Comments on: Are we all betting our blogs on Akismet?

By: Bali Web Design - Homepage Creation » Akismet, I thank you

Bali Web Design - Homepage Creation » Akismet, I thank you — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 00:54:05 +0000

[...] …now no more unsolicited comments on my web . Recently, Blog Herald’s Abe Olandres wrote “Are We Betting Our Blogs on Akismet?” and he’s [...]

By: Akismet: All Our Comment Spam Fighting Eggs in One Basket « Lorelle on WordPress

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:52:30 +0000

[...] Akismet: All Our Comment Spam Fighting Eggs in One Basket Recently, Blog Herald’s J. Angelo Racoma wrote “Are We Betting Our Blogs on Akismet?” and he’s right. Most of us running WordPress practically rely on Akismet to combat spam and according to its overall stats, 93% of all comments are spam (the real figures would be a bit higher than that). Today alone, there are close to 2 million spam being filtered out by Akismet. But what if Akismet fails again and the next time would be more disastrous? Thousands upon thousands of comments to either manually moderate, delete or flag as spam. That task could take hours and maybe even days especially for blog networks with dozens or hundreds of blogs to maintain. [...]

By: Michael Hampton

Michael Hampton — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 15:36:43 +0000

Bad Behavior also isn’t an “alternative” to Akismet. It’s meant to run in combination with traditional spam prevention stuff.

By: Overactive Spam Filters » Jack Of All Blogs

Overactive Spam Filters » Jack Of All Blogs — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:08:41 +0000

[...] Last month, Abe Olandres of the Blog Herald wrote something about relying too much on comment spam filters. In this case, it’s particularly Akismet, Automattic’s spam filter that comes packaged with WordPress. The issue with Akismet is that the software works in conjunction with a central server (Akismet’s), and everytime this server hiccups, the whole blogging world gets tons of comment spam (at least those that use WordPress, that is). [...]

By: Ajay D'Souza

Ajay D'Souza — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 16:50:57 +0000

This is something that I have anticipated time and time again and hence never ever bothered switching over to Akismet completely. From the little that I use Akismet (via the Akismet Plugin for SK2 and on my WordPress.com), I’ve had more trouble maintaining comments than with SK2.

As of now SK2 is my primary plugin along with BB2. I also got Peter’s Antispam installed which takes care of the few spambots that keep hitting SK2.

By: noel

noel — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 09:03:08 +0000

These comment spams are really costing a lot of money and productivity.

By: WordPress Plugin Quality Control at The Blog Herald

WordPress Plugin Quality Control at The Blog Herald — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 02:57:32 +0000

[...] I think this reminder is best extended to us regular bloggers as well, meaning the rest of the WordPress-using populace who are not much into hacking nor plugin development. Abe wrote recently about Akismet’s being momentarily offline, and how this seemingly opened the floodgates that enabled spam to once again invade our blogs. There is a good, albeit short, discussion on how other third-party plugins are better able to catch spam, but take additional server load. So there’s the beauty of Akismet–it may not necessarily catch 100% of your spam (I still experience a couple of spam comments getting through once in a while), but it’s server-friendly, especially to those on shared boxes. [...]

By: Abe Olandres

Abe Olandres — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 18:33:08 +0000

But say, if you’re spending $500 on an enterprise license for your network, you could actually get 2 dedicated servers for that amount running just anti-spam scripts.

So, in terms of it being cost-effective, it’s comparable. All else being equal, the volume of spam to process is directly proportional to the size and number of blogs.

By: Riley

Riley — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:52:29 +0000

I found out the hard way that their are other options besides Akismet but until the mishap I hadn’t paid attention. It affected over 10 of my affiliate blogs total, it could have been worse – what a pain to clean!

By: Jeremy Wright

Jeremy Wright — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 16:16:08 +0000

Have to agree with Dunc on this. The server resources that SK2 and BB2 chew up are insane when you watch them. Especially if you get hit with an onslaught. If you’re on a shared hosting account, it’s responsible to use Akismet. If you’re on your own box, well you can see how much better Akismet is for your resources for yourself ;-)

By: Quix0r

Quix0r — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 09:26:45 +0000

The same in emailing with spamhaus.org. Do you remeber that story? There was an U.S. spammer who has targeted spamhaus with a court’s order. But: Spamhaus is U.K. and not U.S.. :) Oh, I become off-topic. When spamhaus woudl go offline only for one day billions of spam mails will reach the mail servers. That will be a complete meltdown for all mail servers on this world. :( Okay, maybe some got spam-ed out… ;-)

What I want to say here is that when we all count on one central but good service all our blogs belongs to them… That also means in case of comment/trackback spam it will raise tons of spams on our blogs. And that’s why you shall not count on a single solution. You need backup solutions like Abe has mentioned in his posting: SK2, BB2 are strong spam fighters. But not one of them alone. They all will protect your blog from spam attacks when you let them work together. :) And maybe Abe want’s to add my CPR plugin here, too. ;)

By: Duncan

Duncan — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 03:03:03 +0000

A word of warning, some of those other plugins aren’t friendly on server resources, indeed it’s another reason why I personally only use Akismet. Yes, we are too reliant on the service, but simply there’s nothing better out there at all, hands down.

By: Amrit Hallan

Amrit Hallan — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 19:09:22 +0000

I agree with Abe. Previously we used to install Akismet as a separate plug-in so the choice was wider. Now it comes preinstalled so the users don’t want to bother with another plug-in.

The best bet would be a plug-in that works on the local level, and that can detect if a comment is originating from a bot, and not a human being.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 17:57:02 +0000

As I noted in the entry, the new version of the plugin has a button that will recheck comments so you don’t have to spend “hours” digging through what got through, you just click a link and things are back to normal.

By: Abe Olandres

Abe Olandres — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:53:24 +0000

@ Cary

I think it has got to do with *convenience*. Akismet comes pre-installed compared to SK2 or BB2 which needs to be set up.

By: Cary

Cary — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:26:44 +0000

This is a really good question…. I have yet to understand why so many bloggers rely on Akismet when Spam Karma 2 + Bad Behavior work just as well, or better, and they don’t rely on outside resources.

I receive a ton of comment spam across all of my blogs, but Sk2 catches everything.