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Askimet and Blog Comment Spam
Filed Under Blogging News
Blog spam is definitely a problem and I don’t want to pretend it isn’t, and anti-spam plugins like Askimet are great plugins.
But, if you are moderating comments on your blog, you need to make sure you are flagging true spam as spam with Askimet, and deleting questionable comments.
I have heard from some people that a comment of their’s was flagged as spam with Askimet because the owner didn’t approve of the content of the comment. If you don’t approve of a comment delete it, don’t flag it as spam especially with Askimet because if the comment is not true spam, you have just screwed someone.
In summary, Askimet is a Wordpress plugin that is used by thousands of bloggers. Blog comments are sent to Askimet and Askimet uses it’s rules to determine if a comment is spam or not. Of course Askimet is not going to tell us how they determine spam, which is good since the spammers would find ways around the Askimet spam rules.
So, if you flag a comment as spam, it’s flagged by Askimet as spam. Once a comment is flagged as spam by you, Askimet will flag it as spam the next time that person comments on a blog post.
I have read that URLs are sometimes flagged as spam, some keywords are flagged as spam and I suspect IP addresses may also be flagged as spam. The next time the person you flagged as spam submits a comment on another blog, Askimet may identify it as spam, and the comment will never be approved - even though it could be a perfectly valid comment.
From what I have read, from people who have ended up being flagged as a spammer by Askimet, is that you won’t even realize you were flagged as a spammer until you somehow figure out your comments on blogs never show up. Some tested by commenting on their own blog to see their comment being flagged as spam.
To get of off the Askimet spam system, I’ve seen people suggest you comment on blogs of people you know, and ask them to mark your comments as not being spam if Askimet flags them as spam. This is called a False-Positive by Askimet. As blog owners approve the comments as not being spam, Askimet is supposed to learn. So if you continue to post comments that are not flagged as spam, you should come off the list.
The best way to stay out of the Askimet spam system is to provide good comments. But someone having a bad day could decide to flag you as spam for no good reason. You wouldn’t want someone doing that to you, so be careful when flagging comments as spam when they really aren’t.
If you have questionable comments on your blog, go ahead and delete them, just make sure you delete bad comments, and flag true spam as spam. I delete far more comments than I flag as spam. A blog comment has to clearly be spam before I will mark it as such, and Askimet catches most of those for me already.
I also encourage you to periodically look at comments Askimet flags as spam on your blog. If you find comments that are clearly not spam, remove the spam flag. You would appreciate if someone did that for you, so do the right thing for them.
Askimet is a great plugin for controlling comment spam on your blog, but be careful how you use it.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert on Askimet, but I did some research on it to better understand how it works. If you have more information on how Askimet works, I would appreciate your comments below.
Mike
26 Responses to “Askimet and Blog Comment Spam”
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Thanks for the info on askimet. I hate blog spammers and these kind of softwares seem to be helping a lot. Thanks for the post!
i’ve been flagged a few times unfortunately.
thankfully akismet responds pretty quickly to pleas for help sent via their site’s contact form. 
also, they mention a wordpress blog which was set up precisely to check if akismet is flagging you, or if it’s something else intercepting your comments.
I was curious - if you are flagged in Akismet by an immature blogger, what ramifications does this have on other comments that you are submitting? Does it put all of them that you send into the spam box?
Ye this is a problem. There are a number of blogs that I comment on regularly. Sometimes when there is a post about a controversial subject no one can comment because if we use certain words the comment gets blocked.
Laugh when I tried to comment on this post I got:
Sorry, but your comment has been flagged by the spam filter running on this blog: this might be an error, in which case all apologies. Your comment will be presented to the blog admin who will be able to restore it immediately.
You may want to contact the blog admin via e-mail to notify him.
typical
Hey Joe,
That is strange that your first comment was flagged as spam. I don’t see anything that would cause it to be flagged.
That’s why we should monitor the comments that are flagged as spam and approve them when they are clearly not spam.
I use SpamKarma 2 instead of Askimet and 95% of the comments that are flagged as spam are clearly spam.
Mike
I’ve been using Askimet for a long time and its never gone wrong for me till now.
Great information… Spend good time to read your article.
Thanks Mike for explaining the way Askimet works. I never grappled with it so detailed. Having a spam-tool is certainly a great and neccessary thing, but Askimet-user should be informed about the way how it works from the right beginning. I suggest you provide your useful blogpost to the Askimet-guys in order they inform the webmasters how to handle responsibly with comments.
I’m too lazy to install that plug-in. Consequently, I periodically have to delete hundreds of spam comments, event ‘though comments are turned off on my blog.
That, plus the regular ‘WP security updates’ puts me off allowing commenting.
Thanks for the great post and information on Askimet. I’ve heard of it before but never bothered to put it onto my blog. However, recently I’ve been receiving alot of spam so it might be time for me to go get it.
It is a great tool if used properly. Spam is a problem for all bloggers and you have to keep it under control. However I do know quite a few people who have been marked as spam accidentally and go no longer contribute meaningful conversation to the site. In that case its a lose-lose situation for both parties.
Really the problem is that you contributing to the list of comments and for a reason we don’t know, askimet eats your comment, letting you we a feeling of worthyness for that action.
Let me say something about it. If I am a blog owner and am going to post a comment, I shall keep in mind that It can go in Akismet right after submission if I did some very loose comment. Problem is with hiring people. On many popular marketplaces I have seen people hiring cheap person and availing cheap service to extract link juice. I think problem starts from there. People who will be charing a low amount will provide very low quality comment so 60 percent chances are there that your site will be flagged as spam right after using that service. Another thing which I came to know, what happened if you will be posting on only “do follow” blogs in short span of time and in big quantity? Of course you will go in Akismet spam right away.
thank you… i just wish more people would do that. so many times people flag stuff as spam when its not.
I also hate blog spammers and these kind of softwares seem to be helping a lot.
Yeah.. Askimet is a nice plugin, I’ve been using it in my blog as well..
Very helpful information.
Askimet is protecting blog from spammer.
Thanks for the information
I’m a regular reader of your internet marketing blog. I even found albert through your post there. I didn’t realize that you’re the tech guy ‘mike’ there, too. I left a comment in your ‘Modifying Free WP Templates’ but it encountered an error. I don’t if it was a bug or something. Just wanna let you know.
Yes akismet is a good feature for WP, though, remember it is only a program, and programs aren’t as good as the human touch when it comes to detecting spam. Thank you for the awareness though.
Well, first you can start by doing some online research. You can check out some of the many sites on the internet that rank host sites for you. Just search “host site rankings” and you’ll come up with a list of many..
blogs with really great information.I hate blog spammers and these kind of softwares seem to be helping a lot. Thanks for the post!
I did not know anything about these plug ins. Thank you, I really like all the information you have provided us.
I agree that having a spam-tool is certainly a neccessary thing, but Askimet-user should be informed about how it works from right at the beginning.
Two years ago i didn’t activate Akismet plugin on my blogs and my blogs were not do follow either. Despite of that I had to spend plenty of time to check all comments. Then I changed no follow attribute on all my blogs and I was lost. I had to spend 4-5 hours a day only to check those spam comments. Akismet then helped me to handle all my blogs in a better way. No doubt it is the best spam blocking plugin.
Not sure is askimet is the image or the number one. I like the one with the numbers you add together it seems to work good and i never have problem seeing the numbers some image ones i can not figure out what it is.