Recently, Tim brought something disturbing to my attention. It seems that The Redneck is being frequently visited by spam-bots. At first I didn’t see the problem with this because I thought spam-bots were just the machines that work in the factory that produces that wonderfully tasty luncheon meat. Then I found out that these particular ‘bots were the ones that produce that other kind of spam (or what I like to call tofu) the kind that no one in the whole blog-o-verse enjoys.
Most of the time these annoying little bastards just leave comments about how great amoxicillin is. Lately, though, they seem to be getting a little smarter. They are leaving what seem like legitimate comments like, “This is very good advice. Thank-you.” This way if I’m not paying close attention I think that they really did read the post and I will approve the comment. As if that’s not bad enough, these robotic douche-bags are trying to usurp the identities of our Beer Buddies. I’ve ran across comments that are supposedly written by; Canucklehead, Trade Show Display, Hari, Tammy, Absolutely True and Jean-Luc Picard. I even found one that used Tim’s name, plus there are several by Harvey Bilchick, who is not actually a real person at all. However, if I click on the back-link to their site, it becomes readily obvious that these “people” are not who they say they are. They’re trying to trick me; but, like the saying goes, “I may have fallen off the beer and turnip wagon at night, but it wasn’t last night.” I wise to you. Now for any of our Beer Buddies who haven’t had their identities stolen all I can say is, just be patient I’m sure it will happen for you soon enough.
Unfortunately, I’m not really sure how to get rid of these damn, dirty tofu-bots. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears (which makes my face look really funny). I will do my very best to weed out these impostors and continue to fight the good fight. But first, it’s time for a nutrition break. I’m having spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam.
I hate those lame and generic spam bot comments that say “great post”, and they normally dance around the subject and talk vaguely about how they enjoyed the specific subject of which you wrote about. Boo!
Man, doesn’t sounds like much fun…I have done a little research on this issue and most people are saying that there are mods out there that help out with spam-bots. Apparently its a pretty big problem, but there does seem to be a number of programs out there that come highly recommended. I’d just search “mods for spam-bots” and you’ll get a bunch of hits…
Spam bots may steal my name, but not my sense of humour, my secret identity, my wisdom and my superpowers.
haris last blog post..Never, ever use an external USB hard drive as backup media
I am also facing with same problem and looking for a solution
I’ve had a few tofu’s myself…it isn’t difficult to tell which one they are as the comments they leave on my blog just aren’t relevant…
I’d like to know how to get rid of them as well!!!
I hate spam by the way!!!!!!!
Cheers
Usually askimet will catch most of them. You must have attracted a more evolved spambot or uber spammer. You can always try blocking the IP of the spammer, but that will only work for so long. If they are all coming from overseas, say a specific country, you could just block the whole range and be done with it. We get our own share of those as well…just a fact of life on the net.
Your beer buddies should know better than to drink cheap beer during happy hour in dive bars. That’s what gets them into this kind of trouble.
yes it is a big headache, people when write and comment about some article to which they have no idea becomes really a problematic. Askimet is nice one but since spammers are making their way out from this too.
I have several blogs and get hundreds of spam comments a day. For the most part askimet gets them all for me. Only a few sneak through there and when I mark those as spam I am only making the askimet filter stronger for the next time.
Spam bots really cluster up the webspace. As long there is internet, there will always be a spam. lol
I’m having exactly the same problem. askimet is ok, but fallable. If you find out a way to weed out the spam, can you blog it please?
It happens to me all the time. I think one solution is to install akismet. In our blog the trackback spammers have gone crazy. I’ve blocked hundreds in the last day or two. I think the target is definitely old weblogs which no-one is bothering to up the protection. That must be ripe picking right now. I also heard thing thing in forums, bots were program to sign up a bunch accounts a day and they would send spam.
Hi,
The reason you are getting people comment on your blog as the names of your top commentator is because the top commentors plugin has/had a vulnerability in which if someone posted using a name that is already in the top commentors, their new link will replace the one of the real person.
Recently there was a script released that targeted this, hence all the spam you are getting. If you want to reduce the spam, try renaming the “top commentors” section to “regular rednecks” or something” as people are finding your blog by searching for “powered by wordpress” “top commentors”. If you look in your traffic logs, you should see people coming in for that.
Jade
Hey,
You capcha code is not “encrypted” enough. I can easily write software that can read that capcha code. It has to be more robot “unfriendly”. Find another capcha plugin, the one you use now is not good enough
found site today – very good.
if look for cheap TV then come bye my site. Also make you million dollar on Twitter. Click each others ads, yes?
Very good..
Most of these comments still get sorted into my spam by Akismet, so don’t bother me too much. I have definitely noticed a rise in this kind of spam however.
I visited one blog early this morning and I notice his capcha code aside from typing the text shown in the box there is an audio that you need to listen before you click submit comments, I think that is also helpful to avoid spamming.
This seams to be a common problem of all blog owners these days. Since they start to be able to break captchas it’s not easy to get rid of them.
I’ve had some clever spammers, but never ones that hijacked the names of my friends. Sometimes they steal bits of their comments tho. But their names always give them away. Normal comment? Fine. User name? TeenPorn. No.
Worse than a Spam-Bot leaving a comment like ……“This is very good advice. Thank-you.” ….. is a real person leaving that sort of comment.
“Unfortunately, I’m not really sure how to get rid of these damn, dirty tofu-bots. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m all ears (which makes my face look really funny). I will do my very best to weed out these impostors and continue to fight the good fight. But first, it’s time for a nutrition break. I’m having spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans, spam, spam, spam and spam.”
I think you should not approve comments with the generic “thanks you! what a great post!” phrase. Most of the time, these generic comments are spams.
Dude this is the problem with all, most of us are facing this same spam problem and now it intolerable. Akismet is good for this, it clears up maximum spams and its accuracy rate is also near 99.380%. Its very helpful in catching spams. Try it.
Well, spam is part of online life, blogs and email. Have you tried akismet (as one person already suggested). If you know of any spam blocking tool, let us know. Funny post by the way (all ears).
“However, if I click on the back-link to their site, it becomes readily obvious that these “people” are not who they say they are.”
I am a new blogger and this is the first time that I read about spam bots. Now I know that I must be more meticulous in approving comments on my blog.
Ernie,
Thanks for defending my name and honor! There is only ONE trade show guru! I raise my beer to you! ~ Steve, the one and only trade show guru
look up a piece of software called “seo link pro” or “authority loophole” they are software that post to pages like this to get extra links to their websites so they climb up the google ranks!
quite how you stop them is another thing i cannot answer
Unfortunately, there are a lot of spammers out there. More unfortunately, they are so mixed with the real ones that it will take a few minutes of our time to determine which is which. I, for one, would like to get those spammers out of the way…for good!
Man, that sucks. It seems like no matter what you do, there are always going to be some idiots trying to spam everything and they’ll get as dirty as they need to be to pull it off. Stupidest thing is at this point half the time they’d be better off learning how to profit legitimately since it would be less work and keep paying. Ugh. Spam makes me tired. Time for an oatmeal stout. Got to like a beer thick enough to almost eat.
It might be really kind of annoying, but is there some type of program that has a “double” security word thing that tends to catch spam bots, or am I just in left field on that one? Not sure what else to comment on, but that might be worth looking into.
I understand being a blog admin it’s difficult to fight spam out and you’re making efforts which are visible like putting up Anti Spam word and keeping your blog moderated. I know if someone finds any link as a soft target, the trend gets set so it’s important to stop it, a few forums I visit and they also complain of spam bots and they’re confused how to fight them out because they’re very smarter but I think removing spam from blogs is far easier. Anyway, I hope now this problem would have lessen.
maybe corned beef hash is the answer? spam is nice, but i bet it would run a mile if it saw a pound of hash after it
I get spambots that fill out web forms on my website all the time, I could never figure out why. I guess they think they are commenting on a blog. Instead they just email me a bogus email and waste my time.
Spam attacks happen when there is no filtering plugins. Like word press’s akismet, it really do the job well filtering the nastiest spams out there.
Read the comment. Is it look relevant to your post? or Is it contain some useful content related to it. You can also put some answer verification of any easy question. Instead of the captcha code. I thought it will help to a large percent to prevent it. I thought it will help.
Note: If you are putting question for verification process, change it randomly for every post.
This is the hard part as a blogger. We have the same problem and I think it is hard to fight the impostor. Also spam can be in any form. Not only saying nice post, Great post, etc, etc. They also can copy other comment.
Akismet sometime is not work against impostor. unfortunately.
Yes, spambots are really annoying. Just imagine seeing those meaningless comments every time you visit your blog. Don’t you think a no-follow feature could help you with this problem?
“Most of the time these annoying little bastards just leave comments about how great amoxicillin is. Lately, though, they seem to be getting a little smarter.”
While you try your best to address such problems and issues to improve your blog, the spammers also try to improve their craft, unfortunately. As you find solutions, they find ways to create more problems too.
Captcha’s a great way to stop most bots, but the problem with these spam is that humans are doing it. We have clients that experience loads of spam from labour bought cheap — you can tell that humans are behind it, albeit a pretty poor grasp of grammar, sentence structure, etc. A lot of times these happen on WordPress blogs, and some of the plugins, like Top Commentators, have exploits that they take advantage of (which sounds pretty similar to what’s happening here.
Spam bot’s i did not know that’s such thing egsist,i will keep my eye’s open.
I have to agree that the problem is getting worse, but askimet does catch a great deal of cr*p
Attack of the spambots? I think that’s easy to remedy. All you have to do is to check the comments regularly and delete the spammy comments.
A combination of capcha and regular monitoring of comments is surefire way to stop the spam
Also, i have same problem
I agree with everyone captcha is a great way to filter those pesky tofu-bots. I’ll entertain the notion of a spam bot on my site but only it it provides me a free coupon for a buncha real SPAM!!!
I was going to say what everyone else said then the captcha popped up after I hit submit. then my message cleared….ohh well…I hate those pesky tofu-bots!!
I hate to break it to you but you’re stuck with the spam.
First your blog is over PR 0
Second your blog is dofollow all over the place
Third you’ve got people like me who collect and promote people like you
Fourth people are just funny that way
Life’s rough all over huh?
~Dwippy~
Dwippy DoFollow´s last blog ..Blogs Page Rank 2 and Above
Great to see SPAM so popular for once, haha. Yes, Spam does indeed have a bad name these days which is such a shame. I hope the bland food of the 80s (?) reclaims its name and image soon…
I have been bombarded with some pretty intelligent spam comments lately, where the comment will be a funny joke (and the jokes are actually funny), but I know that they are all automated and they also lead to a bad neighborhood…
dave@home improvements´s last blog ..How To Fix a Leaking Faucet
Well jeez Dave first people complain that the comments are too boring “nice post dude” so people try to be amusing and intelligent and more complaints. What’s a spammer to do nowadays just can’t please no one no more.
Dwippy DoFollow´s last blog ..Blogs with Top Commentator Widget
I too hate SPAMs. Spam mails or spam comments, but thanks I have akismet plugin in my wordpress.