The Spam issue revisited. I can’t help it. I just want to know how my little blog that is of no major significance, could become the target of so much spam. I think I have it pretty much under control now (watch it blow up on me for saying that) but I just wonder why or maybe how, I became such a target.
I have another blog, www.dustroadsphotos.com and it gets minimal spam. I don’t know about my 2 other online locations. Spam just doesn’t seem to be an issue at either www.dustyroadsphotos.zenfolio.com or www.dustyroadsphotos.etsy.com. I am truly stumped.
I’ve really tightened up the spam filters here so much so that I’m sure I am catching legitimate postings too so for that I apologize but I was getting hit with over 100 spam comments a day!. According to WordPress, Akismet has protected this site from 300,369 spam comments already! I wish I had half that much legitimate traffic!
A friend who recently started a new Blog was complaining about the volume of spam his site was generating.
Everyone knows what email spam is but I really didn’t see how most of these blog spammers were getting anything out of it. Posting a bunch of gibberish as a comment doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to me but then I researched it a bit and good old Akismet, my guardian at the gate for blog spam, posted a short but interesting explanation. You can read it here if you’re interested: http://akismet.com/how/ It’s called 5 things every blogger should know about spam. In simple easy language it explains that these spammers want to get their hooks into your blog so they can advertise or lead your readers to their own sites where they are selling things.
If you inadvertently approve a spam comment you can open the flood gates! I am sure I have approved such comments. I now make it a policy to mark as spam any comments I get on “old posts”. I’ve found on my blog most legitimate comments are made within a week of the post. If I start getting comments on a post from a year ago red flags go up.
In any case, I’m glad Akismet is on the job!