A Powerful Comment Spam Killer – A One-Two Punch!
Written by Jason on October 26th, 2009
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I was just browsing through my stat logs and looked up at my “Akismet Stats”… to my surprise (why i did not pay attention to this before is beyond me) I noticed that in April my “Comment Spam” dramatically lowered from 15000+ to 5000+ and then the next month less then 100.
The reason… that was when i upgraded my WordPress build and enabled the new “Automatically close comments on articles older then 15 days” feature.
So…. if you run a WordPress blog and want to dramatically reduce your comment spam and have not already done this, then…
- Install the “Akismet” plugin (is most likely already installed because it comes default with any WordPress installation… so just activate it) http://akismet.com/
- Follow the directions at http://en.wordpress.com/api-keys/ and get an API key to be able to use the plugin
- Go to “Plugins” –> “Akismet Configuration” and enter the API Key
- Go to “Settings” –> “Discussion” and check the “Automatically close comments on articles older then [] days” and enter “15″, then save settings.
That’s it… You will start to notice a HUGE decrease in the amount of comment spam you are getting from that point on.
For most of you this was probably nothing new but if it helped let me know 
Good tip, I didn’t realize that this was an option. I don’t know that there is any harm in spam in your akismet spam folder though is there? Certainly one would think that you would want to leave your posts “dynamic” and interactive as long as possible as well? But then spam is a big pain in the #$%, unless your filter is grabbing it all, then, really you never have to look at it anyway. Does Akismet delete spam after a certain duration of time? That would be worth adjusting to either delete immediately or after a few days.
What I want to know though is this, does any of these spammers actually get anywhere with this? Do they actually make money or just irritate a whole lot of people?
Cheers!
JeromyS
Its not the spam folder that is the issue… its when there are 15000 spam comments… many get past akismet
Thank you for sharing the useful information.
I feel a bit of a fool seeing that for most people this isn’t new, as I never knew about it, although I am more of a Webmaster/Internet Marketer than blogger.
I have been having real problems with spam comments recently so its great to know about this little tip, thank you very much for sharing it with us
This is a super cool feature, dont think many people had noticed that!
Im going to go check it out now
Rob
Thanks for the help.. i added it to my blog just now!
Hello Jason I am a big akismet fan, and will tweak it to manage the spam on my gogvo blog and others!
Thanks for the tip!
Also activated hello dolly the other day a bit pointless but fun anyway!
Interesting that you would see this a benefit! I accidentally had this turned on then started getting emails from users that wanted to leave comments on older posts but couldnt. Isn’t 15 days too short a window for comments?
Well it works great for me
I got my spam to zero by using a captcha plugin … worked like a charm.
I was all ready to implement this tip, but then I remembered hearing from someone that people’s comments on blog posts really help with search engine rankings. So now I’m wondering…wouldn’t disabling comments after 15 days somehow lose the opportunity for certain blog posts which have long term traffic potential? If a blog post is well written, well tagged and SEO’ed and all that, then I like to imagine that it will have comment-pulling (and therefore traffic-pulling) power for eons to come.
There are few things I enjoy more than killing spam, but I’m a newb at blogging, so I’m kind of on the fence about closing comments. Any further tips on this issue are appreciated.
Well after 2 weeks, comments on posts are usually a done deal except for spammers. If you are not suffering from a lot of comment spam then do not worry about it.
Great Tip. Joseph Jin raised a good question. But I think you’re correct Jason that after the initial post most of the comments will die down. So this tip is a good one and I will go ahead and do that. Thanks!
People often do this, but I think it’s a terrible idea. Just run Akismet and skim your spam folder for false positives occasionally. Add a CAPTCHA if it’s a real problem.
Closing comments hurts your readers, your site’s interactivity, and ultimately your SE traffic.
I just know about that, i never pay attention to comment configuration in wordpress before. Thanks for the lesson.
David
Simplest tips are what makes your blog the most worthwhile.
In one blog of mine, I still haven’t activated Akismet because so far the ‘captcha free’ plugin I installed still works perfectly. Perhaps if a spam threat really becomes serious enough inspite of the captcha plugin, I’d probably have no choice but to activate Akismet and of course the automated action of closing the comment after a certain number of days is one great idea.
Thanks for the tips and this plugin is important..
But if you can manually moderate it than I think we don’t need it..
If I have huge visitor than I should install this plugin…
Thanks for sharing it..
Alam
Akismet is a real ‘blog’ saver. It would be great to hear if closing your comments after 15 days has an impact on the number of genuine comments you receive.
Karl
I picked 15 days from looking at my posts and seeing the comment trend… The large majority of my comments are from repeat visitors and not from general search engine traffic and therefore i found that once my posts are about 2 weeks old (as long as i have been writing atleast 3 times a week), then the comments virtually stop anyway… 95% are made int he first couple days and then it drops off. The big thing is comment spam focuses on finding older posts… if you post regularly then try even 30 days and see. If you are talking about just worrying about a couple posts here and there, well not sure what the worry is.
Hey John, thanks for the response. My situation is a bit different at the moment with the majority of my comments coming in on my older posts through search engine traffic.
Just knowing how to turn this option on/off will be a great addition for some bloggers.
Thanks again,
Hi ..every one … yeah u r rite ….
I am also fed up of spammers … thanks for this post i will definitely upgrade my Akismet …
it has been of great help for me.I could overcome a big problem.Thanks…
I was having problems like that before as well and I think I saw that technique first in Problogger so I tried it as well and poof, a huge decrease!
I have been having real problems with spam comments recently so its great to know about this little tip. That’s a good effort you have put on the network through your blog. I appriciate your work.