Askimet is a WordPress plugin that detects spam comments and blocks them. I am really starting to believe it generates them itself to look like its useful.
For nine months on Blogger, I had nothing in place to block spam comments, I didn’t even moderate them, they just published directly to the post. In this time, I had one day where I got about 10 spam comments, which I simply deleted.
I have now been on WordPress using Askimet for about two weeks and I have had hundreds of spam comments. Just today I had 100.
The thing is though, not only do they not relate to the post in anyway (which I guess is to be expected), they seem to be a group of people having a conversation with each other about some topic or other.
Most recently, jewellery, and car insurance. It’s all very strange.
So why do I think Askimet is generating them?
Well apart from the fact they follow on in quite a cohesive manner and I don’t see how that could happen as none of them are published, two things lead me to this conclusion:
1. I don’t believe for a second that my blog sky rocketed over night to the point where hundreds of spambots are picking it up daily.
2. Let’s assume for a minute that you are sending out spam comments in the hope of leaving your back link. Surely you would say something like “Great post. Really well written and I totally agree with everything you said”. A lot of people would spot it was generic and not post it, but some wouldn’t. Certainly it has a better chance of slipping through than talking about jewellery on a firework related post or car insurance on a post about a Baptism.
I guess the way to find out would be to disable it and see what happens, but I kind of daren’t in case I’m wrong. It’s bad enough trawling through them all when they aren’t visible, let alone deleting them all when they are.
What do you think? Am I paranoid or is Askimet generating these comments? Let me know what you think in the comments 🙂
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Hi Debbie, I’ve been using Askimet for over a year now and at first I did wonder if the plugin was generating the spam comments as the spam seemed to increase, but now I don’t get a fraction of what I used to, which makes me think it does work.
Stick with it a bit longer and it will be interesting to see if your spam count drops.
xx
I will, thank you 🙂 If the comments are for real spam comments, hopefully the people producing them will realise none of them are getting seen and give up! x
haha omg I think i’m paranoid with you now! although I saw a little growth when i first started and all of a sudden I got about 50 emails of spam related comments and users etc it was relentless… then I turned on akismet (another lovely blogger told me about it) and then it almost doubled.
I’m not turning it off but I might look into alternatives instead and see what happens! I’ll keep you posted if I do!
#brillblogposts
I’m glad it’s not just me! Yes, please let me know if you find an alternative!
I’ve wondered this myself. As big of a pain as it is deleting 20 or so of these a day, I refuse to give them money just so I don’t have to. I really don’t see what other point there would be to go through that much trouble. Nobody is ever going to approve them or click on them. Its weird
I don’t pay for Askimet, if I had to pay for it then I would manually delete them! They are really weird comments aren’t they, I was starting to wonder if somehow someone else’s comments where coming to me, because most of them would have been reasonable comments if they remotely related to the post.
nope. That’s just what seems to be randomly generated somewhere
Yeah, they probably want us to think that so we take pity on them and approve a few lol!
This is an interesting subject. I am still using the .com version of wordpress, so askimet comes as standard and clears my spam comments without me ever seeing them. I can however bring up askimet stats and in 4 months they have only stopped 108 spam comments compared to 1400 real comments.
On the .org version you can go in and view them. Sometimes a few genuine ones slip through so I do like to go through them. By those stats it sounds genuine, it must just be me lol!
Wow I have never actually thought about this, but I do get hundreds of blocked spam comments and they all seem to be of the same tone/type of writing. I’d be interested to see if you still get the spam after stopping Askimet – but I daren’t stop it either! I guess we will never know! #Brilliantblogposts
It’s going to be one of life’s little mysteries! Another commenter did say hers calmed down after a while so I am hoping mine does too 🙂
I’ve wondered this too! I’ve just switched from .com to .org and my askimet now needs to be paid for which I haven’t done, so I need to manually delete them. And my spam comments have dropped a lot since the switch…!
It’s so strange isn’t it! Especially if you have found that switching means you get less spam, definitely makes you think.
This is really interesting, I’ve never really thought about it before because I’ve always had Askimet ever since I’ve been on WP xx #TheList
It just struck me as weird how many spam comments suddenly appeared! It could just be coincidence but the timing was definitely suspicious. x
I wonder if it is because you are a new blog and don’t get the protection of Blogger? I have quite a lot too and some genuine bloggers slip in quite a bit so I have to check. Be interesting to see if it drops! xx #tiwnklytuesday
That could be it Sarah! I didn’t know Blogger had built in protection, but it makes sense. Yes I do find some of my genuine ones drop in there quite often x
Errk… as a newbie (kinda) blogger I don’t know about half of these things. I often wish blogging was simpler (y’know just writing stuff), but it seems to be a technical minefield. #TwinklyTuesday
How good would it be if blogging was all about the writing! It’s a steep learning curve on the techy side (especially for someone like me who was totally clueless before I started my blog!)
I’ve been using Askimet since day 1 so I haven’t really got anything to compare it to. I do find it frustrating having to ‘spam’ comments on my site daily but I thought that was just the price to pay for being on the www. You’ve made me think now! #abitofeverything
Maybe it is normal, it just seemed like such a huge jump in the amount of them for me. It’s definitely one to think about though 🙂
Ooh I hadn’t thought of this. Mine is weird but then I wondered if it was because I was self hosted on my own domain and therefore spam bots want to pick it up because it doesn’t have the power of google behind it??
It could be that for me too, I just thought the timing was a bit suspicious, but to be fair that was also the time I didn’t have Google behind me. Maybe I’m just paranoid lol!
Haha maybe – I still get loads of spam though so maybe I’m just a spammy kind of site? At least the spam I am getting is trying to be a little bit helpful “oh pregnancy is such a blessed journey, this is my site” etc
Mine is all ridiculous stuff! At least yours vaguely relates to the post lol 🙂
I think so too! I have had such weird strange comments that I actually wonder what did the Spammers hope to gain?? You know my theory about toffee and dentists. Thanks for sharing with #abitofeverything
It does baffle me that some of the comments seem really well thought out just on a totally different topic to anything I’ve ever talked about here lol 🙂 Yeah, your theory does ring true! Thanks for hosting 🙂
This is interesting. I’m on blogger and I detect about 10% spam on my site. I’m currently to teh transfer to wordpress and I use this there and like you say it’s massively increased! I’ve never in the 5 years of blogging experienced comments like this so it definitely makes you wonder what is really going on! Thanks for linking up with us on #blogstorm
It is really strange the types of comments isn’t it. I got nothing like that when I was on Blogger, the closest to spam was people who left links to their posts or websites in comments, these are just weird!