One of the major problems with the server switch is that we were using an old, outdated version of a couple spam preventing Wordpress plugins. While these plugins were doing their job of not sending us emails, a lot of spam comments still made it to moderation cue. (I know this because I had to clean out about 35 pages of spam on my own blog).
So, instead of trying to overwrite the plugins with a new version, I decided to overhaul the spam blocking system. I took out the old spam filters and implementing a new set of features. These are very aggressive spam blocking measures that I hope will cut back on the spam we say day in and day out.
The spam fighting hacks have three major components.
1) Captcha – Anyone not logged in is now required to fill in the Captcha word in order to even submit the comment. Now, I understand this can be annoying for people who are not registered members of our community, but it’s far more annoying weeding through 35 pages of comment spam, so I think the benefit outweighs the negatives.
2) Trackback Database – If the spammer does somehow get past the Captcha, or if they set up an account to spam us without us catching it, they’ll have to hope their URL’s have not been checked into the trackback database we use. This is not just a database we use; Rather, it’s a database that thousands of Wordpress users chack against and report to. So if a spammer’s URL has been flagged before, it’s going to get blocked out and the comment will be marked as spam.
3) Comment Links – It’s perfectly OK to have a link or two in a comment. Heck, I do it all the time. But it becomes questionable to have more than two links in a comment, and from now on we’re watching for this. Our system checks for comments that are heavy on the links as they come in, and if they have more than two links, they get bypassed.
We’re working on a few more options to help combat the spam, but I think these three will help dramatically decrease the amount of spam we’re dealing with right now.
Stay tuned for more updates on this!
-Eric Odom
