Henrik Blunck, Wayne John, and Christopher Roberts are three people who frequently add comments here. They write prolifically and intelligently. But for some reason that I was never able to understand, their comments were considered spam by Akismet — the most popular anti-spam plugin used by nearly all WordPress blogs.
Even when I moderated the first comment people wrote, their subsequent comments kept getting flagged as spam — along with the hundreds of true spam comments left both manually and robotically every day.
To them and to everyone else who tried to publish a comment that seemingly went nowhere, I apologize.
I’m tired of apologizing. I’m tired of scouring through hundreds of spammed comments to find the one real comment.
No longer.
I deactivated Akismet from this blog’s list of plugins and installed a new plugin with the memorable acronym of G.A.S.P.
You can see it in play by scrolling to the area after the comment form and adjacent to the Submit button. See the optional checkbox with the request to check it if you are human? That’s G.A.S.P. If you don’t check the box when submitting your comment, you will see a message ensuring you’re human. If you do check the box, your comment is automatically published without any moderation.
Before echoing me and downloading the Growmap Anti-Spambot Plugin (which only works on self-hosted WordPress blogs), please understand its purpose according to Gail Gardner, also known as Growmap, who explains the rationale in developing a plugin that favors real people leaving real comments.
Why Use the GrowMap Anti-Spambot Plugin?
1. No false positives – your favorite commentators and new readers WILL be able to easily comment in your blog.
2. Blocks spam that Akismet was letting through. We are getting ZERO bot spam. Only those commenting manually who check the “I am not a spammer box” can leave comments.
3. Easier for commentators than using a Captcha or math plugin – never a “wrong” answer that isn’t wrong or a problem with cookies!
Why Not Just Use Akismet?
1. Large numbers of bloggers and regular commentators who never spam have been flagged by Akismet as spammers.
2. Any commentator who has been flagged as a spammer is treated rudely by your blog. They never see the message your comment is being moderated so they have no way of knowing what happened to their comment.
3. If you have a particular box checked in the Akismet configuration, comments left for real people who have been flagged incorrectly as commentators in posts more than 30 days old are immediately deleted and they see a blank white page.
4. Read the many other posts and hundreds of comments related to problems with Akismet.
Occasional fake comments are passing through the system. These are caused by manual people who check the box. When this happens, I’m adding obvious fake words to the blacklist in my Settings->Discussion panel box. But the frequency of my marking a comment as spam is far less than the frequency of my perusing through spammed comments to find the real one. Fact is, the level of spam comments has decreased from around 100 or 200 a day to less than 10 a day.
Click the names of Udegbunam Chukwudi and James Johnston to read their insights and reviews why they like G.A.S.P.
If you’re a self-hosted WordPress blogger, give it a chance.
Get rid of Akismet, too.
{ 30 comments }
Twitter: waynejohn
November 29, 2010 at 2:50 PM
Interesting. My understanding of how most spam-bots work is by already knowing the object names being used. For instance, the name field here has an id of “author”, which is true for any WordPress install. As a programmer, I could bring up any WordPress blog, auto-fill these already known fields and click the submit button and send my comment spam.
The addition of a checkbox, imo, will help initially. But, if it gains ground, then it would be really easy for me to include a check on the “gasp_checkbox” object, and bypass the check by fooling it.
The only true way to combat comment spam in my opinion is for WordPress themselves to change the names of the textboxes on the fly so that each rendering of the id field is different. Heck, maybe that won’t even work after a while…lol
It’s a constant battle, and I’ve just recently turned off all comments on my blog due to my recent lack of writing, and getting nothing but spam comments.
I think I’ll wait until after Christmas to turn em back on…I need a break from the bs. Maybe I’ll add gasp…good find Ari!
Unless I incorrectly labeled you, Wayne, you’ve since dropped Akismet too, or no?
Twitter: waynejohn
March 7, 2011 at 2:02 PM
I thought I had turned it off…but it seems that I still have it enabled, alongside GASP.
Hmm…
Wayne recently wrote Free and easy way to make disclosure policies for blogs and websites
Brilliant Ari, I can’t wait to see how successful this new plugin is. The box caught me out at first, but I am getting used to it now
I look forward to a more open blog with more valuable comments
I may even change to G.A.S.P. myself on my philosophy blog, as Akismet does occasionally let a spam comment slip through on my blog.
Nice article Ari, and thanks for the mention
For some odd reason my WordPress blog doesn’t play nicely with most of the spambot filters (including Akismet), and I only found true relief just recently from adding a simple addition field to my comments sections. It’s worked like a charm, and now I don’t have to sift through tons of spam in order to weed out the legitimate comments.
simplyD recently wrote Low-Carb Recipes- Pan Seared Salmon I Submitted By- Noreen421
I’m with you on Akismet. Far too often, real comments are flagged as spam. Then again, it’s not as though you want your blog to be flooded by automatically generated comments. The battle continues!
I absolutely hate having to approve comment by comment on my personal blog. Its tiresome, and if you don’t do it, your page looks barren! I ended up installing a CAPTCHA. Anyway good call on the G.A.S.P.!
Hopefully that will work well for you. Keeping the bots away is a problem all bloggers deal with. I’m glad you opted to keep the real comments, however. Keep us updated on how GASP is working for you.
Thanks for the switch Ari. Akismet has been giving fits everywhere lately, which is why other solutions work better. GASP is great, but its protection isn’t the greatest. For now it works, but soon there will need to be a combination of things needed again as the bots get smarter.
Samuel recently wrote LG Electronics 47LD500 47 1080p LCD HDTV
I jumped in my chair, when I read the start of this blog post, because Henrik Blunck’s comments usually end up in my spam filter, too, and I never could figure out why. Henrik got used to sending me an email and poke me about his comments.
I don’t know if I will use G.A.S.P. I prefer to be able to preview the first comment for a new commenter.
Britt Malka recently wrote Do You Want To Earn Money Blogging
Twitter: alexiskenne
December 1, 2010 at 11:55 AM
Thanks Ari, It sounds great.
I’m gonna try it right now.
Alexis recently wrote 5 Typical Mistakes Made By New Internet Marketers
Twitter: kikolani
December 2, 2010 at 1:09 PM
There are a LOT of people on the Akismet spam list now, including some really big name bloggers that you know aren’t spending their day spamming.
I don’t think it applies to everyone, but I think one reason it is happening is because of the fact that some spammers are spamming in the name of other bloggers. I got a comment from one of the big names at Copyblogger, and I guarantee that comment was not really from them. Why someone would waste their time using someone else’s name, website, and email address in a bogus comment is beyond me, but they are.
Anywho, I’m using GASP myself, and it has cut down on the crap coming through my comments pretty significantly.
Kristi recently wrote Women in Blogging- 125 Fearless Female Bloggers
Heh, I came across GASP by seeing that checkbox on your blog… and perused through your source code to figure it out and then did some creative googling to get the scoop. I suppose I could have emailed you but I felt like solving a mystery. So, thanks!
Thanks for your incite, really helpful. Its just amazing the extent people will go nowadays.
Jenny recently wrote Chris Moyles Likes Playing Bingo
from long time i had a doubt that my akismet is blocking my normal comments also on seeing around 20 normal comments and 190 spam comments in my blog..thanks for sugesting new plugin
sumanth recently wrote Is Antivirus Software Essential For Your PC
Twitter: DannyBrown
December 10, 2010 at 2:24 AM
Just installed it on the For Bloggers By Bloggers site, as that was getting hammered with spam. Will see how it compares to Livefyre on my blog (that’s killed autobot spam and quick to get rid of dedicated human spammers).
Cheers for the heads-up.
Danny Brown recently wrote Where Addressable Advertising Can Benefit from Social Media
Hi Ari, I’m a fan of growmap especially their movement against the problem with akismet I do really find this post very interesting because I have also problem with their method of blocking comments from bloggers like me. I hope everyone can get their comments approved unless they are just spamming obviously.
Regards,
Vhinz
Make sense. And the worst thing is I’m too familiar with the empty spam button. I’ll take a look at your recommendation ..
Thanks
Ridho Putradi recently wrote Google Changed! What Search Optimizer Should Do To Keep On Track
Ari,
Thanks for the info. The GASP plugin sounds really good. On my main blog I sometimes get lots of false positives. IT can get annoying to sift through lots of comments looking for the real ones. Gasp should be a way to streamline that process and not have to deal with tons of false positives. Thanks
Interesting. I use ASKIMET, but I really am never sure if it is blocking good comments or not.
Thank you for this post. I’m just reading it for the first time, and I’m very excited about switching to G.A.S.P. right now. I too am tired of weeding through the mess to find the legitimate comments.
Don | Virginia Beach Wedding Photographer recently wrote Wedding Photography for Nicole and Evan- Heritage Hunt Country Club- Gainsville VA
I am setting up my blog at the moment and was initially going to install Akismet, but halfway through discovered I needed to pay $60 a year to use it. I just don’t see the point seeing there are other free plugins out there!
Thanks for the post, I just installed GASP!
There is no cost to use Akismet, Gloria…
It’s now $5/mth for single site access for non-personal blogs. Not sure when they started charging though…
I just noticed that as well. Akismet Business accounts are now charged $5.00 monthly. They make a note on their site htat its almost free, but they have bills to pay
Don | Virginia Beach Wedding Photographer recently wrote Wedding Photography for Nicole and Evan- Heritage Hunt Country Club- Gainsville VA
I guess most people use Akismet because it’s there. And because everybody’s using it. I must admit i’m one of those people and i never questioned it or looked for an alternative.
But you gave me good a idea and i’ll try to apply it on one of my blogs to see how well it handles the comments load.
Maria Pavel recently wrote Government Grants For CNA Training
Ari, I’m so with you with this. I have had so much junk get through on a number of my blogs. Its just getting unreal. I’m thinking of trying Gasp, how is that working out for you? Easy to install?
Thanks,
- Jenny.
Jenny recently wrote Chris Moyles Likes Playing Bingo
Twitter: smbusinesscoach
July 13, 2011 at 9:16 AM
Yeah right now I am in akismet purgatory and can’t get out. I am thinking of moving to this new plugin for comment spam myself. If my comments are getting flag as spam with no notification image how many people this is happening to. As I read online I see more and more blog posts and forum posts of the problem.
Im thanking the days. Askimet is a truly AWFUL system.
It really looks like the obvious thing that you never think about so it’s not so obvious and you just put it to use and dam it works!
Anyway, from what I understand, bots just need to add a new parameter to the post request for the checked box, and they will be able to post, or am I missing something?
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