Avoiding comment spam on blogs

In the bad old days - just a few years ago - spam was frequent and filthy. Nowadays very little junk arrives in my email inbox and it’s often unnervingly polite.

This week I’ve been offered pet nail trimmers, tips on growing my lawn, a $7500 line of credit, a government grant and airline tickets. There was only one slightly naughty ad and it euphemistically suggested I needed a bigger canoe. That’s a far cry from the language of spam a few years ago.

The bad news is that appalling, horrible, offensive, disgusting spam is still prevalent online: it may not be in your inbox but if you’re not careful it’ll appear on your website. And you don’t want that, especially when your charity has a respectable image to uphold and clients and supporters who might be offended.

Comment spam on blogs is one of the biggest problem areas. Blogging has become very popular and most blogs encourage vistors to leave comments. That’s an open invitation for spammers. Email filtering software has improved greatly over the years but comment filtering is still in its infancy: so blogs are an easier target.

I’m not saying you should prevent visitors from leaving comments – it’s a useful way to interact with your audience - but you do need to take steps to prevent spam from appearing. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Change the settings for your blog to prevent people from immediately publish a comment live. Instead that comment should go into a queue for you to moderate.
2. Install a plugin to intercept the more obvious spam. For example WordPress comes pre-loaded with the reliable Akismet plugin. Turn it on and make sure it’s working. From time to time check that it’s blocking the bad stuff and not the decent comments.
3. Check for comments regularly. Daily is good. If you rarely get comments, rather than keep logging in to your blog’s dashboard, make sure that you get an automatic email when a new comment is queued for moderation.
4. Upgrade your blogging software when new releases are published – new versions often improve the security of your blog.
5. Don’t take it personally. Most spam is automated, sent out in bulk by software, so the messages aren’t usually being directed specifically at your charity. Delete it, block it, forget about it.

Here’s a useful link about combatting comment spam.