I do not know if you have experienced it yet, but I had a wave of 65 spam comments hit my blog on Sunday within a 8 hour period.  These internet spammers find a blog, and post a comment on a lot of old posts you have, and leave a link. 

The comments are usually a mess of mixed up letters, mis-spelled words, nonsense or non-sequitor comments and often include a link.  I haveFree Foto gotten these comments more frequently on my Wordpress blogs, but yesterday was the first time I had my AR blog hit with such garbage.

I thought it might be useful to pass along some easy features on Active Rain to combat this.  All you have to do is go to your main page and look at the comments that were left, and when you see these spam comments click on the little box next to it and selectively delete these.  Don't worry about it impacting your points, from what I can tell these outside spam comments do not increase or decrease your points. 

The links these idiots leave on your comments usually include links.  I do not recommend clicking on them, as they could install viruses on your computer, or spyware, or show you nasty images you do not want to see.  So just delete them, and ruin their game. 

You can also go back through older posts and edit them to disable commenting, if you have a particular post they keep hitting.  My current blog has over 400 postings, as it is 2 years old, so this is a little impractical to do as this time, so deleting works fine for me. 

Wordpress has a feature that allows you to set you blog up to disable commenting after a certain amount of days, which is a nice feature AR should probably consider adding in the future. 

Anyway, I thought I would pass along this data.  I am sure others on AR can also add to this and provide additional tips to combat these idiots. 

Also, to you spammers that come across this blog, do not waste your time.  It took me all of 30 seconds to delete all 65 of your comments.  Go get a job, and stop clogging the internet with your garbage games.

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11 Comments on Combating Spam Comment Blasts on AR Blogs

DEC
19
2011
186,980 Points 7 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Great instructions on what to do when I get hit.  I know it is only a matter of time.  I often find these posted on the comments of other blogs that I read and I instantly report them in hopes that they will be removed.  Have a great week!
11:26am • #1
103,388 Points 1 Featured Post Outside Blog

Thank you for the heads up and the fix for these.  I hope not to get hit but these days it happens at some point to all of us.
11:26am • #2
472,435 Points 15 Featured Posts Outside Blog Attended Rain Camp Called Shot Master

Unfortunately Spam is just like telemarketers.  You get rid of one and 10 more appear in their place.  It is and will continue to be a never ending battle for all of us.
11:29am • #3
277,489 Points 9 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Thanks for your responses everyone.  It is refreshing to know that one of the major spammers on the planet was busted this past year in Russia.  Apparently he was responsible for 1/3rd of the spam email on the entire planet.  It looks like these creeps are now attacking the blogging world now.
11:40am • #4
165,903 Points 3 Featured Posts

We do get these on our WordPress more often, but have also been hit here, in the rain. Thanks for the information regarding spammers and what we can do to combat or eliminate it.
12:45pm • #5
277,489 Points 9 Featured Posts Outside Blog

Yes, I had another 50 or so hit today on my AR blog after I posted this.  I guess they are all excited they found a blog with so many entries.  I make sure I set up the blog to send me an email of the postings as comments occur, and they go into a separate folder in my outlook.  So it is easy for me to see when they are at it again, and I just log in and delete them.
5:57pm • #6
1,401,343 Points 54 Featured Posts Outside Blog Called Shot Master

I have very little issue with the spam at the moment.
6:12pm • #7
183,807 Points 8 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog

Luckily, I haven't had this problem on AR, although it sure is an issue on my WordPress blog. I wish I knew how to set up WordPress to require approval for subscribers. I get more of those that are obvious issues than actual spam comments.
11:32pm • #8
DEC
20
2011
277,489 Points 9 Featured Posts Outside Blog

As an update, apparently my recommendation above about using the AR delete post tip above does not remove it from the actual blog post.  Therefore the best recommendation that I can suggest to everyone is to go back to your earlier blog posts that you wrote that month, and disable commenting.  They seem to target posts that are older than 30 days so you will not notice or care, but what they are doing is taking advantage of your custom organic blogging to boost their website link that they post as a comment on your blog entry.  They are in a sense hijacking your good message to pass along their message or porno, viruses, drugs, etc.
1:05pm • #9
DEC
22
2011
277,489 Points 9 Featured Posts Outside Blog

I will be writing a more complete blog post on this in the coming days, as I have had to tirelessly go through over 400 of my past blog entries that I have written to the beginning of my blog to disable all commenting on these past entries, and delete all their links.  In total I estimate that they left over 200 links on my blog within a 3 day period.  I will be sharing what I learned with others in the coming days.
7:25pm • #10
JAN
01
2012
277,489 Points 9 Featured Posts Outside Blog

I wrote another blog a few day after this called: Is your Blog being Hijacked?  Here is how they do it.

I hope this one helps a lot more.

 
6:23pm • #11

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Michael Delaware

Battle Creek, MI

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Troxel Realty Co. LLC

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I enjoying looking at the lighter side of life. So, this blog is about my wacky observations, my sometimes sideways point of view and the Southwest Michigan, Battle Creek Area Real Estate Market.

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