Easily Remove Movable Type Blog Comment Spam
The Rise Of The Blog
The blog is one of the biggest phenomenons to hit the Internet. It enables users to quickly and easily post regular news stories or personal comments to the Internet without having to go through the lengthy process of establishing a new site and adding new pages for every new entry. Another advantage of the blog is the simple way that readers can post their own comments on each new entry. This online social interaction is dubbed as being the new web and future online developments are expected to take a similar turn.
Blog Comment Spam
Blogs are not without their problems, although the majority are caused by spammers and marketers looking to make easy money. Comment spam is a serious problem. Whether automated or manual, spammers access your blog and post comments that contain no more than links to other websites. These “comments” are typically unrelated to the content of your website and often contain offensive or adult orientated content. The overall effect is that your genuine blog readers will be unlikely to access your site again in the future. Comment spamming is difficult to prevent and this means that the spam comments need to be deleted quickly and effectively for the best results.
Moderating Comments
One option, of course, is to moderate all comments. Most blog platforms provide this option. Once a user attempts to post a comment the comment is queued for moderation and you are sent an email regarding the post. If the post is genuine and not filled with spam then you can accept the comment and have it posted to the relevant page of your blog exactly as it appears. Alternatively, if it is spam you can delete it from the site altogether. While this does prevent spam comments from appearing on your site it is not entirely user friendly for you or your visitors. Visitors want to see instant comments while you will need to spend the time moderating comments.
Using Challenge And Response Filters
Challenge and response filters can also prove effective but only usually against the automated spam software. These filters will display a question or an image containing text or numerical strings. The user must then enter this string exactly as it appears, or answer the relevant question, in order to be able to post their comment. This requires no intervention on your part, enables users to enjoy instant posting, and prevents automated software from entering comments. However, some spammers do all of their work manually and this method will not usually prevent comments from this group of users.
MT Blacklist
MT Blacklist is a plugin for Movable Type blog users. Once installed it has two primary functions. First, it will prevent comments from known spammers identified from a blacklist of email addresses and IP addresses. This can help to prevent some of the manual entries but if a spammer wants to find a way around this, or you are dealing with an as-yet unknown spammer you will still receive irritating comments on your blog.
Facilitating The Speedier Deletion Of Comments
The second function of MT Blacklist is that it enables you to delete existing spam comments from your blog much quicker than having to manually enter the control panel of your blog, and work through each message individually. If you receive even a reasonable amount of comment spam then the MT Blacklist application could easily save you hours of work removing spam messages.
Modifying Settings To Improve MT Blacklist Performance
To get the most benefit from MT Blacklist it is important to remember that spammers will usually find a way around a problem if it is at all possible. The software that spammers use looks for the default settings associated with Movable Type blogs. Specifically the software posts to your blog by calling the mt-comments.cgi script found in the default directory. As such, changing the name of this script will prevent the automated software from being able to post comments.
Once you have changed the name of the script (think of something original and unlikely) edit the mt.cfg script so that it uses the new script location. This is easily done by replacing all instances of mt-comments.cgi with the new name (typically, there will be only one instance anyway).
The Prevention And Deletion Of Comment Spam
Comment spam is a plague and it has spread quickly. While many blog users do not experience the kind of volume associated with email spam it is on the increase. Preventing all spam is virtually impossible without moderating comments but this is not usually a desirable approach because it stifles genuine posters and requires work on the blog owner's part. Alternatively, challenge and response filters will help to prevent automated software and applications like MT Blacklist can help further as well as assist in the speedier deletion of files.