Apr
29
Did you know you can create a comment blacklist in WordPress? A blacklist is a list of people who are denied access to something. A comment blacklist in WordPress denies comment spammers access to your site. This uses less of your Web server’s resources and bandwidth. It also saves you time, since there is less comment moderation to deal with.
After upgrading a blog recently, I forgot to reactivate the Defensio anti-spam plugin. Within seconds a spam comment appeared. Then another. And another! In just a few hours, I had nearly a hundred comment and trackback spam messages! It was kinda scary! Reactivating Defensio was like damming a flood.
But there is more you can do besides use a good plugin. If you go to Settings > Discussion in your WordPress 2.5+ admin, you can create a comment moderation list and even a comment blacklist.
Download My List of Spam Keywords
You need a list of common spam keywords for your blacklist. I’ve put together a custom list of ‘em you can download and use for your blog (I don’t really want to list them here).
Instructions to download and use:
- Right click on the link and choose to save link as (Firefox web browser) or save target as (Internet Explorer)
- Once the file downloads, unzip it on Windows (double-click and click “Extract All” on the left or right click) or just open it on a Mac
- Copy everything in it
- Paste the contents into the comment blacklist text area (if you just want these words to place comments into moderation instead preventing them altogether, paste them into the Comment Moderation list
- At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes
- Enjoy fighting spam while you sleep!
The list is made of spammer keywords from the WordPress Codex page on blacklisting comments and a few other sources. And yes, I use it on my own blog consulting blog.
Popularity: 26% [?]
Defensio…Is this plug in better than Akismet?
Defensio’s performance seems on par with Akismet’s. It won’t seem so at first, but after it learns a bit it’s good to go. Defensio’s SERVICE is fantastic. They are real people and you can contact them. Very nice people.
Hey, thanks Michael!
Do you use both Defensio and Akismet?
I use Akismet for all my blogs except one. I chose Defensio specifically to test it out, and so far it’s working very well.
Oh man, I thought spamming was bad with hotmail! I’m really new to the blogging world, but I can’t believe the spam that you can get in your comments section. Where does it all come from? I guess it must work, or else people wouldn’t do it. Thanks for the great tip. I’m going to try it out.
- Dave
[...] http://www.pureblogging.com/2008/04/29/create-a-comment-blacklist-in-wordpress-download-my-list-of-s... [...]
Thank you, I will try out the new software. I’m new to the blogging world as well and had no idea of the spam until I saw how many comments Akismet stopped.
I’ve been meaning to try Defensio but have never gotten around to it. Thanks for the reminder!
This post has been featured in FullTiltBlogging.com’s Daily Blog Summary today. Great post!
[...] comment and thus comment spam, I am was thrilled to read Michael Martine of Remarkablogger post Create a Comment Blacklist in WordPress – Download My List of Spam Words over at pureblogging.com. In his post, Michael shares his SPAM keywords for you and I to use in our [...]
Hola! Thanks for the kind words Michael!
Uhhh, great! thx for this list! I’ll setup it to my blog, I think it will stay “clean” with your blacklist!
Good blacklist, Michael. Although, I took “shoes” out of the list because, well, I didn’t want such a normal word to blacklist legitimate comments. I guess I’ll just have to keep dealing with random shoe store spam.
I know only Spam karma 2 and Askiment. Is this better than those?
That’s great! It will work great for my Blog that use Dofollow. People Love to spam to my blog now after my Blog listed in D-list. Thanks a lot!
nice work ..
we already use blacklist sharing while hosting games at gg client to avoid people who have tendency to ruin games.
It will be great if people can keep adding regular spammers (whom other anti-spam plugins can’t catch) into this list ..
A friend of mine came up with a similar list but made a stupid mistake of posting it in plain text in one of his posts lol Google did not like it.
[...] comment and thus comment spam, I am was thrilled to read Michael Martine of Remarkablogger post Create a Comment Blacklist in WordPress – Download My List of Spam Words over at pureblogging.com. In his post, Michael shares his SPAM keywords for you and I to use in our [...]
Thank you Michael for your spam keywords. I helps me to realize own ideas to stop comment’s spam.
I personally use Akismet. I feel that it does a great job at catching spam and does everything I want it to do.
I’ll try out Defensio on one of my smaller blogs to give it a try.
Defensio works great – a little hard to install, but better than Akismet.
Great article, I have just begun to have problems with ALOT of spam on my blog and I was just thinking there must be a way to block IP adresses or words.
So thanks again!
thanks
[...] Create a Comment Blacklist in WordPress Download My List of Spam Posted by root 23 minutes ago (http://www.pureblogging.com) A blacklist is a list of people who are denied access to something a comment blacklist in wordpress denies comment spammers access to your site pureblogging is an privacy policy and legal powered by wordpress Discuss | Bury | News | Create a Comment Blacklist in WordPress Download My List of Spam [...]
Should it have caught that last comment?
Thanks. this post is a blessing for a marketer
[...] comment and thus comment spam, I am was thrilled to read Michael Martine of Remarkablogger post Create a Comment Blacklist in WordPress – Download My List of Spam Words over at pureblogging.com. In his post, Michael shares his SPAM keywords for you and I to use in our [...]