Why am I getting spam???

Mainly because the spammers have learned a bit about WP.

Install/enable Akismet or Spam Karma 2.

Then install the Bad Behavior plugin.

That’ll fix ’em.

i’m having the same problem. WordPress is set up to REQUIRE people to be LOGGED IN before submitting a Comment, and yet im getting a ton of spam comments posted over and over again.

If you have the same problem – apply the same suggested remedy. See above.
The automatic scripts that spam you – are not people, so they just don’t care about your settings ??

Similar thing happening to me. Spambots are hitting my blog through the trackback function. I disabled that in my options 2 days ago but that didn’t do a damn thing! But I just got smart… I never use that so I just deleted the wp-trackback.php file from my blog!

The automatic scripts that spam you – are not people, so they just don’t care about your settings ??

Then what’s the point of even having the settings if they have no effect? Doesn’t that make them placebo functions then?

Seems silly to have functions that can keep spambots from posting spam comments if they don’t work.

If you use Akismet and BAd behaviour, you will feel a verry happy Blogger!

Then what’s the point of even having the settings if they have no effect? Doesn’t that make them placebo functions then?

The settings do what they were designed to do, stop people from posting comments. They mainly do this by removing the comment forms and such. However, the code to receive comments is still there. The spammers have picked up new tactics recently and do things like submitting the spam comments directly, bypassing these settings. Future versions may patch this minor hole, but for now, your best bet is simply spam stoppers. Akismet, Bad Behavior, Spam Karma, these plugins are your friends. They stop spam comments dead, period. Use ’em. Love ’em.

Thanks for the tip x1984x

Spam seems to be a hot issue and I’ve heard tons of complaints about the trackback feature letting it in. I’m sure that there are plenty of first time blog users who who haven’t thought much about the trackback feature, so it you’re worried about spam here is my two cents regarding whether or not trackback is necessary:

Unless you plan on writing lots of articles about other people’s articles and then sending them trackbacks in the hope of netting traffic it just seems kind of useless. And frankly I don’t really care too much if somebody wants to say something about me on their blog so I don’t need to receive them.

I don’t like the trackback function anyway since (in my own personal opinion, so don’t get mad) there’s a bit of a desperate quality about telling someone “Hey look at me. I wrote about you, or the same thing as you, on my blog. I really want you to come and look at it.” If it was important I’d notice the traffic coming in on my referral logs. And if my visitors care so much about the topic they can google it and get good quality results about it. Who knows what jerk is going to write some trash and then trackback to you.

And sometimes when I check other people’s trackbacks it’s annoying because another person just used something you said and commented on it in a useless and unoriginal way to get attention. So it seems to encourage spambots and also spamhumans. The more popular you are personally, the more I imagine that this would be a problem. Why can’t the person just leave a normal comment saying what they want to say like everyone else (even including a link if they must). Sending a trackback seems to be a selfish attention getting thing to do if you ask me.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I suggest deleting trackback if it’s becoming a problem – unless someone can convince me otherwise.

I have a draft email where I stick stuff I’ve deleted from my blog in case I ever change my mind and want to go get those things and put them back. You could make a file like that anywhere and put notes to yourself about where you got the things from.

P.S. Anyone who uses trackback please don’t hate me. Just tell me why you like it and maybe I’ll change my mind.

Actually, I love getting trackbacks. I don’t often refer to other people’s posts, but I do post a lot of code fragments and scripts on my blog, and when other people use them and comment on them on their own blogs, then it’s cool to know about the fact and see what people are saying. To each his own there, I suppose.

But regardless of that: disabling comments, disabling trackbacks, etc, these seem like really drastic measures to take when solutions like Akismet work so danged well. I mean, really, enabling Akismet is not difficult. Yes, you have to get an API key by signing up on WordPress.com, but it’s as zero maintanence as you can get and it *just works*. Spam gets caught, not-spam goes right on through. I have been getting about 40 spams a day now, Akismet hasn’t dropped a beat. They don’t show up and unless I go look for them, I never hear a word about them. Only once in several months of use has a legitimate trackback been flagged as spam, compared to hundreds and hundreds of spams simply disappearing as far as I’m concerned.

Really, these spam blockers for comment spam just work. Why anybody is not using them simply baffles me.

Okay, that is very interesting Otto42. Maybe I am wrong about trackback. I also just got the idea that it must depend a lot on what type of blog you are running. Mine is very personal, but yours seems to really offer something to the public and you’d probably want to know how that was working out. So maybe for some people it is a really good thing.

And for some of us, maybe a bit unnecesary?

From the amount of complaints I was reading when I browse blogs I just assumed that spamware wasn’t working or something. I don’t know why someone would complain about a problem without having tried to fix it. But I will definetly think about what you said if I start getting spam. And for now I won’t delete my trackback.

They mainly do this by removing the comment forms and such. However, the code to receive comments is still there. The spammers have picked up new tactics recently and do things like submitting the spam comments directly, bypassing these settings.

untrue. look at the code in wp-comments-post.php.


$status = $wpdb->get_row("SELECT post_status, comment_status FROM $wpdb->posts WHERE ID = '$comment_post_ID'");

if ( empty($status->comment_status) ) {
do_action('comment_id_not_found', $comment_post_ID);
exit;
} elseif ( 'closed' == $status->comment_status ) {
do_action('comment_closed', $comment_post_ID);
die( __('Sorry, comments are closed for this item.') );
} elseif ( 'draft' == $status->post_status ) {
do_action('comment_on_draft', $comment_post_ID);
exit;
}

the problem is that some wordpress users can’t differentiate between comments and trackbacks. they also don’t know how the settings work.

I think wordpress needs to release a security fix to put an end to this big spammer loop hole.

there’s no loophole.

How do I install Akismet?

installing and setting up askimet