Dealing with Comment and Trackback Spam

Ugh. The absolute bane of every blogger's existence is comment and trackback spam. When blogs became the “It” things on the Internet, spammers saw an opportunity. If you've ever received spam e-mail, the concept is similar and just as frustrating.

Before blogs came onto the scene, you often saw spammers filling Internet guest books with their links but not leaving any relevant comments. The reason is simple: Web sites receive higher rankings in the major search engines if they have multiple links from other sites. Enter blog software, with comment and trackback technologies — prime breeding ground for millions of spammers.

Because comments and trackbacks are published to your site publicly — and usually with links to the commenters' Web sites — spammers got their site links posted on millions of blogs by creating programs that automatically seek Web sites that have commenting systems, and then hammer those systems with tons of comments that contain links back to their own sites.

No blogger likes spam. In fact, blogging services such as WordPress have spent untold hours in the name of stopping these spammers in their tracks, and for the most part, they've been successful. Occasionally, however, spammers sneak through. Many spammers are offensive, and all of them are frustrating because they don't contribute to the ongoing conversations that occur in blogs.

All WordPress installations have one significant thing in common: Akismet, a WordPress ...

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