very informative. This person also left a lot of the comments on long ago posts, maybe hoping they wouldn't be noticed by me. They were noticed. So, if you see a comment that says "good post, mate" you can assume it's really no mate of mine. The question, though, is this: Is anyone winning at this spamming game? Are people getting rich from spamming blog comments? I've heard that some of those investing spammers have managed to rope some people in with their e-mails, but blog comment spam? It seems like so much work for so little promise of gain.
Strategies For Preventing Comment Spam
Bloggers are painfully aware of website owners who try to improve their websites rank by adding links to blogs. There are several strategies for combating this problem.
The first and most obvious method is to avoid free blogger sites. These are favorite targets for comment spam.
Bloggers who own their own software can add a no-follow tag. The rel=nofollow tag does not stop the spam, but it does stop robots from following the link. Blogger, owned by Google, implements these tags already. Wordpress has anti-comment spam plug-ins to help bloggers stop comment spam.
Do not bother banning the IP address - unplugging a computer for one hour can change the IP address, and changing a servers IP address is relatively easy. Some companies buy IP addresses in blocks of a hundred or more, and spammers also use open proxies.
Back in service
The blog server has been suffering from comment spam attacks lately, leading to occasional outages, such as most of this morning. Unfortunately, even the comment spam defenses in the current version of Movable Type put a strain on the server. I'm exploring various ways to cope with this. Thanks for your patience. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 31, 2006 11:35 AM | Email This .
26-80 - The Letter Willamette Week Didn't Print Chris Smith
BlueOregon is a place for progressive Oregonians to gather 'round the water cooler and share news, commentary, and gossip. Learn more about BlueOregon and meet our contributors. (Huh? What's this?) BlueOregon Sponsors Advertise on BlueOregon LEGAL STUFF This site is published by Kari Chisholm at Mandate Media, but copyright to and responsibility for all posts and comments are owned by their respective authors. Obviously, the posts and comments here are the views of their authors, and not of anyone else. While we're strong believers in free speech, we reserve the right to delete comment spam or other offensive material. Our contributors, however, reserve the right to embarass themselves in public.
It's Your Choice Anne Martens
BlueOregon is a place for progressive Oregonians to gather 'round the water cooler and share news, commentary, and gossip. Learn more about BlueOregon and meet our contributors. (Huh? What's this?) BlueOregon Sponsors Advertise on BlueOregon LEGAL STUFF This site is published by Kari Chisholm at Mandate Media, but copyright to and responsibility for all posts and comments are owned by their respective authors. Obviously, the posts and comments here are the views of their authors, and not of anyone else. While we're strong believers in free speech, we reserve the right to delete comment spam or other offensive material. Our contributors, however, reserve the right to embarass themselves in public.
Ted's fire: too late? TA Barnhart
BlueOregon is a place for progressive Oregonians to gather 'round the water cooler and share news, commentary, and gossip. Learn more about BlueOregon and meet our contributors. (Huh? What's this?) BlueOregon Sponsors Advertise on BlueOregon LEGAL STUFF This site is published by Kari Chisholm at Mandate Media, but copyright to and responsibility for all posts and comments are owned by their respective authors. Obviously, the posts and comments here are the views of their authors, and not of anyone else. While we're strong believers in free speech, we reserve the right to delete comment spam or other offensive material. Our contributors, however, reserve the right to embarass themselves in public.
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