Today I had my first spam attack here on my weblog. The number of messages posted was so huge (all in one row) that I cannot deny it and have to take action against it.
There are several ways to deal with spam on a weblog.
First way is to switch on moderation of the posted comments. That keeps the spam-messages (and all other comments) from the weblog until I approve them or delete them. But the spam messages do still arrive, even when they don’t show up on the weblog. So not a real solution.
Apart from that comments will need an action from me. So when I am busy with other things it may take time before the comments show up on the weblog.
Another solution is to force people to log in on the weblog before they can post any comment. Very effective against spam, but not what I want. My weblog is a free place for anyone and as long someone behaves she/he is welcome.
So I have chosen for CAPTHA. What is CAPTHA? Well, here some information:
“A CAPTCHA is a program that can tell whether its user is a human or a computer. You’ve probably seen them — colorful images with distorted text at the bottom of Web registration forms. CAPTCHAs are used by many websites to prevent abuse from “bots,” or automated programs usually written to generate spam. No computer program can read distorted text as well as humans can, so bots cannot navigate sites protected by CAPTCHAs.”
For my weblog it means simple, enter the two words shown in the image separated by a space. Press the refresh button when the words are not clear.
Alternatively you press the sound button. 8 numbers will be spoken and you can enter these.
Lets hope it will keep the spam out 😛
Never thought of that.
I think that i wil give it a try too.
Spam Sucks. Even more on blogs.