How to keep your WordPress 1.5 Blog Spam Free

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[...] Next I had to go in the code to find out the exact location of the error in wp-comments.php. However before I did that I wanted to remember which plugins hooked into wp-comments. The only one was wp-hashcash, an excellent comment spam prevention plugin. So before going further I disabled the plugin. [...]

The last version I used was 1.7. I don’t know why some aol users had a problem, I just know that when I changed it, the aol users were then able to post comments without a problem. Right now I’m using Bad Behavior on one of my clients blog along with the Comment Spam Plugin. It’s a new blog, well, new to WP, she had one on TypePad for about 8 months before deciding to get her own domain and hiring me to host and design the WP blog. No spam of any kind so far and I expect it to stay that way.

My personal blog is still using WP 1.2. I really need to upgrade it but the design is complicated and I haven’t quite figured out how to incorporate it into a WP theme, though I am getting better at creating designs that are a theme and understanding more about how it works. When I do upgrade I will use the Referrer Bouncer Plugin.

@glo
> I used a simple piece of php code that bounced the referral spam back to the spammers main site. In essence, the referral spammer spammed him/herself! It took a lot of time and effort but it did take care of the problem.

Referrer Bouncer does the same. The difference is that you don’t have to spend any time or effort to setup or use. It comes pre-configured. In case you want to add your own entries, you can easily do so too.

Thanks for the informative post. I was not aware that Hashcash has issues with AOL users. Have you tried with the latest versions?

I’ve used WP-HashCash since November 2004 when it was called The Spam Stopgap Extreme. Not one comment spam attempt has gotten past it since I installed it. However, I have placed the plugin on several clients blogs that did cause a user problem. While no spam got through, some aol users could not post comments. For me it’s a non-issue but for one of my clients it was a big issue since a large majority of his users are on aol.

I did find an alternative - Comment Spam Plugin - that works just as well and allows aol users to comment. I still use HashCash and have no intention of changing but for those who may have had a problem with users not being able to post comments, there is a good alternative.

I’ve never tried the Referrer Bouncer Plugin but I don’t get referral spam anymore, nor do any of my clients. I used a simple piece of php code that bounced the referral spam back to the spammers main site. In essence, the referral spammer spammed him/herself! It took a lot of time and effort but it did take care of the problem. I would have loved to have had the plugin but no one thought referral spam was a big enough issue to write a plugin at that time and I do not have the skill to write php code.

I love WP because the community is so willing to share and very active in combating the spam problems on the net today. Thanks for sharing!

[...] which doesn’t support captchas yet). A more robust blog-spam solution can be found here i [...]

You can use this link (for Hashcash) which will directly download the php file to your computer - https://dev.wp-plugins.org/file/wp-hashcash/trunk/wp-hashcash.php?rev=440&format=raw

You will also need to download the js file and place it in the plugins directory - https://dev.wp-plugins.org/file/wp-hashcash/trunk/md5.js?rev=88&format=raw

The documentation is at https://dev.wp-plugins.org/file/wp-hashcash/trunk/wp-hashcash-readme.doc?rev=415&format=raw

thanks for the great tip. for some reason I cannot download the hashcash plugin files from that site, it down let me for some reason?

tom