The real problem with WordPress blogs these days is the amount of comment spam you get.
I use the wp-spamfree plugin to protect my blogs, and until recently, that was all that I recommended that people install.
In the last few days, I’ve found that I’m getting a lot more comment spam, so I needed to take some action to mitigate it. The approach that I’ve come up with is to install the wp-recaptcha plugin.
That’s not all you need to do, though. You also need to go to the recaptcha.net website and request an API key, which requires that you confirm your email address. This is all free, of course. This plugin is compatible with wp-spamfree.
The other good thing about this is that the project helps to get the content of books transcribed and therefore preserved for future generations of humans.
I’ve tried the num capcha method to cut spam.
Any reason you don’t use akismet?
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admin Reply:
April 9th, 2010 at 20:07
Hi Alex,
I don’t use akismet because I’d have to pay for it.
I know that makes me sound a little cheap, but I’m paying for enough stuff. I’d rather keep my overheads reasonably small. Plus I am not sure how competitive it is.
How do you find the num captcha method? I looked it up, and it looks good. Readers can find it here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-num-captcha/
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I’ve noticed wp-spamfree letting more spam comments through which is very strange.
I’ll give it another week to see if they update it again (everyone make sure you are using the most recent version), before implementing the captcha.
I used to use a simple math sum as a captcha, http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/math-comment-spam-protection/
But dropped it off most of my sites, when wp-spamfree came out.
Aaron
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Hi Dave –
I have used akismet for a long time and sometimes it catches almost everything but also tags some valid comments a spam. Then if you start getting a large amount of spam you still need to go in and see for yourself. This can be time consuming.I was doing it because if some one took the time to write a valid comment I felt it sholud make it to the post. One day I got slammed with spam and had enough.
I started looking for captcha plugins. Tried many out to see hoe they worked in the real world. I wanted one that was easy to read, had the reload feature and audio option.
The one I ended up using is SI Captcha (free and no API). I don’t need to go into akismet anymore so it save me much time. One thing that might intimidate people from using it is you must move a line of code in comment.php. It’s easy and the instructions are good. You need to move that line of code so the captcha displays between the Name/Mail/Website and the Comment box. After the first time it’s easy. I do it now as soon as I install a new blog. While I’m in the editor changing that I enter my commenting guidelines between the “Leave a Reply and the name field.
I’m using it on a several blogs now and it works good and I haven’t had a problem with it. It’s regularly updated and works on the newest version of WordPress. I hate when I update to a new version of WordPress and a plugin stops working. Because of that happening in the past I’m more selective when I choose a new plugin. Whatever else you use for spam I feel you really should have a captcha. It’s used on many major sites so people are use to seeing them and don’t mind them like they did at first. Keep in mind to pick one that protects against spam and is still easy for your visitors to use. Easy to read, audio option and refresh so you don’t need to refresh the whole page to get a new captcha word or phase.
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OK…tried to sign up on the site recaptcha.net and found it REALLY funny that their captcha wasn’t loading…so couldn’t get anywhere. Guess they convinced me to stick with askimet and I can ONLY hope humans are making the comments.
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davtom Reply:
May 11th, 2010 at 22:46
Hmm, that’s weird. As you can see, it works here. It must have, otherwise you wouldn’t have been allowed to post your comment (unless something’s wrong).
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I have been using this plugin for several months and it has worked flawlessly. Good to see someone promoting it because it shuts down spam in a hurry. I also use Askimet as well. I use them both on all of my blogs and I’ve NEVER had a single spam comment on any of my blogs appear publicly in over a year. By using these two in conjunction, you essentially eliminate 99.9% of all spam.
Travis
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