A few weeks ago I stumbled across some interesting spam; it was generic enough to make me think hmm is this spam or a real comment? so going on the more altruistic side I thought sure i’ll accept it but i’ll edit out the url just in case.
The logic being if it was a genuine commenter odds are he would return to reply and I would know and then accept the url.
However when I went to edit the code I found something very interesting.
The Smiling Commenter Trick
<a href=”http://google.com”>:)</a>
Would it was doing in effect was hiding a link in the smiley!
Beware the smiling commenter he may not have a link in the ‘url’ slot of the form but he may be sneaking them in later.
How to prevent smiley spam?
What you could do is prevent smiley’s in comments …but that’s no fun! instead go into your Wordpress settings and go to the discussion tab.
Just ensure here that you have it set to ‘2′ or ‘1′ so the comment is flagged by askimet; so you can peak at the smiling commentators code before accepting.
Play the field
Doing this is all fine however it is a hassle! So how can we stop these spammers even finding us?!
Well you could use the tricks in Spam Attack (note the 4g blacklist is now out) but they can still find you! so how do we blind them? well we first have to look at how they can find you!
Most bloggers (including The Nexus) have a theme with a default comment.php. This default system has a number of ‘footprints’ that give it away.
So a simple query in Google like the one below will return hundreds of blogs that they can spam.
‘Leave a Reply’ ‘Name “(required)”‘ ‘Mail (will not be published) “(required)”‘ ‘Website’ + ‘KEYWORD’
Sweep the prints clean
Getting rid of these ‘footprints’ is fairly easy; though will require to edit your comment.php file.
What IS your Name?
Open up your comment.php and hunt down the following:
<label for=”author”>Name <?php if ($req) echo “(required)“; ?></label>
All that is required then to change the Bold bits to anythign you like!
<label for=”author”>Your Name <?php if ($req) echo “(A Must Have!)“; ?></label>
So this Email thing…
For email again very simple; just hunt down the following:
<label for=”email”>Email Address<?php if ($req) echo “(required)”; ?></label>
and change it to what you want!
<label for=”Your Email”>Email Address<?php if ($req) echo “(Leave one after the Beep!)”; ?></label>
simpelz!
Here is one I made earlier:
This will leave you with a site with little footprints and make it harder for spammers to find you.
No Spammers though…that’s just a Fairytale
(Song Composed/Written and Performed by Alexander Rybak)
Popularity: 16% [?]
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Haven’t stumbled on a comment like that… But i would be tipped because i receive the email notifications of the new comments and i check them out there first… As for the song… Man i was cheering for this one and i am really glad it won the competition this year!! Hey are you Norwegian?
I turned of email notifications cos they used to bog up my inbox if I forgot to check for a few days!
No i’m not Norwegian, from the UK. However I have to agree this song is highly addictive; stumbled across it like I stumble across loads of things. Bored while commuting!
Though kudos to him; Composing your own score and then writing the song, not to mention performing it brilliantly is a great achievement. Even much so here due to his age!
Spam is so obvious these days! I have noticed the increase in spam, Last week alone I had to delete 0ver 2,000 spam comments on my blog. It does gets really tiresome deleting them.
i am very afraid from spamming e-mail and comment.i face this problem mostly.but i don’t understand it how save it from.really you give good and useful advice to prevent it.i will try to it.thanks..
I cannot imagine, what the blogosphere would be like if there are no spammers.
Ive been having some spammers come by and make a few real comments and then start spamming…. darn pissing me off a little
(safe smiley, I promise!!).
Anway, I think i’ll make them changes you suggested…
Cheers,
Forest.
Congrats! if you get spam means your making it online! yea the changes are pretty small but powerful. (have to get round to doing it on here soon as well :p)
Thanks for the heads up man. Fortunately, I really scan almost all my comments before approving them.
Lol great to know man! however preventing them as much as possible is always good! so make the changes to your comment form! :p
Great post.
I have made changes to the post. I think something is wrong int he post. When you are showing about changing email. You have put the “Your Email” in Label name and text remains same. I think it should be opposite. Am i right?
you are correct! the bolded part should have been changed (email addresses); good catch
I’ll beware of the smiling man Thanks
Really that’s a great tips to saving spammy comments.i will trying to it.
Thanks Donace, I changed the file, and even if it doesn’t completely prevent the spam it does help to personalize the blog
indeed it does! glad I could help
Ahhhhh, more smilies. I’ve accidentally discovered this on one of my friends blogs, and have landed on this website while researching about it. Great guide to filtering those spam comments.
Smily Man – oh the horror!
Yes if someone is smiling be vary :p Glad I could help.
That’s a great point Donace and one of the top reasons that I decided to nofollow most of the content on my website, at one point I was seeing 75+ spam comments a day and they’re getting really good at tricking blog owners.
Thanks for dropping by man; yea it does get tiresome sometime hence my numerous article on preventing auto spam.
Human spammers still about getting 1-2 spam comments a week so not to bad…but sometimes the ones that come through give me doubts :p
Though I have no-followed all the comments as well for a while now; there is a Top Commenter widget on the front page so the ‘reward’ aspect is still there
Wow that’s something I didn’t know.. Well most of the time I just delete all the comments in the akismet so there’s really no chance for ’smiling man’ sneaking on my blog… Anyways thanks for the lengthy and great explanation..
I went back though the last 4 pages on my blog and only found 3 smiley faces, all were legit. Thats a pretty sneaky move though.
Donace what is your definition of a spammer? (comment or otherwise). Do you consider using a keyword instead of your name, spam?
Steve
Glad the post made an impression!
Well as long as your comment relevant and dont comment JUST for the sake of links…and always sign off with your real name. Then I have no issues with keywords as your name on the comment form.
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