Web Design and Development
Is Comment Spam Getting Smarter?
In the past, comment spam was pretty obvious and easily detectable. The bulk of it, for example, was full of links to all sorts of unsavory products (drugs, porn, etc…). But the dead giveaways were the poor grammar and misspellings, an email address that appeared to be computer generated (eg. lbksre@jxqmfm.com), and the fact that the comments were always off topic.
But lately, spam has changed. It has gotten much smarter and can often be hard to distinguish from legitimate comments. So what is going on? And how can you beat it?
Smart Spam
Not too long ago, spammers realized that they are more effective if their messages mimic real comments. So a lot of automatically dispatched spam now has a human touch. And what shows up at your blog are tons of surprisingly relevant comments that appear to be genuine. Take a look at a few recent comments that we received:
Smart Spam Example 1: The compliment.
You made some good points here.
Smart Spam Example 2: The generic comment.
Hi, I applaud your blog for informing people, its just sometimes people seem to get themselves tied up in unnecessary knots over something that’s very simple.
Smart Spam Example 3: The multi-sentence comment.
I find blogging one of the good ways of internet marketing. I have received a small number of visitors on my site especially from the sites where I commented their blogs.
These examples have a few things in common:
- They are well written.
- There are no links within the body of the comment. The spammy link is tucked away in the author url.
- They are not often detected by spam filtering plugins such as Akismet.
So How Do You Beat Smart Spam?
There are several tactics which are effective against spam. These include:
- Use multiple anti-spam plugins. Two is always better than one. So find two plugins which work well together. (eg. IP ban, Akismet, and captcha plugins)
- Never allow new comments to be automatically approved. All comments from new commentators should be approved before they show up on your blog, regardless of whether or not you have anti-spam plugins.
- If using Akismet, don’t just delete missed spam comments. Mark them as spam so that the Akismet system can learn.
- Beware of trackback spam. Getting links from other blogs and websites is great. But don’t assume that if someone links to you, you should give them a trackback link back. Many spammers take advantage of trackback spam and can cause you to link to all sorts of spammers’ websites. (Copyblogger posted an interesting article: "Confessions of a Trackback Spammer".)
- Delete comments that add no value. Most spammy comments are those which add little to no value to the conversation. So although you might like to have another comment on your post, deleting these comments (or at least the author url) protects your other visitors.
- Ban IP addresses. Spam is rarely ever a one-time thing. Once a spammer finds you, you’ll get your regular dose of spam. So, you can help minimize this by preventing certain IP addresses from accessing your blog. This can be done an .htaccess file or via the IP ban utility that is present with many shared web hosting accounts. Unfortunately, spammers do regularly change their IP addresses.
- Prevent remote access to wp-comments-post.php file. When a comment is added to your blog, it is processed by the wp-comments-post.php file. So some people use the .htaccess file to prevent remote users from accessing this file. This prevents automatic submission of comments from spam programs. However, this could prevent legitimate subscribers from posting comments if they respond from within their feedreaders.
20 Responses to “Is Comment Spam Getting Smarter?”
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On an average I delete four to five comments a day that are smart spams. However, when it comes to marking them as spam, I do so only for repeated offences. Sometimes some genuine bloggers do one liners as well. Mostly I stop visiting their blogs & commenting in reply
i do get spam comments like that too. they come in waves like 4-5 at a time. i really hate those kind of stuff…
Those spams… they used to flood my blog lol. The spam folder used to be filled with over 30 spams everyday but i found another way. I noticed that those spammers keep using on average the same ip..so i simply block those ip from within the cpanel.
So now the huge 50 links spams are no more in the spam folder but i do get those smart spams. I normally delete them. As for trackbacks..it depends… I normally go and read what the person has really written and if i see that he did it jst for the sake of a trackback..i dnt publish it. Else if someone has genuinely link back then i allow him. Capcha..hmm i am not such a fan of it as it somehow push commentators who are a bit lazy away lol.. for example myself…i hate when I jst cannot understand the captcha code to type..
If its simple then ok..but there are many who you have to use a magnifying glass to guess it lol.
@Ajith: Oh yeh, it is definitely important to make sure that smart spam is indeed spam. If I am in any doubt, I’ll just delete the comment instead of marking it as spam.
@stratos: Yes, mine come in groups as well. And I’ve noticed that some of the smart spam regularly use the same ‘alias’. That helps easily identify it as well.
@Kurt: I have to agree with you about the captcha. Sometimes, captchas are not worth the effort because they are frustratingly difficult or hard to read… (I believe stratos might have something to add to this discussion. He recently improved his captcha to make it more user-friendly.)
Good tips. I fell for a couple before i realized it. I also warn other bloggers on my comment trail…”comment above me is spam, seen everywhere, delete it”…something like that.
@Dennis: Haha. I’ve never warned about spam. Besides, if a blogger doesn’t notice ‘obvious’ spam, perhaps they aren’t looking at and reading all of their comments anyway.
Well like I said even I answered a couple before I caught up a bit lol, but I also have a secret…
Psst, come closer (if I can’t think of a good comment, that makes a good comment)
Ya get thanked for it too. 
Spam is getting smarter because real people are being paid to leave those comments. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell and I tend to give the comment the benefit of the doubt. I got more annoyed recently by someone who wasn’t a spammer but commented on 11 articles at one time to get in the list of top commenters. I mean seriously, spread it out over a couple of days.
I have a post about some of the People spammers I get and how I watch the Search Queries that come in. Luckily I do not use WordPress (they seem to search those more)so, I have not had real problems.
I do get the ones that copy a sentence from your post and then just agree.
I try not to ever ban an IP because spammers use rotating IP’s and by the time you start blocking them you will have no one allowed at your blog.
Just think of all the energy that is wasted on placing spam & then we waste energy deleting it.
Lol I get this alot too! Sometimes I almost get fooled by them. Normally I would just check the post content and the comment they made.
One funny thing went like a recent post telling my readers I am sick and the comment went like “Great post there! Thanks for sharing.”
Spam obviously!
@Kim: Oh yes, that is annoying. Every now and then, I get that over here. When bloggers have Top Commentator plugins, I typically don’t comment in bursts, even if I want to comment on an article because it really does give off the wrong impression.
@Sheryl: Yeh, the rotating IP’s are annoying. But every so often, I’ll get a spammer who just bombs me with dozens of messages from the same IP. So I have no problem banning those.
Thanks for linking to your article on spammers & queries. Maybe I should change my “leave a reply” to something else… I’m definitely going to look at the search phrases people use to find me.
@Ben: Haha. Clearly spam.
When I first started blogging, I’d get so excited to get that email telling me that a comment was on my blog. I log in as soon as possible to see what had been said, only to find that it was spam… usually something like that generic comment you quoted above…
Fortunately, now I get legitimate comments as well.
@Shirley – Wasn’t that a bummer too? I would get so excited over the emails and then be so disappointed that it wasn’t a legitimate comment.
I agree with you. I think, i get at least 5-10 comments which look authentic but the comment is made as a spamming intention.
Maybe if Google didn’t place so much emphasis on inbound links comment spamming would stop. Now, don’t ask me how they could judge websites otherwise. I’m not smart enough to figure that out.
Good tips on Comment Spam. Every since I’ve started using Akismet on my wordpress Blog, I’ve been able to control most of the spam on this.
It really depends on where you draw the line between spam and valid comments. When it doesn’t ‘contribute’ to the page/discussion, many consider it spam, but it may be a genuine comment.
The real questions is: what is your definition of spam? (relating to comments)
Personally I hate CAPTCHA since I’m color-blind. Found another plugin that challenges you with a math problem instead. Dropped my spam from 30 a day to 1 per week. A side effect is that since math is involved, it tends to become a Darwinian filter too.
What I hate are the “screw you” comments from spammers like “why did you remove my….” or I’ve had worse. Guess that’s belligerent spam?
Bill
Yeah, i am annoyed by this. Spam is getting smarter because real people are being paid to leave those comments. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell and I tend to give the comment the benefit of the doubt.
Nice blog, you made some good points.
(just kidding.)
I would delete repeat offenders like Ajith says, but a compliment here and there doesn’t hurt your company’s image. Right? Besides I believe in good backlink karma for those using comment luv and other tools to build targeted links. However, I would not let them run un-approved.
I don’t really have any high traffic websites, but usually akisment (I hate to spell that name..) will get all of the spam comments I receive. I only realize it when I look into my comments folder and see “oh there are 45 spam comments that haven’t been deleted yet”. It very very rarely happens that any spammer gets through that system.
But I also had the opposite once. There was a comment that looked very spammy because of the way it was written, but was actually a valid request for more information, there was no url in the comment or in the author’s website box.