Spam protection added to comments

I have added spam protection added to comments. Instead of various CAPTCHA based solutions I ended up using simpler and maybe even less annoying math based spam protection. Math Comment Spam Protection asks the visitor making the comment to answer a simple math question. This is intended to prove that the visitor is a human being and not a spam robot. I think for average site use answering a simple math is easier than trying to figure out hard to read text from tiny picture.

The math used will be easy. Example of such question: Sum of 9 + 9 ? The correct answer for this is 18.

I am added this spam protection because the amount of comment spam pushing to this site has been in unbearable and uncontrollable level. Something had to be done. I tested few option and this seemed to be the best solution.

I have used very good Akismet spam filter, which has filtered the spam out very well, but when the incoming spam reaches tens of thousands of spam comments every day some spam gets though and it will cause considerable server load. It seems that the comment posting and spam filter is not very optimized in performance, and in last few days the huge incoming spam flood had made the site slow to use (especially the site management). After adding this new spam control measure, the situation seems to have come to normal immediately.

 

7 Comments

  1. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Math Comment Spam Protection is very simple measure, and it does not seem to stop all the spam and some spam robots seems to go though it nicely. But it worked what I wanted it to do: reduce the amount of the spam to manageable level. It reduces the amount of incoming spam 90-95%! Simple measure (for my end and for users), and still helped a lot.

    Reply
  2. Tomi Engdahl says:

    If you are interested in using captha instead, there are a many WordPress captha plug-ins.
    You can find many with this search:
    https://www.google.fi/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=gBghVLSHHeaO8Qezt4CwDA#q=wordpress+captcha

    Reply
  3. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Stop WordPress Comment Spam With These Pro Tips
    http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/stop-wordpress-comment-spam/

    Comment spam and registration spam remain a large problem for WordPress users. It is not uncommon for some WordPress websites to receive hundreds or even thousands of comments every week.

    This level of spam can damage your reputation with readers and commentators if you fail to tackle it. It is therefore important to face spammers head on and thwart their attempts at spamming your website.

    Thankfully, tackling spammers does not need to be a time consuming endeavor. If you configure your WordPress website correctly, and install a good anti-spam plugin, you can eliminate the vast majority of spam from your website.

    Reply
  4. Tomi Engdahl says:

    Another idea to spam controlling:

    WordPress Zero Spam Plugin Packages David Walsh’s Anti-Spam Method
    http://wptavern.com/wordpress-zero-spam-plugin-packages-david-walshs-anti-spam-method

    WordPress Zero Spam is the latest to join the ranks of anti-spam plugins fighting on the front lines of WordPress sites. The new plugin is based on a simple method created by Mozilla developer David Walsh, whose popular tech blog gets regularly hammered by 8,000+ spam comments per day.

    WordPress Zero Spam is different from Akismet, the most often recommended spam blocking solution, in that it’s not a service dedicated to filtering spam. It simply checks for bots and discards spam comments at the door before they reach your site. The benefit here is that you are likely to have fewer spam comments and false positives to hunt through. Since it’s an open source plugin and not a service, WordPress Zero Spam is free for both personal and commercial use.

    The downside of this new plugin is that anyone without support for JavaScript will have their comments rejected. However, the percentage of actual commenters with JS turned off is likely to be infinitesimal compared to the number of bots trying to comment on your site.

    WordPress Zero Spam
    https://wordpress.org/plugins/zero-spam/

    Major features in WordPress Zero Spam include:

    No captcha, because spam is not users’ problem
    No moderation queues, because spam is not administrators’ problem
    Blocks spam registrations & comments with the use of JavaScript
    Contact Form 7 support if installed and activated
    Gravity Form support if installed and activated
    BuddyPress support if installed and activated
    Supports caching plugins to help provide great performance
    Blocks spammy IPs from ever seeing your site
    Extend the plugin with action hooks
    Optional logging, so you can see who’s trying to spam
    Advanced settings for complete control

    Reply
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