Starting from a week ago, I noticed something different on my blog. Spam! They’ve decided to make a come back! It’s the problem to every blogger on the blogosphere and it’s one of the biggest time wasters that we are all facing.
This blog has gone a long way too in combating spam. I used WP-SpamFree before which won the battle quite well but apparently it requires your real commentators to enable JavaScript and Cookies. I’ve also installed an anti trackback spam plug-in which works very well to block trackback spam, but not for comments.
I even used a captcha-style plug-in called wp-comment-spam-stopper. It worked very well and I had zero spam most of the time. Not too sure why it suddenly failed to work, even though I’ve tried changing my question & answer a few times. It seems that bots are getting smarter and smarter these days. The fact that using WP-SuperCache (a caching plug-in) on this blog is making it a bit harder, since it will cache a dynamically generated captcha text/image.
So this time, I’m trying to install a popular spam protection called Defensio, an alternative to Akismet. So, what is Defensio and is Defensio better than Akismet?
What is Defensio?
Defensio is a spam filtering web service that you can use to protect your blog or web application from comment spam.
Defensio is a stand alone plug-in available on blogging platforms (like WordPress) and also some CMS frameworks (Drupal, etc). Because it’s a stand alone product, they recommend you to turn Akismet and other spam protections installed on your blog off, to make sure that they don’t interfere with one another. So yes, Defensio is a replacement for Akismet.
Defensio identifies spam comments from legitimate ones using its own algorithm and it will also categorize the spam based on a scoring system (similar like Spam Assassin).
Installing Defensio
Installing Defensio on a WordPress blog is easy. Simply download the plug-in and install it on your blog. You also need to register for an API key, just like Akismet, for free on Defensio.com
Just make sure to turn off Akismet since it will conflict with Defensio. I still keep my “Simple Trackback Validation” plug-in to keep trackback spam from coming and it seems to work seamlessly with Defensio.
Does Defensio really work?
I don’t know yet. It’s too early to tell. I’ve tried it for a few days and it seems to be able to differentiate spam comments from legitimate comments nicely so far. Honestly speaking, I’m quite impressed. Defensio is able to differentiate comments that seem legitimate to me; comments that some of you guys actually write on my posts. Some examples of spam comments that were caught by Defensio:
Your site is also very interesting, very calming effect just reading it. Will spend more time with certain areas. Well done and good luck with your work.
I really, truly am glad I found this site. It has answered so many questions for me. I will be back. Thank You
Great work with this one, nicelly done!
nice site, very informative, well designed, easy to use … what can i say ? i love it…
This is such a wonderful and informative way to reach others. I Will be more than glad to share this site
See? Some of those comments were pretty valid to me (despite some spelling mistakes). Whenever I write a blogging guide, computer tips, or a new design make over, these comments are not rare to appear from a real visitor/commentator such as you.
Defensio Quarantine
Defensio managed to differentiate these from legitimate comments confidently (by putting a rating of “Quite Spammy” and “Very Spammy” on these comments and put them on its Quarantine as spam). They are indeed spam after I have a look at the dodgy URLs and dodgy email addresses like jwhz8459s9@yahoo.com.
Final words on my battle against spam, Round II
Defensio, according to its developers, will need to take some time to be able to learn from differentiating spam comments and legitimate comments on your blog. So if you decide to give Defensio a try, use it for several weeks (or a month) before you decide whether to ditch Defensio or not.
Defensio Statistics
Without the Captcha plug-in that I used earlier, I’ve been receiving more and more spam comments (250 spam comments so far in a couple of days). However, Defensio seems to be able to capture them intelligently. At this stage, looks like Defensio is a winner. Commentators normally don’t really like entering captcha (although it depends on the complexity), so it’s up to Defensio now to provide the one and only wall to hold the line!
You can find out more about Defensio on Defensio official web site.
If you are using the WP-SuperCache plug-in on your blog, what spam protection are you using at the moment? Does it work?
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article Michael!
The reason why your captchas/challenges stopped working is not because bots gets smarter, it’s simply because spammers now pay people in developing countries to solve them. This type of protection is now almost useless, unfortunately.
I’m glad Defensio is doing the trick for you!
Is it related to WordPress version? I’m not in 2.7 yet.
I also use WP-Spam free and Simple Trackback Validation
so far only human spam can pass.
or is it’s just that my blog is less popular for bots?
I don’t use content-filter like Akismet or Defensio because sometimes my visitors comment in Thai language and I hate false positive
btw, what is your comment policy? I won’t approve even if it’s a legitimate comment from iiligitimate web site. (also, the comment is not “deep” enough)
Some readers of mine were encountering problems when I used WP-SpamFree
Too bad because I really loved the plug-in and the author was a nice person too
My comment policy? Well if it’s a truly legitimate comments, I usually approve it, no matter how short it is
I check my comments manually and delete only the ones with bad links or many links. I also delete the spam comments with the copy-paste-content (the ones where part of the post is copied in the comment form). I think spam is part of the business, you can’t stop it.
I really hope one day we can have a law where spammers get jailed for life!! :@
Mike, This should be great. I will try this on my blog. but right now i am using Peter’s Anti-Spam plugin and it is properly stopping the spams. Will try this if even current plugin fails to stop the spam.
Nice Review!
Hm I remember trying that once. It’s great but since I’m using a caching plug-in, dynamically generated captchas don’t work very well because the cache
(people get invalid captchas)
akismet + defensio = no spam gets through :O or is it too good to be true?
Nah..it is too good to be true
No protection is perfect anywhere in the world
My site get lots of bots linking to my site trying to get track back links I wish I could find a way to get my links off these site I do not think Google likes them I am afraid that Google will penalize me for these bad links 99.9 percent of comments made on my site are spam I mostly just forget about checking comments solves the problem for me.
Yeah spam sux. I usually check my blog’s comments daily (sometimes a few times a day), so spam never get too long in my inbox/quarantine
j2LOkw Thanks for good post
I actually just published a case study on this very topic and I got my daily spam down from about 250+ a day to 0 predominantly using htaccess trickery and one simple plugin.
Let me know what you think
http://thenexus.tk/how-to-stop-comment-spam/
Looks like a great article (I had a quick skim through). Will read it in more detail tomorrow. Thanks for sharing
Used to love Spamfree too, learned it from Techjaws, however, I noticed it’s not doing well with the trackbacks, I noticed a significant drop in trackbacks, esp. those valid ones.
Will have to wait for your article regarding Defensio performance before I try it.
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