I wrote a post about tripods on August 8th. Ever since, that one post has attracted the attention of half as many spammers as I have readers. But it's a particular pattern, and it's only this one post. Here's the latest example, and a typical one, attached.

It's always one word followed by some type of punctuation, usually nice, interesting, cool, ...

I know about spam blockers and whatnot, but I'm wondering if anybody else sees this, and what the motivation is? Just the nofollow link? A pageview from anyone who clicks the link to figure out who this is? It's pretty obvious, you don't really need to click to tell what's going on. Is someone hoping if they make a mindless, generic, hit-paste comment once, and get approved, they'll be able to skip moderation later?

Go to the options tab, and then the discussions sub tab, scroll to the bottom under comment blacklist, and add ilenau.info.

Funny you should mention this because I noticed it this morning when I logged into gmail and was checking on comments. As I read the names I was sure they were going to be posts with link drops but they were just one word comments. Maybe they're hoping we're joining the "revolution" and doing the "u comment I follow" thing.


When I saw your post I had to check out your blog because I've finally invested in a digital camera that wasn't a P&S. I went with the Rebel XT and I'm finding the learning curve to be a little difficult and I'm not so impressed with the kit lens. Today I was thinking about tripods and your post was pretty informative.

Thanks; I'm glad you liked it. Feel free to shoot an email my way if you need any advice or info on that learning curve. I've been shooting Canon digital SLRs for five or six years, so if there's any way I can help...

In general, though, the Rebel's kit lens is going to perform at its best around f/10 ish, so either a tripod or a flash - or ISO 1600 - is probably going to come in handy. I'm just starting out with a flash, and that's a lot more difficult!

Have you tried a 50 mm f/1.8 or f/1.4? They go for about $65 and $300 respectively, and either of those is the sharpest lens most photographers ever own. Either of those at f/2.8 will be sharper than the kit lens at f/11, and let you throw the background much more out of focus. But the downside is you give up zoom. If you know someone who has one you can try out, see whether you like primes. Above ~35 mm they're all sharp enough to cut your eyes on.

I used to get these when my blog started. Then I turned on Akismet and they seem to occur a lot less frequently.

It's one of the few times I'll openly support an open source plugin. All Hail Akismet.

Seriously, Forrest, enable that sucka if you haven't already. It'll save you a buttload of time.

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

It's one of the few times I'll openly support an open source plugin. All Hail Akismet.

Why is that?

I'll give Akismet a try. I just got three more spam comments ... and look how unique they are!

Because it actually does what it's supposed to, and I didn't have to hack into it to do it. I think that's the only time I've seen that with anything open source.

Really? I've used plenty of open source products - usually just the binaries - and done well with them. Not always, but...

So, for the record, it's been maybe a day and a half and Akismet has killed 6 spam comments. Five are one-word, like I've been complaining about, all to the same post, and then one breaks the mold, dropping lots of links talking about "work from home." That's on a different, but also old, post.

Wouldn't you think when none of the comments get approved, they'd direct their energy somewhere else?

You gotta remember something, though, Forrest: they're all automated comments. They can send thousands and if 10 get through, well, they still put in less effort in their own eyes than they would have to come up with 10 useful comments.

To the spammer, that's worth it.

That brings up a question: are these spambots crawling my site and looking for forms to submit to? Or, considering that all of them are hitting one post, are they just posting to a particular URL they know goes to a comment form?

I'm up to 10 spam comments; 9 of them go to the tripod review with one word comments. I think there might be 3 words between them.

Now I'm starting to see more of this. Hadn't used the PC all weekend, and when I come back I've got a bunch of "nice blog" comments going out to a site called honda-new-york-suzuki-dealers-credit-low-prices.info or whatever.

I received tons, even with the akismet and bad behavior plugins activated.

This is one of the reasons why I decided to just disable comments all together on my site and install forums. Although people are less likely to make discussion, especially with newer ones.

Whether you want to go the forum route or not is up to you, regarding whatever type of system you want for your blog, but I find that it reduces spam DRAMATICALLY.

I haven't played with any spam filters yet, except the comment blacklist. Mine is growing

ilenau.info
ilenau
klenau
lenau

But I do take the spam comments and publish the email address they used.

Ya a use to have a lot of spam, I say about 15 new comments per day...porno, cars a crap like that...

I just added a spam protection, it works very well, never had no new spam attacks since that.

not targetted, but spam in general yeah

Yeah, I get a ton of spam too. I think it's inevitable if you run a blog on a common platform like Wordpress. Most spammers have automated scripts that can hit a certain template, so they blast their spam out to all the WP blogs they can find.

Akismet actually helped a lot when I turned it on, but there's always a few comments that slip through.