UPDATE: the new GASP Anti-Spam WordPress plugin has been released and is available in the WordPress Plugin Repository.
THIS is the ALTERNATIVE TO AKISMET that provides the SOLUTION to being Flagged as a Spammer! Spread it throughout the blogosphere and your comments will work again.
URGENT: Please DO NOT leave comments in unrelated blog posts in this and especially in OTHER blogs about the Akismet issue.
Leaving comments in the blogs of those who have commented that they flag non-spam as spam solves nothing and brings you down to their level.
If you wish to respond to them please do it IN THIS POST or on your own blog.
If you identify yourself in your comments it reflects badly on you and there is a very real possibility that they will flag you as a spammer!
Leaving comments in their blogs using fake information is a waste of your time. It will only make them feel they are correct in what they are doing and they will simply delete the posts.
If they do not understand now nothing more we can say or do is likely to make any difference at all.
NEW: I have created two test pages anyone can use to test their names and URLs. See Akismet Test Pages.
UPDATE: June 7 Akismet has removed the ability to use the test page mentioned in this post to determine if your comments are being sent to either SPAM or being deleted outright by Akismet.
MESSAGE TO AKISMET: How does removing our ability to find out if our names or URLs are blocked by your plugin improve this situation? That makes this worse – not better – and makes you look guilty. You should be willing to TELL US that your plugin does indeed delete comments. If that is how you believe it SHOULD work honesty is the best policy.
If you love commenting in blogs you are in for a shock. Did you know that Akismet is censoring comments?
Yes, there are still plenty of really spammy comments showing up in our spam folder so it LOOKS like we get to moderate them.
When I have tested in the past because Dr. Ann Voisin of Linda Cristas College I always found comments from their students about Toys Period in my SPAM folder and was able to rescue them.
I owe Dr. Ann and her students an apology. They were correct.
Akismet IS censoring their comments
And mine – and probably yours too!
Yesterday and today I saw with my own eyes that comments I wrote and left in blogs I moderate were simply vanishing into thin air. I waited 48 hours just to make sure they weren’t just delayed. They were not.
My very real comments went straight into the bit bucket!
In Are You Banned By Akismet For Spamming? Ashish wrote:
Akismet system relies heavily upon blog owners marking your comments/trackbacks as spam and reporting them back to Akismet as such via the WordPress plugin. This means that many innocent bloggers are “false positives” in the Akismet system due to either malicious or ignorant behavior on the part of other bloggers.
What we need to realize is that many bloggers have a VERY BROAD definition of spam and if they report you as a spammer you could be banned even if you have never left a spam comment in your life and don’t even know what a keyword is!
Here are some unusual definitions of spam that I have come across:
- Any comment that has a business in the URL field.
- Any comment left by anyone the blogger doesn’t recognize.
- Comments that include a link not related to their blog’s niche.
- Any comment that has keywords in the name field EVEN IN BLOGS THAT HAVE KEYWORDLUV installed.
- Any comment they don’t like.
- Any comment from a commentator they don’t like.
- Any trackback = spam to some bloggers because so many of them are from scraped or MFA (made for AdSense sites) – even high quality incoming links from major sites and blogs!
I hope any blogger reading this will reconsider what they are labeling spam. These all fit my definition of spam which I hope you’ll adopt. These really ARE SPAM:
- Comments that have nothing to do with your post including generic “one size fits all” comments.
- Comments that are lists of words or links to junk sites of any kind.
- Objectionable or profane comments and comments that link to adult or illegal sites.
- Any comment that is an advertisement for a business or another site even if it IS related to your blog.
- Copied text or comment spam.
- Comments that are obviously intended only as a way to slide in a link and mention of another site.
- Ridiculous suggestions to “keep posting”, requests for help subscribing, over-the-top flattery, insults (do they really think THAT would work?), “I just found you in a search engine” and short comments that add nothing to the conversation like “great post” or +1 or me too.
I want to encourage bloggers and especially CommentLuv bloggers to welcome QUALITY comments from business owners, entrepreneurs and bloggers. Please read my tips in that post on best practices for both bloggers and commentators.
UPDATE: Akismet has removed the ability to use that page to test to see if your comments are being sent to either SPAM or being deleted outright by Akismet.
I discussed this issue today Andy Bailey from CommentLuv and he sent me this:
Akismet Test link. By submitting a comment there you can determine whether it is being automatically deleted by Akismet or not.
This is NOT as simple as most might think. You might be ok when you enter your name one way but not another. Your comments might go through if you enter your URL some ways and not others. If you ever comment in KeywordLuv blogs any comment with @ one keyword might work while another with @ something else won’t.
Even if you test every combination you ever use in the name and URL fields Akismet might cause your comment to disappear based on any word in the comment itself.
Unless you test every comment you ever leave you will never really know if the blogger ever sees it until it appears live (or likely doesn’t)!
The bottom line for me is that this is totally unacceptable. I would rather have to pre-moderate every comment than have real commentators censored in a way that I never even see their comments.
Unless we start Tweeting to each other every time we leave a comment or send an email or use the contact form to ensure the blogger knows to look for our comments, an ever increasing number of comments will simply vanish.
We have these choices:
- Ask Akismet to clarify precisely how their plugin works and consider modifying this behavior.
- If Akismet will not change how their plugin works for everyone, at least let us opt out of this behavior so that we see every comment to moderate it.
- I was going to say that if they will not let us opt out they should at least NOTIFY US every time any information we use when commenting is banned but I can already predict they would not be willing to do that because then real spammers will simply change what they use.
- Find an alternative spam management plugin.
- Disable Akismet and switch to pre-moderating comments BEFORE they appear. If we just disable it our blogs will be flooded with objectionable real spam and we can not have that.
I call on all bloggers to make your feelings about this known to Akismet. You can try tweeting to them but they are not highly interactive on Twitter. A better way would be to use their contact form. Be specific about what you would like them to do.
If you know of an alternative plugin please let me know.
I am already not a big fan of WP-SpamFree because they block many words automatically including business and marketing and in many blogs if you trigger their spam filter you lose your comment. (In others you don’t and I do not know why. Perhaps someone will share that with us.)
If I do not hear back from Akismet and do not find an alternative I will disable Akismet and set this and all my blogs to pre-moderate all comments.
I hate to do that for two reasons:
- It makes it more difficult for commentators to use my Comment Share strategy. In blogs where comments are moderated I recommend saving the links where you leave comments and coming back later to see if they are visible. I use Tomboy Notes for that but others use spreadsheets.
- I dread finding out how many more comments are disappearing into the Akismet ether. I already review 150+ spam comments daily and rescue several real comments each time I check them.
Have any other recommendations? Please leave a comment. Not sure this applies to you? I urge you to go check to see if you are banned by Akismet. Do other bloggers a favor and leave a comment in this post either way so we can get an idea how many are being affected.
Here are the two comments I have left in the Akismet test blog post in case anyone reading this would like more details:
I have proven to my satisfaction that Akismet is deleting valid comments we as bloggers never see. If you get taken to a blank white page when you comment that comment probably got deleted.
If you sometimes use your full name and other times your first name one can be blocked and not the other. The same is true if you use your first name and your blog name as I often do. In non-KeywordLuv blogs I often put Gail from GrowMap so the blogger will recognize me as I am best known across the Internet as GrowMap but many prefer a first name.
If you comment in KeywordLuv enabled blogs you might have name @ keywords so you might be blocked using some keywords but not others. It is also possible that even if you come here and verify that the name, email and website you intend to use when commenting is ok but some word in your comment causes it to be blocked.
Akismet might treat http://YourDomain.com differently than http://www.YourDomain.com differently than http://YourDomain.com/ and individual PAGES on your site that you have left in the Website field might be blocked.
If you are going to be commenting you almost have to come here and test your entire comment first if you really want it to show up OR you could leave the comment and if it doesn’t show up immediately THEN come here and test.
I am not willing to let Akismet delete comments I never see. That is dangerous and censorship and it just won’t do. Why can obvious spam end up in my spam section but not all the real comments? Why are THEY singled out?
Either Akismet needs to change this or at least let us opt out of it OR we need an alternative that does not censor our commentators OR we will have to go to pre-moderation and moderate every comment.
Testing to see if GrowMap @ Support Small Businesses is blocked. It is. Then I tested to see if having that post in the Website was blocked. It is. Now I’m testing just using Gail and my home page works and have the link in the body of the comment. That doesn’t work either.
Any comment that includes a link to the post on my site about the importance of supporting small businesses is automatically censored by the Akismet plugin.
In case anyone wonders why I want bloggers to support small businesses it is because they are the solution to the economic crisis in the U.S. and elsewhere.Bloggers can choose to be a big part of the solution or they can delete (or let Akismet censor) quality comments from small local and online businesses and let our economies collapse because we are too blind to see where we are headed. You can find a link to that post on my best-of-growmap page and in the comment replies on most posts.
If you want to see what the Akismet test page looked like it is currently still in cache in the search engine and I will add before and after screen captures below:
Screen capture of what was on the page when I wrote this post:
Screen capture of my comment live on that past when I wrote this post: (Only what would fit on one screen is shown below. The full comment is shown above.)
Screen capture of what is on that page since this post was published (click image to go there):
I can now see part of the two comments I left last night in Cache showing “Your comment is awaiting moderation“. Only one of them appears in the cache version for some reason.
Here is what I see when I go to that page now:
AKISMET COMPLAINTS:
- NEW: Akismet Huge CrowdSourcing Fail – What Akismet is doing now is what Google search is planning to do later! CHANGE SEARCH ENGINES NOW- and encourage everyone you know and your readers and followers to do the same!
AKISMET ALTERNATIVE:
- See our complete anti-spam process
Gail Gardner
With big corporations controlling the web and ruining it with the *mobile first mobile only* strategy it’s going to take the smart phone generation to figure it out as they don’t see the problems we see on computers like this your talking about.
Most of us comment on a computer or notebook at collage/bus stop.etc but people on smart phones have different kinds of access and don’t see the issues we see here such as this censorship as phones everything is highly controlled via the Apple Inc mindset.
Linux is our last defense in the computing world and they are being harassed by Microsoft which I call it Microkia *Microsoft and Nokia* combined since they fired a bunch of PC workers and hired Nokia phone technicians. Now some of those people have been fired too.
Apple is recently been given complaints about apps being for phones and hardly any attention to the computer fanbase.
Yes, there is a push to only have mobile phones and ignore desktops. That is ridiculous from a productivity viewpoint as some things are not easily done on a small screen. Linux is also far better suited to productivity because it is so much faster than Windows.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..Getting Started with Instagram: 5 Tips for New Users
My comments vanish mysteriously on WP blogs. They *Word Press* shows to me that capitalism is on it’s last legs and is acting like a wild rabid animal fighting against being caged. Hope you don’t get rabies from dealing with akismet and their shareholder employees.
Since the 1960s we have been having a big corporation mindset in everything it seems like EA Games mindset is all there is left in the world where all the good people got snuffed out.
WordPress does consistently put some people’s comments into spam even though I deleted Akismet long ago. This one didn’t go to spam, though, so at least this time you got through direct. I rescue real comments from spam every day though.
Those who love choice and freedom have to be vigilant at finding ways around corporate control.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..How to Benefit from Social Media
I don´t see any reason why askimet is installed (inactive) in a default wordpress installation! I really don´t like that circumstance so i googled for the reason of it and found your site.
Does anyone know why askimet is installed in a GPL WordPress when it is not for free at all?
Regards
Hi Rene,
Akismet is pre-installed because Automattic (the people who control WordPress) created it and want to use it to censor bloggers like me who teach how to get out of the game that is destroying our economy (U.S. and worldwide) – which is why there are Occupy protests.
George Carlin explains so well about the game being “fixed” in his stand-up on The American Dream. (Warning: that video contains a lot of profanity and explicit adult content – but it is so compelling I break my usual “rules” and share it anyway.)
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Brand Advocates Drive Free WOMM Word of Mouth ~ Benefits of B2I2C Marketing
I myself always uninstall it as soon as I’ve installed wordpress. But I guess after finding out why, I would rather start using it! Looks kind of nice!
Alf would love you to read ..När du letar efter rabattkoder på nätet
WHAT? Did you read any of the posts on this blog about Akismet? See the information about the GrowMap anti-spambot plugin and why we don’t use Akismet. Akismet censored our best comments, blacklists the best commenters, and if a particular box is checked actually DELETES comments before a blogger ever even sees them!
Akismet is great with handling bad requests for your comment sections, and I haven’t use any other plugins yet, but I guess I’ll stick with Akismet or what do you say?
Hi Rick,
I will never use Akismet in ANY blog because it censors your best comments. While some bloggers who ONLY care about keeping out spam and don’t care about their readers or commenters use Akismet, we recommend strongly against it. We use the GrowMap anti-spambot plugin mentioned in this post.
growmap would love you to read ..Fearless Women on the Internet Plus Exceptional Bloggers and Twitter Influencers for #FollowFriday
I don’t see why you would use Akismet when there are so many other great plugins out there for dealing with spam…I mean, only the activation procedure for Akismet is kinda bureaucratic. Isn’t it?
Daniel would love you to read ..Bröllopsklänningar
’m with you on that one. Akismet improving their system… I don’t think so! I’m not counting on it, but I’m definitely wishing for it… As for their behavior when it comes to removing the abilities for checking whether you’ve been banned or not — that’s sooo big corporation-ish.
I don’t know what to do now, I love blog commenting however I also like to put my homepage in the website field to promote my site, but I don’t spam other people’s sites, I put thoughtful comments in them, akismet really is not accurate
Simon would love you to read ..Curtains for sliding glass doors
I think we are guilty of knee jerk here; jumping to unwarranted conclusions. In my blog I moderate comments and no I don’t approve every comment. I delete a lot of stuff but automated systems just aren’t sophisticated enough to do this fairly and are effectively gagging genuine opinion. It’s a form of auto censorship.
Hi Gail,
Interesting to note how serious the implications of this issue are. I deleted Akismet some time ago for the reasons noted above, in favor of your wonderful GASP/Simple Trackback Validation combo.
All fine until recently more and more spam is being manually submitted – So I’ve re-installed Akismet. My take on it is that I’d rather check my spam folder for the odd genuine comment, then be continuously deleting hand-spam from my blog.
I’ll have to make sure Akismet isn’t deleting anything before I see it though, since it reliably catches genuine commentators now and again.
Hope my comments aren’t getting stuck anywhere…!
Thanks for enlightening us,
Jym
Good point because this Gail’s blog also dump my comment by Akismet from whatever Email I try to write. I ‘m writing from grey IP-address which, I believe, is blacklisted
So, Gail also reactivated Akismet I believe soon after writing anti-Akismet articles.
Well, the point is that CAPTCHA alone, even stopping bots or whichever good, will not stop spam. As soon as blog is popular it will attract manual spammers
Also protection is ongoing activity, you cannot install some good solution hoping to solve the spam issues once and forever.
Though, I would prefer to pass CAPTCHAs (including questions) then guessing – have I burned my time in vain writing a comment and will it be seen by a blog owner
No, I absolutely did NOT activate Akismet on any blog I control and especially not this one. Akismet has been deleted from every blog I manage and I just verified that is it NOT in this blog.
You need to understand how commenting works in WordPress. WordPress even without Akismet installed can put your comments into spam. The blogger can put your information into the blacklist function in their individual blogs or can use the function that only allows comments to go live immediately IF you already have a comment approved using THAT EXACT wording in the name field.
Your comment above was NOT in spam but it was held for moderation probably because you haven’t used that combination of name and keywords before when commenting here.
We all need to be careful about jumping to unwarranted conclusions. I DO moderate comments and I do NOT approve every comment. I delete tons of manually left spam comments and even so I approve more than I should.
One of these days I need to make time to start deleting a lot of them but it is not all that easy to decide which to keep and which to delete because many new bloggers leave very weak comments and many spammers leave fairly good comments.
If we held a spam judging contest I can bet there will be no consensus on what comments are “real” versus which ones are “spam” because there isn’t really any such thing. Someone live who could have read or at least skimmed each post wrote them both.
What’s a “grey” IP address?
growmap would love you to read ..Support Small Businesses
Hi Jym,
As long as you check for real comments – and that is a LOT easier when GASP is blocking all the spambots – you should be fine. Do make sure you don’t have Akismet configured to delete comments automatically in posts older than 30 days. See my Akismet Configuration post for details.
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Internet Marketing
I`m banned by askimet too…i think…what can i do ? 🙁 i`ve send them an email..but still no answer..
Akismet allows for legit people to un-blacklist themselves. Contact them at the support pages and see if it works.
I had a wrong view of Spam & since reading a number of your posts I have changed that viiew & will now allow business sites as url’s as long as the comment is relevent. Comments such as “Great post” or “This is just the information I was looking for” will get deleted. If the valis commenter leaves just a business name without their real name @ business name also I will ad their name if I can determine it or use anonymous @ business name if I can’t.
I haven’t updated my comment policy yet which still reflects my old anti-business sentiment.
Thanks for helping me to see that people running internet businesses need support too
P.S. I have Keywordluv installed & it only displays “yourname@your keyword” not “yourname from your keyword ” like yours does. I have deactivated, reactivated, uninstalled, reinstalled but it still isn’t working properly. I have the latest version. Any ideas Gail???
Hi Tony,
Derek probably customized my CSS and honestly that is not really a great idea because intelligent people will often put name from their keywords instead of name @ their keywords.
When they do that I have to edit the name field for them or the entire thing gets linked. Unless you just want to see who is smart enough to try to notice my blog says name FROM keywords I don’t really recommend it.
I’ve been meaning to ask Derek to either change that or add more prominent instructions on how to use KeywordLuv or maybe a link to my How to Use KeywordLuv post.
Have you considered using Twitter? It is a HUGE benefit because it makes it fast and easy to connect with people who can be sometimes be hard to reach (like me). When someone’s Twitter username is in their comment I often tweet to them when I reply and that gives them exposure on Twitter and potential clicks through to their site.
If you want to get started on Twitter I have everything you need linked from my Twitter Best Practices post.
growmap would love you to read ..Must Have- Small Business Web Online Profiles
Just found out that I’m banned from akismet too. Going to do what I can – have contacted them, but don’t expect a reply. Will post an update if I manage to get unbanned.
Hi Sam,
You’re in good company. Akismet DOES sometimes unban bloggers, but they usually end up banned again if they comment very much at all. What we do is make sure the blogs we like to read and comment in most know about our GrowMap anti-spambot plugin (G.A.S.P.) alternative to Akismet.
Any blog you see that has a check box to confirm you are real, or human or not a spammer is using our plugin – and 99% of them will have deleted Akismet altogether and those that still use it can see your comment more easily (because it blocks all the spambots and that is most of the spam) so even then you’re more likely to get your comment to appear.
As of today, the official WordPress plugin stats show 7,523 downloads of G.A.S.P.
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Internet Marketing Starter Package
There is also GRAVATAR.com from the same company Automattic that provides Akismet
If you search for (gravatar privacy concern) keywords you would find a lot of interesting things. For ex., comment to
http://techthinker.com/gravatar-privacy-concern/
tells:
” I am far more concerned that Gravatar-enabled blogs send my e-mail address to Gravatar whenever I comment (even if I am not a registered Gravatar user). Gravatar can then track my internet usage associated with that e-mail address across multiple sites”
And the ToS of Gravatar is written in such evasive way, that do not impede to sell collected Emails. Then, we wonder where spammers get our Emails
Also, see
http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/44717/is-gravatar-a-privacy-risk
Another, scam scheme is to collect Email through free funny captchas.
Once plugin with this captcha is installed, it collects and sends all emails from “protected” comments, registration forms, forum posts, etc.
There are some posts warning about it but in vain, for example, post by Nino in:
http://joomlaforum.ru/index.php/topic,138180.msg882437.html#msg882437
but the warning about such collecting of Emails by keycaptcha.com antispam service are lost amogst ocean of positive viral publicity through social networks and forums posts
KeyCAPTCHA does not collect visitors’ private information.
The author of the groundless accusations is a technically illiterate person.
Everyone can be convinced of his illiteracy by using FireBug or any other tools which show all outgoing traffic from a browser. KeyCAPTCHA sends just data which are required for CAPTCHA validation process. And it will never be changed.
By now our service doesn’t have any financial problems. That is why we are changing the TOS of our paid service “Personolized CAPTCHA” without rush. We are going to launch our “Personolized CAPTCHA” in June.
And we won’t close our free standard KeyCAPTCHA service.
Looks like that these groundless accusations are planned competitors’ action against KeyCAPTCHA because these groundless accusations have been submitted to a few other websites. They used just two nicknames and conducted their action in one day.
If you find groundless accusations like these please contact us via KeyCAPTCHA website.
Thats really weired i am using akismet for 2 of my sites .even in my personal blog .some times i see some comments are in spam folder but they are really good comments .I even dont know if akismet deleted some comments or not ?
Saptak would love you to read ..Google VS OSM
Easy to fix. Install GASP & TB Validator then simply delete Akismet. Problem solved…
we cannot do anything about that. Akismet have there own rules.
i’ll come out and say that I often include one of my sites in my comments. And if this bothers people they should just install a plugin that…um…eliminates the ability to leave a link at all in your name. Or just turn off comments altogether. Life is much too short to be so petty. Don’t people have more important things to worry about than whether someone’s comment is spam?
I equate “spam” with a post etc. that does nothing to give back anything to the site that it is posted on.
Warrior Cats Site would love you to read ..Re- Because I am a wolf open
Hi Warrior,
The main reason this is such a big deal is Big-G fear-mongering about taking away their pagerank and traffic if they allow links. If it weren’t for that only the most obvious spam would get deleted.
growmap would love you to read ..Hungry Many Are Need More Business 1 Hour Strategy Session for every 77 Food Bank Donation
I never came across such an in-depth analysis of any anti-spam plugin like Akismet.
Wonderful job done and quite a lot of information passed to the readers.
Thanks,
Prasenjit.
Prasenjit would love you to read ..Email List Building on Steroids with PopUp Domination 20
I’ve tried posting comments into others blogs, but it seems they never show up I don’t even receive a waiting for moderation message, and I get confused as why guess this is the reason.
John would love you to read ..The Hardest Language to Learn
Goodness! And I doubted that you had a blog written in English! WOW! What a wealth of information!
Linda
LOL 😀 Well that is a first. Welcome to GrowMap Linda,
I see you know Kim. I recommend her Just-Ask-Kim blog and her business coaching and we often compare notes on many subjects.
You know Kim is using our GrowMap Anti-spambot plugin now too?
I really like the way she has Social Proof links and stats on her blog. I hope to implement something similar soon.
growmap would love you to read ..GrowMap Anti-SpamBot Plugin Testimonials
I love commenting to blogs, but this has changed since Akismet is doing that thing: deleting genuine comments. I’m so sick with Akismet.
Hi Raymund,
Watch for the blogs using our Akismet alternative instead. If there is a check box with variable wording about not being a spammer they’re using it.
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Internet Marketing Starter Package
I just wanted to report back that it has now been over a week and I have not heard back from Akismet. Nothing has been done. I operate about four websites and on a few of those I have to comment! I had to disable our akismet so I could comment as my comments are still vanishing into thin air. This is annoying and I have now contacted them twice!
Hi App,
If you have Editor or Admin access you should be able to approve them from the spam section. If they’re being deleted on posts published more than 30 days previously there is a setting you can change to stop that. See my post on Akismet Configuration for details.
A better solution is to install our anti-spam plugin and delete Akismet and then seek out blogs that use our GASP plugin instead to comment on. Encourage your favorite blogs to change to G.A.S.P.
growmap would love you to read ..GrowMap Anti-SpamBot Plugin Testimonials
Has anyone figured out what to do about the problem? I have contacted askismet but I am still waiting for a response. I think I noticed the problem when I started linking my url like this: http://domain.com instead of using the www. I comment on about 10 blogs a day or less and I am still not sure how I triggered the system. I am still searching for a solution. Deleting comments is unacceptable to me!
All it takes is a few of your comments to be flagged as spam and that is what does it. Even if you get yourself unflagged you will just end up being reflagged again.
One commentator here recently wrote that Akismet told him that if you ever put keywords in the name field – even in a KeywordLuv enabled blog like this one – that you will be flagged as a spammer. That is pretty much true.
growmap would love you to read ..Must-Have Plugins as Featured on Growmap
Wow, I must thank you. You have explained so much to me about Askimet. I had run across some bloggers who wouldn’t post you comment if they didn’t know you, (how are they to get acquainted to new people, I am unsure, but I digress), but I did not know you could be turned into the company for that reason. That is just mean.
Hello,
I agree that it is rather silly to put a blog on the Internet and share it on Social Media if you only want people you already know to find it. If that is the case they could password protect it or block robots or not share it on Twitter and other places.
All it takes to be blocked by Akismet across ALL Akismet using blogs – which used to be most WordPress blogs – is for a handful of your comments to meet up with bloggers who don’t like strangers or who flag any comment they don’t like as spam.
The solution is to seek out bloggers like us who have deleted Akismet and use our own GASP antispam plugin instead.
growmap would love you to read ..GrowMap Anti-SpamBot Plugin Testimonials
I hope akismet improve their system.
That is not very likely. They have known about these issues for a long time and when I published their test page to find out if they have flagged you as a spammer they removed the ability to check.
growmap would love you to read ..Happy Second Business Blog Birthday to Andrew Rondeau – GrowMap Hits 17-000 Twitter Followers
Seems that these guys have some really tough rules.
If you look at the big picture, they do not care if bloggers and businesses can comment and they are opposed to dofollow links in comments so Akismet probably works precisely how they want it to work.
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Internet Marketing
Askimet blocks my homepage + any subpage of my domain! But hey, it doesn’t mind a link to my shop!
Some people are rel jerks and shouldn’t be on the internet. To publish a blog and to flag all people you don’t know as spam is sick. Why don’t they get a password and give it to their friends? It’s just morronic and malicious (the weirdest part being that some of these privacy freaks sell stuff I definitely won’t buy now, although I was very interested in their stuff before)
mirabelle would love you to read ..Le blog de la boutique de la mirabelle – Mirabelle’s shop blog
I was never aware how complex Akismet was at processing real comments from possible spam ones. It sounds horrible. I had always used this plugin from start and what I like about it is that is sorts the comments that needs to be moderated from those that was ‘automatically’ sent by spambots.
I never actually though that Akismet was this fierce – but I think then it’s for a good cause!
Thank you for informing me. I don’t think I have anything to worry about.
Akismet relies on bloggers to flag spam and that is what causes the problem. Some bloggers think any comment from someone who has a business Web site is spam and others flag anyone they don’t know as a spammer.
We now have the perfect fix – a new anti-spambot plugin that doesn’t block real commentators but does eliminate spambot spam which is almost all spam.
growmap would love you to read ..GrowMap Anti-Spambot Plugin Now Available at WordPress Plugin Repository
I have decided to deactivate Akismet for 12 hours and see what happened, starting now.
Sarah would love you to read ..Quit Unemployment and Start Freelancing
Hi Sarah,
Do you want an early release version of our new anti-spam plugin. Works great with zero false positives. Details in CommentLuv link.
growmap would love you to read ..WordPress Blog Spam Solution That Works
Aikmast is a great plugin i have used in many of my web stes and makes the easy to separate the good post and the bad one also it does a lot of feour that it automatically banns the spam posts
You won’t think that when it starts putting YOUR comments into trash or instantly deleting them.
growmap would love you to read ..Help Us Test Gasp Anti-Spam WordPress Plugin
WOW!Great the only word which can describe your work and observation is quite perfect.I am a link builder and I understand your thinking practically right.
Hi Gail. I was still using it until I upgraded it recently and it is now acting up for me. It is deleting comments..not even putting them in the trash..they are gone. I disabled it. I moderate comments anyways. What a crazy thing. It was also giving me errors saying a server was blocked. They made it worse. *sigh*
.-= Melinda´s featured blog ..Sticker Mania =-.
Hi Melinda,
Akismet is a problem and so is the latest version of WordPress. There appears to be two different levels of spammer because when you click not-spam on some comments they go to trash and others go to pending
Even in blogs with Akismet disabled where comments go is inconsistent. We have a new anti-spam solution that is working great. Let me know if you want it. See the post I’ll put in CommentLuv for details.
growmap would love you to read ..WordPress Blog Spam Solution That Works
Thanks for this comprehensive post. I have Akismet installed on a couple of my sites and I make sure I check the comments on a regular basis in order to ensure that they are all spam. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of the Captcha testing!
Hi Sarah,
We have a better solution than a Captcha. Andy at CommentLuv wrote a custom anti-spam plugin for us. It will soon be available in the WordPress plugin repository but for now anyone who wants it can ask me.
growmap would love you to read ..WordPress Blog Spam Solution That Works
As I searched Akismet or Automattic Kismet is a spam filtering service. It attempts to filter link spam from blog comments and spam TrackBack pings. All you have to do is to download in able to used this properly for your site.
.-= Tamara @ kids authentic spiderman costume´s featured blog ..Kids Spiderman Muscle Costume =-.
Hi Tamara,
And by doing that you will be blocking real readers and commentators from commenting in your blog. That is a very bad idea.
growmap would love you to read ..Help Us Test Gasp Anti-Spam WordPress Plugin
I have created a post about tricks and tips about which programs and tools that I use to combat spam!! Check it out and let me know what you think!!
Five ways to reduce spam in your Comments — From my perspective
.-= Paul Sylvester´s featured blog ..Companies Just don’t Get it about Spam! =-.
Thank you Paul,
We’ve been testing a captcha but many people don’t like them so we are still researching. I’ll share the post you wrote and the results of the poll I’m running about the captcha we’re testing with others in hopes we can find the best available solution.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..TWTPoll- SI Captcha Anti-Spam WP Plugin =-.
Maybe I can help you fix some of the problems you are having. I get an average of 1000 people on my site on any given day. I have found some good Anti-spam techniques to prevent bots from gaining a foothold. I will be more than glad to do a blog post discussing this very thing because many people would benefit from this. I just know that on any given week, I am only get 5 to 10 spam messages in my spam folder and the rest are waiting my moderation, which are usually legitimate users and IP’S. If you would like me to do a blog post about how to remove unwanted spam I will be more than glad to do it!!
.-= Paul Sylvester´s featured blog ..How Toolbars can help your business and income!! =-.
Hi Paul,
Thank you for writing that post. I am reviewing it at StumbleUpon and sharing it elsewhere online right now.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Akismet Configuration- How to Turn Off Akismet Automatic Comment Deletion =-.
Gail,
This new Captcha system is liable to hurt your commenters. If anything see if you can’t regulate who has to use the captcha system. Although I am using Recaptcha that is much nicer to the eyes and easier to read, you have to consider the ramifications of use something like this. It is after all you blog but I would suggest Recaptcha because of how easy it is for the blind.
Oh and if your worried about spam, with recaptcha, I haven’t seen a significant increase in it. Actually I have seen a drop in spam and an increase in comments!! 😉 Just saying!!
.-= Paul Sylvester´s featured blog ..5 most viewed for Unlocked Phones in the past 30 days =-.
Hi Paul,
The bots are really slamming this blog so we have been researching ways to at least block those hundreds I get every day without impacting real commentators. Ron had the captcha set to high difficulty. I just changed it to medium and would appreciate your input on whether it is better or still a bad idea.
Set to medium and on my PC and monitor this captcha is much easier for me to read than the one on your blog. I suspect that varies by monitor, maybe PC and the eyesight of the viewer.
I do not know if I have any visually impaired readers and hate to make it harder for them to comment. My spam jumped from ~400 a day to 800+ so I’m testing solutions. Captcha may be a bad idea.
The best idea I have to date is to find someone in a country where the dollar goes a long way or a blogger who would like one-on-one collaboration with me who can manually delete the obvious spam for me. I am so swamped and the spam is overwhelming.
Although this blog gets hit the heaviest I manage many more blogs and there simply are not enough hours in the day.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Find Out If Akismet Has YOU Flagged as a Spammer =-.
Testing akismet spam.
Hello Ace,
You have to go to the other sites linked at the top of this post to test. Akismet is disabled in this blog.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Akismet Configuration- How to Turn Off Akismet Automatic Comment Deletion =-.
I will probably refer to your blog entry at WPAddict.net… mostly because I do think it is something that needs to be addressed directly to the WordPress community. I have not had this problem as of yet for myself, but it is something I really wonder if it is because of spammers and the IP and you might not be specifically targeted. It might be your IP happened to be quite close or perhaps the same as the reported offender.
Believe me, I have had contact with webhost and ISP alike about spam… and a lot of it usually deals with IP more so than the email address itself (which is one of the basic factors in pinpointing spammers.)
For me, I am not sure if this should be considered anymore in the Askimet algorithm. Dynamic IP addresses from broadband really can make things difficult for the rest of us trying to surf without being told … “Hey, you are a spammer.” and you saying “WTF!?!”
.-= Nile´s featured blog ..Facebook- Google… Who Else is Competing in the Game of Monopoly =-.
Hi Nile,
It amazes me that people are still blocking IP addresses when most Internet users probably still do not have static (permanent, unchanging) IP addresses.
Both dial-up and broadband Internet access uses dynamic IP addresses meaning you get a new IP address each time you connect. ISPS (Internet Service Providers) do try to keep their users from spamming but they have to identify the spammers before they can kick them off and by then the IP they used or even the entire server can already be flagged.
The reason almost everyone uses AWeber is because they work so hard to keep their email servers whitelisted and your email delivered. It is probably a full time job for at least one person and maybe more.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..We Need INDEPENDENT Open Source Alternatives =-.
Also, how does Akismet actually work?
Is it banning on IP basis? Why is it blacklisting/banning/blocking IP Addresses instead of banning and blocking spam COMMENTS?? What is someone receives this IP address and he/she wants to post a genuine comment? What’s their fault? Why can’t they ban spam comments instead of taking the easy way out and banning entire IP Addresses? Doesn’t Akismet know that someone else could receive that IP address?
Please reply to both of my comments.
Nabeel
Hello Nabeel,
Akismet and WordPress have multiple methods of blocking spam including blacklisting specific words or IP addresses, flagging the URL or the name or the IP address.
Yes, Akismet SHOULD KNOW that many IP addresses are still dynamically assigned; however, that is assuming that they care whether innocent commentators are being blocked or not.
If you read the comments in this post and others like it you will see that many people absolutely do not care how their actions affect others as long as they get what they want. Many are so sick of spam that filtering it out is far more important to them than whether innocent people are also affected or not.
This may change soon because many who post that Akismet never did anything to them or that Akismet works great are already flagged as spammers themselves and just don’t know it yet. The fastest way to change someone’s opinion is to have it affect them personally.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How to Build a Successful Blog Based Business =-.
I officially hate Akismet as of now.
Please guide me:
I tried to comment on a number of blogs today (all of which had akismet installed) after 7 PM (when my modem rebooted and got a new IP address), and the comments just didn’t appear (Before this reboot, my comments were appearing.)
When I presses the ‘submit’ button, it would just load the page, and my comment would no where be seen, meaning akismet thought my comment was spam (as I am sure it went to the spam folder, thanks to akismet).
It seems like I got a ‘BAD IP ADDRESS’. Why am I being penalized if someone else spammed? I know this because before my comments were appearing, but when the modem rebooted and got a new IP ADDRESS, my comments were not appearing, they were going to spam folder thanks to AKISMET (WHICH I HATE).
How do I know this all for sure?
I then used a PROXY server, and then commented on those blogs AGAIN, and VOILA. They were being accepted.
So right now it seems I have a so called ‘BAD IP ADDRESS’ as conceived by AKISMET. I will have to reboot my modem TILL I get an IP address which is not blacklisted, even though I DID NOT spam. It was none of my fault. I am being penalized for someones else doing spam (Though I even DOUBT THIS TOO). Their algorithm sucks.
Am I being penalized for getting an IP through which someone spammed or is it a bug or is it a fault of AKISMET?
Please help and guide me.
Thanks,
Nabeel
Hello Nabeel,
You have run into a situation that is definitely not widely understood even by people who build tools. Apparently they don’t see the danger in banning IP addresses from ISPs that dynamically assign them.
Let me explain. While some Internet connections have what is called a static IP (static = unchanging = assigned to that one person) many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) randomly give the next person who connects through them the next available IP address. When you disconnect someone else gets the IP address you were using.
Allowing anyone to ban by IP address is simply stupid unless they first verify that it is indeed an unchanging static IP and not one that was dynamically assigned.
To further complicate that issue, spammers can spoof IP addresses so the person actually being blocked is totally innocent and you did nothing to keep the spammers away.
This same issue is why email is NOT a reliable communication method unless you NEVER ASSUME that an email has been received until it has been acknowledged.
These posts are useful to better understanding the problem of blocking spammers without blocking everyone else:
Attacking Spam Methods is Useless
Why YOUR ISP blocks email you are expecting.
Spam and Filters: Improving Deliverability of Your Email Newsletters and Alerts
Yes, Nabeel, you and anyone else who ends up with that IP address could be being unfairly penalized because someone else was flagged as a spammer. YOU might actually be the one who triggered the flag though because as you can see by reading this post and comments or looking at the survey I did that many bloggers consider real comments spam.
.-= Gail @ Support Bloggers´s featured blog ..TwtPoll- SPAM or NOT SPAM – YOU Decide =-.
I have just been sent the link to this page from another blogger who has helped me so much today. I am reasonably new at blogging and have just discovered that I have spent the last couple of weeks commenting on blogs and totally wasting my time because I have been banned.
I don’t know why and was not told why.
I find this confusing enough without having some big brother making decisions or some blogger who I am actually taking time to join their discussion make decisions about me.
Hello Nicola,
The simple explanation is that because real spammers have stolen so much of our time, bloggers have turned to tools like Akismet to block what they’re doing. Real comments are what some would call “collateral damage” (others affected by the process).
You have not totally wasted your time commenting because some bloggers do check their spam filters and will rescue and approve your comments.
Whenever you see a white screen your comment was instantly deleted by Akismet. Any other time the comment is in the blogger’s spam folder and could be approved later.
You need to request that Akismet unban you using this link to contact Akismet.
Then you need to understand that many bloggers will simply flag even well-intentioned comments as spam – even if your comment is specifically about their posts. See the poll I published to see what I mean.
Eventually there will be more bloggers who understand the importance of links for small businesses and even their own blogs and this will not be as big an issue. Until then we can only do what we can.
I will be compiling lists of bloggers who welcome businesses and either do not use Akismet OR at least rescue comments from the spam section. There are many demands on my time so getting all that done is a challenge.
There are some great tips for both businesses and bloggers in my post about effectively using CommentLuv. Be sure to read the part about using CommentLuv Anchor Text Links.
.-= Gail @ Support Small Businesses´s featured blog ..TwtPoll- SPAM or NOT SPAM – YOU Decide =-.
I tried to add to discussion about Amazon being down and I wonder if they are using akismet or someone who is reporting bad comments without them knowing. I know my comment was relevant to the discussion!
.-= Paul Sylvester´s featured blog ..Amazon Get’s the Fail Whale- Major Loss to Affiliates =-.
Hi Paul,
In many sites – and the larger they are the more delete happy they tend to be – being relevant may not be enough. Often they are just very reluctant to let others have their say.
On sites like that I put my comments in my FriendFeed account and link them to their post. That way I have my say anyway and if they delete my comments or don’t approve them oh well.
When I saw your comment Amazon was still down. It seems to be ok now but when did used books get so expensive? Many are almost the same price as new!
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Most people who try to sell used stuff on their don’t send the stuff for free and if they do they justify it by marking up the price of the book!! I only by new on Amazon unless I find it cheaper on Amazon. That way I know I am getting the best deal!
.-= Paul Sylvester´s featured blog ..Computer Geek on Duty Sign – Wall Plaque Male Edition – Programming Mainframe =-.
Akismet is actually lovely. For the past years, it helped me a lot getting rid of the spammers comments most of the time 🙂 But sometimes i just get mails from my friends, they indicate that their comment wasn’t spam at all but it just got blocked by Akismet anyway.
I think if you got the time, Moderate comments manually. Akismet is lovely really, but i don’t know what’s inside it’s head 😛
I have to disagree with you here John.
The friends who are letting you know are the minority. For every person who tells you there will be 10-99 who do not tell you. They simply stop coming around.
Where are you from, John? Istanbul? I do not recognize the language on your Web site. We are looking for people with excellent English skills who live in other countries to assist us with all the work we have to do.
If you know anyone who might be interested please ask them to contact me through this blog or on Twitter.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers- How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
Poor choice of words mate I concur. Let me rephrase that: By Lovely, i mean it WAS lovely when i heard it for the first time; Some magical thingy that will supposedly keep spammers away from your blog. But after a while just like you said, it is really not lovely when people can’t comment on your website. It’s literally stupid to turn people away when they’re actually trying to add something to the discussion.
Oh and yeah I am from Turkey and i think i have better-than-average english skills. I’ll ask my employees if they know anyone. But it’s very unlikely. In here, you can’t find many people who actually speak english at all let alone speaking it properly. But maybe i can help you 🙂 I have a fairly untouched twitter account. I’ll give you a buzz 🙂
Hello John,
Thank you so much for coming back and clarifying what you meant. Since filtering spam out with computers is not working very well, one of the tasks I would like to find people interested in working to do is manually deleting the most obvious spam from blogs.
For that task a person would not have to write English well – they would only have to be able to tell the difference between comments full of links or that are advertisements and real comments. They wouldn’t even have to be really good at it as anything gray they could just leave for the blogger to moderate themselves.
Do let me know if you come across anyone who may be interested. You might also want to join us in the BloggerLuv blogging community or in our private blog collaboration. We share skills and collaborate with each other in both. I can email you details if you like.
.-= Gail @ Abundance for All´s featured blog ..Akismet Configuration- How to Turn Off Akismet Automatic Comment Deletion =-.
Sure Gail i’ll ask around if someone could do that 🙂 But i gotta say, not many people in this country are really into blogging :/ I’ll let you know if i find an enthusiastic anti-spam guy! 🙂
Btw i’ve been hearing about the BloggerLuv community. I’ll give a detailed look into it 🙂
PS: I have good eyes and a perfect sight, yet your captcha’s are driving me crazy!
Oh I hate the way that Akismet works, my website was banned for non reason of mine :(, maybe another person can attack your website via this way
.-= Jennifer R´s featured blog ..50 jQuery Plugins for Validation- Uploading- Date Pickers- Auto-Suggest and Password Security =-.
Hi Jennifer,
Many bloggers do not understand what real comment spam is:
Some businesses and especially the “SEO” or linkbuilding workers they hire are manually writing spam comments that are not properly written. My post about the Benefits of CommentLuv has some guidelines I hope everyone (both bloggers and commentators) will read.
This has caused some bloggers to associate ALL comments that mention ANYTHING – no matter how relevant to the post where they are left – in a comment that includes keywords or a link to a business URL to what is real spam.
They are flagging real commentators as spammers right and left and getting many of the readers who support and share what they write banned from all WordPress blogs.
Many cases of people being banned are caused by those who do not clearly understand the implications of their clicking spam instead of delete. If a blogger does not like a comment that is NOT SPAM they need to use delete instead of reporting that person.
It is also true that if someone does not like you or is an unethical competitor or simply chooses to be vindictive that they can have you banned repeatedly and even if you have many friends flagging your comments as not-spam that will not help.
You will have to ask Akismet to unban you over and over or persuade your favorite blogs where you comment to stop using Akismet. We are testing alternate methods of dealing with spam and will share what works best asap.
Note that many who would delete or flag our comments as spam WILL continue to comment in our blogs. I’m sure they would scream if we did the same to them but since we don’t, it may not be very easy to determine who they are.
One way would be to save the URLs of all comments you leave and see which ones get deleted or never appear.
They are also the bloggers most likely to be flagging your comments as spam. The more you can avoid that happening the better. Even if we all stop using Akisment many others will not and you don’t want to be flagged as a spammer if you can help it.
I see you have created a Link Love plugin similar to the Lucia’s Linky Love plugin.
These types of plugins do nothing to keep spammers from flooding your blog with spammy comments because most of them never check to see if you’re giving them a link or deleting their comment or reporting them as spammers. I keep asking and no one has yet been able to explain why they believe that type of plugin is benefiting them.
If they are link builders and notice some comments are dofollow and others nofollow don’t you think they’re smart enough to write enough comments to get them to go dofollow?
We are testing captchas to determine which is easy for commentators to use while keeping the most automated spam from going live in our blogs. I will share that when we make a decision.
I keep asking and am still waiting for someone to tell me how exactly Lucia’s Linky Love and similar plugins are benefiting them.
Bloggers write about, read, and link to bloggers who want to interact with them – and that is as it should be. Wise bloggers interact with others of like mind.
Bloggers who are DoFollowing ALL valuable comments would do well to move in separate circles from those who NoFollow their comments.
Bloggers who NoFollow links in the bodies of their blog posts or do not link to you at all when they write about or quote you are not worthy of your time. Cut them out of your circle (unless you are one of them. If you are, create you own circles but if none of you are willing to link to the others you won’t see much benefit).
.-= Gail @ Support Bloggers´s featured blog ..DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv Community =-.
I think a lot of legit blog commentators get flagged as spammers because they occasionally engage in borderline spam tactics. I think the secret is to always try to error on the side of caution. Unless the blog specifically advertises that they allow keywords in the name field, you are taking a big risk by trying to use them.
In defense of those who are tough against spamming, a lot of us do not engage in borderline or blatant spam techniques. Therefore we are extremely impatient when someone visits and leaves a one line comment telling us how great we are. There is a 1% chance that the comment is legit. There is a 99% chance it is a spam comment.
People just need to realize that you need to give a little to get a little. Leave a thoughtful on-topic comment that shows you have actually read the post. It isn’t really that hard. If you absolutely must have a keyword anchored link, make sure you are only doing it from places that say they allow it.
.-= Kathy´s featured blog ..Should You Use No Follow Tags For Comments On Your Blog =-.
Hi Kathy,
Although that is a nice sentiment, it won’t work because many of the most active bloggeres who DO leave very high quality comments are already flagged as spammers. What a wise blogger considers spam and what many others consider spam are a long way apart.
Many others have been flagged as spammers because they don’t have any experience with spam yet (because their blogs are too new) so they leave comments that LOOK like spam but aren’t. I know this because I often recognize new commentators by their Twitter IDs.
Sometimes new readers sincerely do just want to say “nice post” or are not deep thinkers with any major ideas to share.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Find Out If Akismet Has YOU Flagged as a Spammer =-.
The best way is not to install stuffs like this in blogs and manually moderate comments. That’s good.
.-= Tony@web design´s featured blog ..Can social media be profitable Part 1- Blogs =-.
Yes Tony, we are going to have to manually moderate our blogs at least until we find a spam filter that doesn’t filter out our best comments.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers- How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
I think this pluggin is good, but many a times it has also tagged spam to some of my fans comments which were original. So ultimately you have to check it manually and better not to rely completely on Automatic solutions
We have stopped using Akismet because it does not advise real commentators of the status of their comment when they have been flagged as spammers.
Even worse, it deletes comments instantly that bloggers never see if they have a particular box checked – a setting with misleading wording that 3 out of 4 experience bloggers misunderstood. There is no telling how many bloggers are deleting their best comments that have no idea how that works.
Test your own name and URL (link provided at the very top of this post) and find out if Akismet thinks YOU are a spammer. Many will be very surprised.
As for Akismet resolving this issue for us, that is highly unlikely. They have little motivation to change and as you can see by the comments in this post and at the sentiments of many of the bloggers who have commented in this Don’t Be “THAT GUY” post I am sad to say:
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place =-.
Your comment reveals why this is going to be such a serious problem. Akismet isn’t a person – it is an algorithm that is only as accurate as the bloggers clicking the spam button.
Yes, this is much of the problem – that most are far too quick to flag real comments as spam. Even those who would not do that intentionally ARE doing it accidentally. Is can be extremely difficult to determine whether a particular comment is or is not spam and growing more challenging by the day as the spammers get more cunning.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers- How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
[blockquote]It can be extremely difficult to determine whether a particular comment is or is not spam and growing more challenging by the day as the spammers get more cunning[/blockquote]
Hi Gail,
Now that it’s a week later, hopefully we can bury the hatchet, so to speak. I think the quote above is a much more “charitable” reasoning for why some of us do occasionally mark comments as spam … as opposed to assuming that we do it out of some sort of vindictiveness, or meanness of spirit. I would never intentionally hurt someone else. But as you pointed out above, in the case of “spam”, in many cases it’s a judgment call … and it’s not always an easy one.
I actually think that making my comment links “dofollow” adds an additional level of responsibility to comment moderation. Because those links are originating from my blog, I’m effectively “endorsing” the content on the destination site (at least in the eyes of Google).
Given that, doesn’t it make sense that I might want to be a bit judicious about which sites I choose to endorse through a dofollow link?
I will concede that bloggers do have some responsibility to try to be fair when it comes to whether or not to flag a comment in Akismet (since it can have repercussions beyond just that blog).
However, can we also agree that commentators should probably bare a bit of responsibility too … by Not forcing blog owners into making those difficult calls about whether something is a legit comments, or spam?
Todd
.-= Todd´s featured blog ..How to keep a Toddler Quiet for Hours =-.
Welcome Todd,
IMHO, bloggers absolutely should moderate their own blogs according to their own ethical standards. I regularly unlink URLs that are bad neighborhoods and just now I even edited out the name because it was the name of a site that is illegal.
Yes, commentators and especially those who are writing comments for businesses must learn to write them in a way that it is more obvious they are NOT spammers. That would really help.
Many real people who don’t use business URLs or keywords leave very weak comments that do sound like spam. They don’t know any better so we, as wise bloggers, must first give them the benefit of the doubt and then guide them in how to improve.
When in doubt, delete works just great. The bloggers who understand the ramifications of flagging something as spam use delete a lot and reserve flagging something as spam that they really KNOW is spam – and in many cases we simply can not know for sure.
Bloggers are never going to agree on what they will allow in their blog. Andy Bailey of CommentLuv and I have been brainstorming ideas for letting bloggers decide what kind of readers and commentators they would like to see.
I have suggested that some blogs like this one be allowed to “opt-in” as keyword-friendly, business-friendly sites so that others like us can interact with each other and hobby blogs and those blogs who prefer not to have those kinds of commentators would be known to us.
Where we will most likely need to agree to disagree is on whether to allow comments from businesses seeking links and commentators whose native language is not English. Because I have studied other languages I know how difficult it is to write clearly in a non-native language.
My decisions and actions are guided by what is best for all which I know is not the norm. Most are guided by what is best for THEM only or by what the false G wants.
I choose my freedom and encourage only those few others who are of like mind to do the same. My Support Small Businesses post explains why I feel the way I do about how links and comments are important to improving our economy before it is too late.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
Gail,
IMHO we also must also consider the repercussions of those more powerful Bloggers. I quote:
With great Power, there must also come great responsibility!!
Like we already discussed if there was a blogger who was highly ranked and wanted to lash out at another blog owner by marking their comment as spam would greatly make it just that much harder to mark his blog as unspam because other less powerful sites would have to work double hard to undue the problem that created the problem in the first place. I can see this being a problem in the long run!! Anyone else want to suggest other ways to prevent this??
.-= Paul Sylvester´s featured blog ..Facebook starts the long spiral downward- =-.
Hi Paul,
It is a simple thing for me to easily see who is selfless and can be totally trusted and who is selfish and is likely to be vindictive. Obviously I would only give that power to those who would not abuse it.
How easy it is for others to tell who can be trusted and who can not I do not know.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
Gail you are so generous with how you see spam and the fact that you moderate your comments section. I am glad to have found this and other dofollow sites that teach me the ethical way to sort this out.
I have Akismet on my new blog (new to blogging so heaps to learn) as it was what my blogging coaches recommended. I only get a few comments each post at the moment and so reading everything that comes in whether spam or not isn’t a real problem yet.
When my blog first went up I got about 44 spams (they were spams as I checked every one) that had rightly been blocked by Akismet. Now I only get 1 very rarely and so far they have not put any in the spam folder that wasn’t spam.
Maybe I am going to find out about this issue when my readership and commenters increase.
I would like advice on what to use instead so I am ready for when my blog grows to heaps of comments daily.
Thanks for the articles as they are teaching me about stuff that I wouldn’t know till it happens. Better to be informed now so when it gets busier I’ve got things in place to deal with all eventualities eh?!
Patricia Perth Australia
http://www.lavenderuses.com
I’ve been hearing this from a lot of bloggers lately. Thank you for bringing this issue up on your site too. Maybe Google is secretly supporting Akismet to kill comment link love? In all seriousness, it’s a shame because I love interacting with other bloggers and if my posts aren’t even getting to them?? Come on!
.-= Anthony Tori´s featured blog ..What Team USA Can Teach You =-.
Hello Anthony,
Welcome back.
It isn’t much of a secret that Google and Automattic (parent company of WordPress and Akismet) work together or that many would prefer that we did not understand how to use the Internet to grow blogs and businesses.
That is going to get more and more difficult but some of us are not willing to give up communicating with each other. Unless they cut off our Internet access we will find a way even if we have to migrate to an independent replacement for WordPress – and it may well come to that.
Those of like mind are welcome to through in with us. We do NOT seek to convert the masses – only to interact among that small minority that I estimate is about 0.02% of the entire human population that is like ourselves.
Check out my WOMM post I featured in CommentLuv in this reply. I believe you will find it very useful.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
we should never give power to an artificial intelligence because in the end we get hurt by it.
🙂 I have long said that computers will never replace humans because they can not actually THINK the way we do. Many ARE being hurt by Akismet but only the special few seem to really care. That is to be expected.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Twitter Tools- Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts =-.
Thanks Gail! I had no idea this was happening. I’m in the process of deleting askimet off all my blogs right now!
Hi Lisa,
I’m not using Akismet on any blogs except the ones where we are offering a way for other blogs to test to see if they’ve been flagged as spammers. (Link at the very top of this post.)
We’re testing captcha plugins now to determine what works best to eliminate the real spam that got through Akismet too. If you would like your blogs to be added to a list of Akismet-free blogs we are compiling please send me the URLs (email and contact info on my contact page).
If you include your preferred anchor text and short description that really saves time and gets your links up faster.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv Community =-.
whoa… been a few weeks since I’ve visited your site. Quite the firestorm you opened up here!
I’ve “talked” with Dr. Ann on email, too. A trick I suggested to her is to make sure you have a gravatar. By having a gravatar, you are easy to spot in my spam folder so I can mark it as “not spam” and thereby update Akismet that it screwed up again.
I knew Akismet was problematic when I saw one of my comments going to the spam bucket… on my own blog.
.-= James Lee @ Photographer´s featured blog ..Humming bird feeder by night =-.
Hi James,
Good to “see” you here again. Interesting photo of an Apple iPhone but too bad about how you came to take it. I feel your pain as I’m having technology challenges myself – my hard drive crashed and my backup PC is far slower.
Akismet has many of the bloggers and commentators I know best flagged as spammers and if your own comments are going to spam in your own blog you should use that link at the very top of this post to test to see what combinations of names and URLs you use are flagged as spam.
Certain words in the body of a comment can trigger comments to go to spam and that is probably a separate trigger – I’m still testing to determine that. The more people who will test and report what happens the faster I can determine precisely how Akismet works.
I saw your Tweet asking about “a new solution for building small, professional looking corporate web site. Suggestions? Must be able to self manage.” We build all sites on WordPress whether they use the blogging function or not because they are easy to self-manage and have SEO benefits. See the post I’ll put in CommentLuv for some details.
I can recommend the best (actually they are in that post already) and answer any questions you may have.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How to Build a Successful Blog Based Business =-.
Hi,
Any update on the situation? Did Akismet listen to your concerns?
I was getting marked as spam, even for legitimate comments.
I asked the blog owner through why my comment did not appear. He checked his spam folder (akismet) and it was there. He marked them as not spam, and said sorry.
Well, don’t know what is happening. But I do hope it gets solved.
Hello Nabeel,
Alex from Akismet did immediately respond when I published this post to tell me I was wrong and ask me to change or remove it. Since I pointed out that I was NOT wrong I have not heard from them sense.
You need to contact Akismet using the link provided in this post and ask to be unflagged. In some blogs your very real comments simply end up in spam but in others they are deleted by Akismet before the blogger ever sees them.
Any time you get a white page after you submit a comment it was deleted. Always copy your comments BEFORE you hit submit. I save mine in a free notepad program called Tomboy Notes and/or post them in my GrowMap FriendFeed account.
Any time you don’t see a message that says your comment is being moderated you need to contact the blogger and ask them to rescue your comment from spam. Many bloggers do not do that unless the commentator asks.
Use their contact form if they have one or an email address if you can find one or send them a Tweet. EVERY blog should have a contact form and if you use Twitter your Twitter ID should be easy to find on your site by anyone smart enough to search for the word Twitter.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How to Build a Successful Blog Based Business =-.
It exists better anti spam plugin, askimet could be manipulated by spammer people…
Hi Motercalo,
All spam plugins that allow bloggers to flag spammers have similar issues. The one that improves their algorithm most will become most popular over time. Akismet has the advantage because of their association with WordPress.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place =-.
I still use Akismet in my WP blog. you are right. It is deleting lot of good comments too.
.-= Parking Enforcement´s featured undefined ..Response cached until Wed 23 @ 6:34 GMT (Refreshes in 23.87 Hours) =-.
Dumb question for you. If you know it is “deleting lot of good comments” too why are you still using it?
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Building Traffic Using Anchor Text =-.
The way akismet work is certainly open for abuse. Simply enter your competitors particular and get them into the blacklist database – nice and easy dirty trick.
Hello Wilson,
Thank you for pointing that out – yes, that IS another problem with the way a system like this works. Anyone who intentionally causes a non-spammer to be flagged as a spammer is a vindictive person best shunned.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How to Build a Successful Blog Based Business =-.
I am not using Akismet on my blog, exactly for the reasons here mentioned. I was tired of having to review my spam folder all the time and to rescue the false positives. Akismet didn’t save me any time, so I looked into other possibilities and came up with a “simple captcha + good old human moderation” solution. The captcha cuts out the 200+ robot spam comments I used to get per day (no joke!) and leaves me to hand moderate the couple of dozens of real comments.
I myself don’t do a lot of commenting, I have a list of around a dozen blogs, most in my niche, I do read semi-regular and comment on from time to time. Nevertheless my friends have to digg me out of Akismet quite regularly because I got put in the spam filter by the algo. No idea why, I don’t spam and normally leave reasonable long and comprehensible comments. The only reason I can imagine is that I own several websites and use the urls in my blog comments (all connected to the same email address because of gravatar use), perhaps Akismet thinks that whoever owns more than one web site is automatically a spammer? Just wondering, SY
.-= hospitalera@niche blogging´s featured blog ..Make Money with the Market Samurai Affiliate Program =-.
Welcome Hospitalera,
Would you mind sharing what Captcha you are using? Some are better than others and if that would eliminate all those other spammy comments that really ARE spam without blocking real comments that would be a HUGE time-saver. Some Catchas can be very hard to read.
You are in good company being flagged a spammer by Akismet. Tons of the best and friendliest bloggers are, partly because they visit so many bloggers who apparently don’t really want new commentators and possibly for reasons we have not yet discovered.
You are always welcome here and in the other blogs I manage and we will have a list soon of more bloggers who welcome commentators who have multiple sites, businesses, and know the value of keywords.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
I am using “SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam”, you can change the level of difficulty. Whilst I agree with some things you say, I don’t agree with “…partly because they visit so many bloggers who apparently don’t really want new commentators and possibly for reasons we have not yet discovered.” Oh, and please, don’t put me on any dofollow blog lists or similar, they are the main source of “human” spam I do receive (and delete) when I look at my referrer stats. I have already put a ban on some of those, making it impossible for people to reach my blog via these sites. I am not using Akismet, but I do moderate comments by hand and people who only comment to get a back link from my site are getting most likely their comments deleted or the urls and keywords removed. SY
.-= hospitalera´s featured blog ..Make Money with the Market Samurai Affiliate Program =-.
Hello hospitalera,
I only put any blog on our lists when they ask to be added and I verified that your blog is not listed on any list I maintain. I will add you to my list of blogs not to promote.
It has become obvious that there ARE many bloggers who prefer not to have traffic sent to them or to receive visitors or comments from some people.
I do make notes and do my best to remember what each person’s preferences are and never intentionally act against their requests. It is never my intention to offend anyone. Usually I can remember to check my notes.
I interact with thousands of people every week so it is not always easy to know what each individual person wants others to do. Many think others should automatically know what they want and that is simply impossible.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How to Build a Successful Blog Based Business =-.
Hello Gail.
Sorry to bother you with this. But, Mitch and Todd seem to have blocked my friends Brent and Stetson, so your good place is the only one left to us.
Anyway, since you are clearly a woman after our own hearts, polite and all, and fighting for the good and right, I have copied a message to Mitch and Todd below.
Perhaps this is a good place for it. We will leave it up to you.
I think Mitch and Todd are really really smart fellows, just like Brent and Steton say. It’s just we have very simple minds. We just think that when the sick and infirm turn to their computers for solace and when they accept an invitation from gentlemen like Mitch and Todd to discuss an issue with them, it’s just plain outlandish when those sick ladies and gentlemen are sent to the dunce’s seat in the corner for just trying to accept the invitation to comment.
We may not be as sophisticated as Mitch and Todd, nowhere near. But, we do understand when Stetson’s grandma develops a tear in her eye on a day when she is really down and just would have liked to feel the company of Mitch or Todd on their web sites, and then she is thrown into the dumpster, for all the best of reasons of course.
I mean, we can’t all take the time to PERSONALLY review all our messages.
I mean, even the President of the US of A has his messages screened. However, we don’t know if he has anything done automatically. I think he has someone read all his mail, and that is as it should be.
So, if the President doesn’t trust Akismet to filter messages, I’m wondering what offices Mitch and Todd hold that they are too busy to add rather than subtract from Stetson’s grandma’s remaining days.
Maybe the three of us are overreacting. After all, Mitch and Todd have moms too. And, they probably would trash their own moms’ messages as well. I mean business is business, right?
Love what you are trying to do, Gail. If there were more smart ladies around like you, the world would be a better place. Are Mitch and Todd ladies? Judging by the names, I would guess no. And, that may be their problem. Most women are very smart, smarter than us guys anyway.
Maybe if Todd and Mitch considered maybe changing their sex then they would be more sympathetic with those who can’t defend themselves.
Maybe not. It was just a thought. Probably a dumb one. Have to admit I had a sip or two.
Thanks for all you do, Gail. You are a peach.
Vincenti
Message to Mitch that was blocked on his site:
Hi Mitch, Not you too. Blocking, blocking, blocking. Amazing.
Well, Steton and Brent wanted to make sure Todd got the following message.
Please excuse the silly mistake Stet made with Todd’s name. He isn’t at all as smart and you and Todd or Alex or Matt. You silly guys just have it all over us cornhuskers. You like corn, Mitch. Gosh we hope so. We’d like to show you the corn fields, Mitch.
We sometimes party in the cornfields, Mitch. Hundreds of acres of nothing but corn. We must confess that someones we even drink that moonshine our granddadies make out there.
Maybe you can have some of the moonshine too, Mitch. Do you drink, Mitch. We hope so. Always nice to have some moonshine when feelings are hurt. Makes you braver than you otherwise would be.
But, then, you don’t have any trouble with bravery do you, Mitch.
You just stand up for the right, even have Todd’s back.
Now that we can admire. Love to see birds of a feather, you know.
Anyway, could you get the message below to Todd. Wouldn’t want him to miss his cup of coffee (or moonshine) in the corn field.
Hey, maybe we can have kind of a seminar. You guys can teach us about business, and about making money, and about why it is OK to throw messages from the sick and infirm into the trash.
I bet you and Todd even have meetings with Matt Mullenweg and Alex Shiel.
You know, sharing programming secrets that we cornhuskers couldn’t in a thousand years understand. I bet that’s fun.
Gee, we wish we were that smart. Maybe if we were we could become politicians and get people to give us money for our meat freezers and all like they do in New Orleans.
Gosh, I am just rattling on so. Didn’t mean to do that. But, you know, it’s just my way.
OK, thanks for passing the messages on to Todd.
As you buddy, I’m sure you guys will want to prepare your seminar for us.
After all, we will be supplying the moonshine (or coffee if you prefer, although coffee in the fields is nowhere near as good…up to you).
See you there.
Our spread is just off Route 70. Can’t miss it. It’s pretty big. But, then, we’ll be driving (not the three of us at the same time, silly).
Vincenti
Hey, Ted,
You know, I don’t think that Gail is necessarily trying to blacklist you.
I think that it is just the nastiness of the net that she is trying to blacklist.
I mean you may be a great guy.
I’m not sure what else one can do but have an Akismet aboard, especially if one is as busy as you are, Ted.
I mean my grandmother was trashed on your site, and evidently you believe in your hard that that is the price one has to pay to run a decent shop, Ted. And, I’m sure your sincere.
So, you go ahead and keep on keeping on, Ted.
I mean my grandma being trashed for your convenience is OK by me.
And, you keep giving advice to anyone who will listen, Ted.
I just hope one day we have the pleasure of meeting, Ted.
I would love to have the opportunity to test your resolve. You know, man to man.
I mean, it is one thing to use Akismet. After all, we know the Akismet ownership is used to using their programming talent to really wreck as many days as they can, and, you know they just smile to themselves because it is really really difficult to reach them in person.
But, some day, perhaps you and I Ted will have a chat if I am fortunate.
Then, without any little boxes between us, we will have a chat about my grandma.
I will really be interested in your opinions about why it is OK to mistreat my grandma. After all, you are a busy person, Ted, and well, your convenience is important to me.
I hope you are not blacklisted, Ted.
As a matter of fact, I would like to be your friend.
Could you give me a way to contact you, Ted.
Hey, I’ll even provide the transportation. You know, you need a little time away from that anonymous black box of yours.
We can go for a little ride. I can buy you a cup of coffee, and then you can tell me why my grandma is not treated well here.
I’m sure your reasons are very good, Ted.
I mean you are a professional only doing a job. And, that job requires that we make some sacrifices, and if my grandma and her feelings have to be sacrificed in order to save you those precious moments you need to further guide your followers, Ted, well I understand that too.
And, you know, Ted, I don’t even expect that you will approve this message.
After all, I suppose having coffee with me, and taking a ride afterward would consume lots of your valuable time, Ted.
But, don’t worry, I will make sure that if we are delayed because it just inspires us to take the scenic way back to your little electric box, Ted, well, I know some really great people who are very skilled. They went to medical school.
Medical school graduates make a lot of money, Ted. They even saved my grandma last year. Grandma, did I tell you, suffers from cancer.
And, I bought her a little white computer so she wouldn’t ever feel alone and we could communicate often.
And, she was doing great. But, one day she visited here, Ted.
Yes, and, well, she understood that you are busy, Ted, and she understood that Alex Shiel and Matt Mullenweg of Akismet are all clever programmers who spend lots of time smiling into mirrors because of their cleverness.
You know, were I as handsome as you, Ted, I probably would smile into mirrors also.
I mean, in the Marines, they taught us not to look into mirrors a lot. I take that back, it was the other guys who would kid you if you spent too much time primping.
But, then, you have saved a lot of time by trashing people like my grandma, Ted. So, you have time to primp, and more power to you.
I just love the thought that your hair is nice and fluffed, Ted.
As a matter of fact, I’d like a chance to, you know, pass my fingers through your hair, Ted. Isn’t there a song like that?
Well, if we ever have that chance, and that coffee, and that ride, Ted, don’t worry. You know, I think one of the medical people I mentioned above knows all about prosthetics.
Maybe we can have a chat about prosthetics, Ted.
That’s just in case something happens to your hands, Ted. I’ll do my best to prevent that from happening. I wear pretty soft shoes, and that’s for a reason, Ted. If I just accidentally should step on my cat, I don’t want to hurt her. So, if I should accidentally step on your hand, Ted, don’t worry, it won’t hurt, Ted. Not much, anyway. Done just right, by accident, you won’t feel a thing.
Primping might be hard for awhile though. I weigh close to 240. Getting a little heavier since I got out of the service, Semper Fi and all.
So, please, let’s get together.
You can send me your address. The e-mail is above.
Oh, maybe I don’t need you to spend your valuable time sending me your address. Maybe I can spend five or ten dollars in one of those places where they have all that information online. You know, the find a person places.
We may be having a coffee soon, Ted.
And, when we do, I’m sure we will be able to come to an understanding.
Your future buddy,
Stetson
I approved this comment because everyone should have their say and I would greatly prefer that they confine this discussion to this blog. Please do not comment in Mitch’s blog or in any unrelated post.
If the other bloggers are blogging about this issue then it seems to me they are inviting you to take the discussion to their blog too; however, you risk being flagged as a spammer so you might just want to respond in this blog instead.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
This is part of the general issue of False Positives that some anti-spam software is not addressing correctly, if at all. Akismet and Mollom are both failing in this area.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_I_and_type_II_errors#Spam_filtering
Hi David,
The “false positives” are being caused by bloggers intentionally flagging comments as spam which are not spam. No plug-in that allows input from people who knowingly or innocently use it incorrectly can be accurate.
This CAN be fixed if the plugin creators choose to fix it. They can weight the input of specific hand-chosen bloggers more heavily, make it faster and easier for input from those bloggers to unflag real commentators as spammers, and have quality control positions that spot-check what bloggers are marking as spam and eliminate those who are doing consistently doing it wrong from the pool of bloggers used to decide what is spam and what is not.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How to Build a Successful Blog Based Business =-.
This would be so much easier if people commented to ask questions, have conversation, and interact rather than using commenting for a backlink strategy that has already been proven NOT to work.
Gail, you and I have had many debates about do-follow, and you know how I feel about it, and I think your mentality on commenting is really skewed.
When I shut off do-follow on my site, switched to using Disqus, and turned off all the other “do-follow friendly” plugins, the quality of comments increased tremendously. There is no doubt in my mind I made the right decision for MY site.
It upsets me to see you try to bully people into thinking that if they don’t agree with your reasoning for these plugins, then they don’t “support” small business. You are actually one of the reasons people are turned off by this so-called “do-follow” movement.
.-= Keith´s featured blog ..Fathers In Blogging 2010 =-.
Hi Keith,
Help me to understand how writing my beliefs is “bullying” anyone. I am simply expressing how I and others in the DoFollow KeywordLuv CommentLuv community understand the importance to our economy and individual financial survival of encouraging link building.
Until people understand the consequences of their actions our economy will continue to decline. I have already said there is going to be a definite break between those who feel as I do and those who do not.
I have no desire to tell anyone what to do or to convince anyone which path to choose. Each person has free will and must decide for themselves. Whatever they choose, for every action there are always consequences.
People who feel as I do already spend most of their time in separate blogging circles from those who feel as you do. That is good because it saves us the time and energy of endlessly debating which is a waste of our time. Once the decision is made, let us just agree to disagree and move in the circles where our comments are most welcome.
There will be some overlap but not too much. There are already 20,000+ CommentLuv enabled blogs and each of us can only have real relationships with a very small percentage of other bloggers. We won’t bother you with what we find important and you will have plenty of people who feel as you do and read and comment in your blogs.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
Hi Keith,
I just wanted to add a comment about what you said about “using commenting for a backlink strategy that has already been proven NOT to work”.
Why do you believe that backlinks in blogs do not work? Have you done research on whether anchor text links in comments affect search engine positions?
Or are you referring only to the fact that spamming bloggers is a stupid idea? Many unsuspecting business owners have fallen prey to “SEO” companies selling them links. They do not know those companies are spammers and have no idea what is being done. I have consistently and regularly advised that businesses NEVER HIRE SPAMMERS.
That is NOT what I am talking about when I say we should welcome businesses and allow them to use keywords in our blogs. Many intelligent people read my blog because they found it when seeking a place to add a link. They become regular readers and commentators and I am glad to have them and hope they send their friends too.
I have no doubt that some of the comments in this blog are not up to the standards of other bloggers. That is because this is a teaching blog. It is also because, having studied a second language and knowing quite a bit of another I know how challenging it is for someone whose native language is not English to express themselves in our difficult language.
I do not choose to run off people who don’t write English well or who are new to commenting and don’t yet realize many bloggers expect them to always write something profound and “valuable” in their comments.
I even do my best to enlighten the spammers so they stop spamming. I absolutely see nothing wrong with a business owner participating in my discussions. I even welcome the people they hire because I know that many business owners are so busy trying to survive this economic downturn that they can not comment themselves.
As long as they are trying and improving they are welcome here. There are plenty of places they are not welcome; they don’t need yet another.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Gail, I have actually researched, as have many others. And Google is onto using comments to gain rankings in search engines.
The way the algorithm was intended is that a link is a vote, meaning if I link to you with anchor text, I believe your site is an authority on that topic. If you leave a comment on my site with the anchor text “green widgets”, how do I know you are really a trusted authority on “green widgets”?
If I have been to your site, your content is awesome, and I do think you are an authority on green widgets, then I will link to you in content. That is the original intent of Google’s algorithm.
Google is well aware of where comments start on a blog, and they have stated that those links are given less weight (if any). Same goes for footer links.
So, I always advise my clients to get involved in commenting if they really have something to say, not to get links.
I have tested this extensively, and have found that I can rank a site with only a few in content links, versus needing hundreds or even thousands of comment or forum signature links.
Personally, I think time would be better spent working on writing content that will standout and people will want to link to.
.-= Keith´s featured blog ..Time For War is Upon Us! =-.
Thank you, Keith, for taking the time to elaborate.
Given we both agree that search engines already treat comment links differently why do you think it matters whether we allow dofollow comments or not?
Which choice each of us makes determines whose blogs we are going to be reading, linking to and commenting in regularly. I am NOT saying we should avoid others; I AM saying that given the limitations on our time that there will be very little interaction between the two groups.
There WILL be strong blogs in both groups and the wisest in each group will be building serious collaborations unless they are so afraid of the false G or willing to believe the disinformation they put out that they decide not to do what is obviously mutually beneficial.
Comments let other BLOGGERS know where you are coming from and let THEIR readers know if they want to become YOUR readers.
Commenting using CommentLuv creates niche communities of bloggers and commentators. Allowing keywords helps us to get to know each other much faster.
When my readers put keywords in the name field they reveal TO ME AND TO MY READERS what they have to offer in the way of information, products and services and by which they choose I can tell where the priorities for their businesses lie.
Average people who offer mediocre products and services are not investing their time learning how to blog, use Social Media and commenting.
Only a very small percentage of people are working that hard to be successful so if they are turning up saying intelligent things they ARE intelligent people who want to provide great service.
If they weren’t they would just do what the-ends-always-justifies-the-means types do: they would be spamming us – not interacting personally will us.
People who just want to make money do not give of their time to others – unless there is something in it for them – and in those cases their motives are easily seen.
We who choose to be part of the DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv community do so with our eyes wide open. We know that the big G may decide to try to censor us and that is a risk we are willing to take because we are doing what we believe is right.
Personally, I know that they are already doing that so worrying about playing their game does not make anyone safe from penalty. There are many clues to what is going on. Here is one of the more obvious ones.
I wrote a post that simply explains how to choose anchor text. I hope we can both agree that is a very important thing for many to know.
AlltheWeb shows 788 links but G shows ZERO incoming links to that post.
One blogger originally told me that there were no links to that post. I asked another in a different country to look and he too confirmed that there were NO links to that post.
When I finished compiling the list below I asked that same blogger to send me a link to the result page showing the exact syntax he used. When he did that post suddenly shows 794 incoming links (in Australia) and now I see 584 (in the US).
I find it extremely unlikely that all three of us managed to type a search in incorrectly multiple times and see NO links and then suddenly now there are so many links.
I am not giving their names because I don’t want Google to come after them if they penalize me. I will share these comments indicating that this is all very strange:
“that is what I am seeing now” [794 incoming links to that page]
“i do it he same way all the time so i am not sure what is going on”
“Different locations different results” [is normal] “it has always been like that”
“Back on the 1st of june you only had 44 links”
ME: “Very strange…How do you know that?”
HIM: “I went into custom range and did a search”… “None of it makes sense it is saying you only got 20 links to that page in the last seven days”
Before today, apparently G believed NONE of the incoming links below was worthy enough to count (but now they are)?
High Quality incoming links from these sites found in the BODY of each POST:
Official CommentLuv site PR6
Liz Strauss’ PR6 Social Media blog in a PR2 post
Kikolani PR4 Social Networking Blog in this post about Blog Commenting and linked from one or her popular Fetching Friday posts: Building Traffic to Businesses
Kristi Hine’s PR3 DoFollow lists site on a PR2 page
Hub about Promoting HubPages Using CommentLuv written by Kristi and published on the PR6 HubPages site
JR‘s Internet Marketing Strategies post about The Best Spinner
Murray Newlands (AffiliateSummit Top Blogger Finalist) PR4 Affiliate Marketing Blog
CJ’s CreativeAce Freelance Writing Services Blog in a post about KeywordLuv and CommentLuv
TOPSY 6 Tweets and links to that How to Build Traffic post from Topsy
OTHER IN CONTENT LINKS
MarketingTypo republication of How KeywordLuv Benefits Us All
THAT POST FEATURED IN COMMENTS IN COMMENTLUV ENABLED BLOGS
Direct Sales Web Marketing
Dennis Edell
ExtremeJohn post No Do Follow Means No More RSS Subscription from ExtremeJohn
Best Organic Food Coupons
Barbara Swafford’s Blogging Without A Blog Sexy Bookmarks Post
Michelle Mangen’s Virtual Assistant Services Blog
Moomette’s Switching from Blogger to WordPress
AriWriter Social Media and Online Marketing
LINKS to that Post in the BODY OF COMMENTS
MattMcGuire on DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv
Dennis Edell Direct Sales Marketing Strategies
Petra Weiss on KeywordLuv CommentLuv DoFollow
ExecGiftsBlog Gift Affiliate Program
ExecGiftsBlog Wedding Affiliate Program
Internet Marketing for Mommies
ComLuv Cash Blogging Contest
LINK IN NAME FIELD IN COMMENTS
TechRavings Google PageRank Algorithm
IN TRACKBACKS
Think Traffic ~ Traffic Building Resources
Murray Newlands Social Media Marketing Blog
If anyone has a theory on why any post with that many links including links in the body of blog posts from major PR4 to PR6 blogs would show ZERO links in Google when all the above links were found in AlltheWeb I am all ears.
Yes, we know that Google does not count nearly as many links but is anyone really going to argue that links from all of the above should not count?
Well, what do you know. Before I could publish this research now all of the sudden that post shows 794 incoming links to a friend in Australia and 584 incoming links to me. How fortunate for me.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place =-.
Sorry, the man’s name is Todd, not Ted.
I just get so flustered in the company of real professionals that it gets scary.
When we have that coffee, Todd, I’ll make sure that I keep the name straight.
I sometimes get tongue tied. When that happens my grandma has told me that I act out.
I’ll try not to act out, Todd.
I’m sure there is a perfectly good reason you allow you site to trash cancer patients like my grandma.
And, when you explain that to me, Todd, I’m sure we will come away from the meeting all happy and content that we have found new buddies.
See you then.
Semper Fi.
Stetson
Hi Stetson,
Remember that we can only control our own thoughts and actions and never someone else’s. Others will be how they choose to be but we must not allow what they say or do to reduce us to their level.
Whenever someone does not receive you, shake off the dust from our feet and leave with peace in our hearts and a smile on our faces.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
Actually Stetson … if you’re planning to track someone down to try to break their hand, I’d much prefer you look for “Ted” 😉
And Gail …
Not only do you allow a comment that contains obvious threats of violence to appear on your blog, but you also add a note on the end saying that you had to manually approve it … so it’s not a stretch to assume you read it.
Seriously ???
Last time I checked, we are responsible for the content that is posted on our sites … especially if it’s moderated.
I don’t know many bloggers who would ever allow obvious threats of violence to be posted on their sites.
But if that’s your idea of “free speech” so be it.
Todd
Hi Todd,
We have got to get over this idea that we can control what others do or say – we can not. In our own individual blogs yes we can delete what they say but they can simply publish it somewhere else. I frequently publish comments at FriendFeed on content I read elsewhere.
I am not responsible for what he said and I did say that forgiving people who publicly state their intention to do us harm is a much better response. Perhaps what I wrote was not obvious enough.
Is it not better for me to appeal to his sense of reason and recommend he forgive those who use Akismet vindictively than to say nothing and delete his comment? Would that not make him more likely to be mad enough to actually do something?
His entire comment was obviously intended to be sarcastic and cynical – at least to me – and not a serious threat nor was it inciting others to do you harm.
I never advocate violence against anyone at any time – not even to personally defend myself. Only those who will not allow the actions of others to determine their own can live in peace.
It is clear from what you wrote in your post about this that either you sincerely do not have any idea whatsoever what this issue really is OR are using a page out of the John Chow playbook and started a huge controversy for the traffic and visibility it can bring.
I don’t know about you but I am weary of debating what is obvious to those with sufficient intelligence to comprehend how serious this issue is. It is the exact words you wrote in your comment that caused this controversy and now you are retracting what you actually said.
Why don’t we just agree to disagree and those who are not willing to risk your having a bad day and having them flagged as spammers now know who to avoid?
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Twitter Tools: Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts =-.
Hi Gail,
You’re right, we seem to have a fundamental disagreement on this issue. But I actually know quite a few bloggers who feel exactly as I do. We want to support “do follow”, but eventually get a little bit tired of the “drive by commentators” who feel like they are “owed” keyword anchored links, simply because they showed up.
To some extent, I am actually sympathetic to the idea that some people might feel unjustifiably flagged as spammers by Akismet.
But even when that’s the case, I don’t see the impact being quite as dramatic as you do.
My final thought on this issue (at least here on your blog), is this …
If any small business owner would ever find that they might be “financially harmed” if they lost the ability to promote themselves in the comment sections of other people’s blogs; rather than complaining about a wordpress plugin, what they should really be doing is examining the long-term viability of their business model.
… just sayin. 🙂
Todd
Hi Todd,
It is clear that you do not realize the challenges businesses face. That is a very complex issue but here it the shortest version I can come up with:
Incoming links are the primary input to search engine position on Google. Where your business appears at Google determines whether your business makes millions, thousands tens of thousands, hundreds of dollars or almost nothing.
For one client, dropping from first position to second reduces sales of that product by 70%. You don’t have to take my word for it. There is an excellent graph that clearly shows the effect of ranking first at Google.
Drop off the first page and you may make no sales at all. Anyone who wants to know more about that can see these SEO links.
In his now famous cesspool comment Google’s CEO has publicly announced their intention to favor big brands over small businesses and their recent MayDay update is on the way to doing it. That has already cost some businesses 20-30% of their sales and over time it will affect more and more keyword searches.
I am NOT saying that blog commenting is the only way to build links and I am completely opposed to anyone ever spamming blogs. What we can do is locate bloggers who are interested in our businesses and build relationships with them.
You seem like an intelligent person so before you write me off as crazy please read the statistics found about half way down in the post I’ll put in CommentLuv in this reply.
For anyone who wonders, my replies are written knowing that some will be interested and not only for the person to whom I am replying. I only offer what I know to be true; what each person who sees it does with it is totally up to them.
They are welcome to read it – or not – or ignore it or do further research. What they choose to do is totally their decision and I have no need to try to prove I am correct. I will; however, answer any questions anyone has if they truly want to know more.
Let us agree to disagree and as I commented to Keith below it is best for those who don’t see eye to eye on this important and fundamental issue to move in different blogging circles.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Hey, Todd,
You know, I don’t think that Gail is necessarily trying to blacklist you.
I think that it is just the nastiness of the net that she is trying to blacklist.
I mean you may be a great guy.
I’m not sure what else one can do but have an Akismet aboard, especially if one is as busy as you are.
I mean my grandmother was trashed on your site, and evidently you believe in your heart that that is the price one has to pay to run a decent shop. And, I’m sure your sincere.
So, you go ahead and keep on keeping on.
I mean my grandma being trashed for your convenience is OK by me.
And, you keep giving advice to anyone who will listen, Todd.
I just hope one day we have the pleasure of meeting, Todd.
I would love to have the opportunity to test your resolve. You know, man to man.
I mean, it is one thing to use Akismet. After all, we know the Akismet ownership is used to using their programming talent to really wreck as many days as they can, and, you know they just smile to themselves because it is really really difficult to reach them in person.
But, some day, perhaps you and I will have a chat if I am fortunate.
Then, without any little boxes between us, we will have a chat about my grandma.
I will really be interested in your opinions about why it is OK to mistreat my grandma. After all, you are a busy person, Todd, and well, your convenience is important to me.
I hope you are not blacklisted, Todd.
As a matter of fact, I would like to be your friend.
Could you give me a way to contact you, Todd.
Hey, I’ll even provide the transportation. You know, you need a little time away from that anonymous black box of yours.
We can go for a little ride. I can buy you a cup of coffee, and then you can tell me why my grandma is not treated well here.
I’m sure your reasons are very good, Todd.
I mean you are a professional only doing a job. And, that job requires that we make some sacrifices, and if my grandma and her feelings have to be sacrificed in order to save you those precious moments you need to further guide your followers, Todd, well I understand that too.
And, you know, Todd, I don’t even expect that you will approve this message.
After all, I suppose having coffee with me, and taking a ride afterward would consume lots of your valuable time, Todd.
But, don’t worry, I will make sure that if we are delayed because it just inspires us to take the scenic way back to your little electric box, Todd, well, I know some really great people who are very skilled. They went to medical school.
Medical school graduates make a lot of money, Todd. They even saved my grandma last year. Grandma, did I tell you, suffers from cancer.
And, I bought her a little white computer so she wouldn’t ever feel alone and we could communicate often.
And, she was doing great. But, one day she visited here, Todd.
Yes, and, well, she understood that you are busy, Todd, and she understood that Alex Shiel and Matt Mullenweg of Akismet are all clever programmers who spend lots of time smiling into mirrors because of their cleverness.
You know, were I as handsome as you, Toded, I probably would smile into mirrors also.
I mean, in the Marines, they taught us not to look into mirrors a lot. I take that back, it was the other guys who would kid you if you spent too much time primping.
But, then, you have saved a lot of time by trashing people like my grandma, Todd. So, you have time to primp, and more power to you.
I just love the thought that your hair is nice and fluffed, Todd.
As a matter of fact, I’d like a chance to, you know, pass my fingers through your hair, Todd. Isn’t there a song like that?
Well, if we ever have that chance, and that coffee, and that ride, Todd, don’t worry. You know, I think one of the medical people I mentioned above knows all about prosthetics.
Maybe we can have a chat about prosthetics, Todd.
That’s just in case something happens to your hands, Todd. I’ll do my best to prevent that from happening. I wear pretty soft shoes, and that’s for a reason, Todd. If I just accidentally should step on my cat, I don’t want to hurt her. So, if I should accidentally step on your hand, Todd, don’t worry, it won’t hurt, Todd. Not much, anyway. Done just right, by accident, you won’t feel a thing.
Primping might be hard for awhile though. I weigh close to 240. Getting a little heavier since I got out of the service, Semper Fi and all.
So, please, let’s get together.
You can send me your address. The e-mail is above.
Oh, maybe I don’t need you to spend your valuable time sending me your address. Maybe I can spend five or ten dollars in one of those places where they have all that information online. You know, the find a person places.
We may be having a coffee soon, Todd.
And, when we do, I’m sure we will be able to come to an understanding.
Your future buddy,
Stetson
[NOTE from GrowMap: This comment did not immediately appear – as it should since Stetson has approved comments in this blog using that combination of name and URL. That indicates that WordPress discriminates against commentators who have been flagged as spammers even in blogs that have disabled Akismet. This makes this issue even more serious.]
[NOTE from GrowMap: Edited to correct Ted to Todd. If this blog had an edit function installed I am sure Stetson would have edited the error himself. I will add that to my to-do list.]
I realize this is a very volatile issue for people on both sides. I also know that if you can just see through the eyes of the people on the other side that we can be more empathetic to what this issue is doing to them instead of focusing only on ourselves.
Stetson, help your Grandmother to forgive those who do possess the wisdom and inight to understand how their actions affect others. It is sad that it happens but it does and we should not be afraid to go out in the world just because not everyone is friendly.
It is unfortunate that a blogger would use CommentLuv – which I see as putting out the welcome mat to others – and then not only throw them out of their site but use the Akismet spam reporting system to get them banned across millions of other sites.
Please tell her she is welcome in our blogs any time and even though WordPress will not let her comments appear immediately I will approve them just as soon as I see them.
I will introduce her to other very friendly bloggers who will welcome her and make her feel at home among friends. Tell her not everyone is like Todd. Some of us would love to hear from her just as often as she would like to visit.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place =-.
Bloggers intentionally flagging comments as spam which are not spam will certainly skew the machine learning, but, this is not a False Positive error in the statistical sense [Garbate In Garbage Out]. The problem that I am trying to highlight is when the spam identification software makes an Type I ERROR and identifies a good post as spam.
Mollom does not know what its false positive rate is and has no way for a website manager to provide feedback that a given post identified as spam should be classified as good. I haven’t used Akismet recently, but, it appears that it may suffer from the same problem.
.-= David´s featured blog ..Death of Brother Allan Van Slyke =-.
Hi David,
What you are talking about is more complex and most have enough challenge understanding why flagging real comments as spam is a bad idea.
Is what you are talking about not inherent in programs written by humans who are using too simplistic a model?
Filters often falsely mark comments as spam because they contain a word that has been blacklisted. Many short words block unrelated longer words. The most common example of this is blocking the word ass causing all words containing that sequence of three letters to be blocked: assume, assumptions, brass, etc.
Is that the type of False Positive you mean or is it something more complex than that?
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers: How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
Hi Gail,
Just stopped in to report that Akismet appears to have corrected whatever problem was causing filtered spam on my blog to auto delete.
I would expect that Akismet is as responsive to a blog owner’s indication that a filtered comment is not spam (ie: by accepting a false positive spam comment) as it is to a blog owner marking something as spam, but I guess I don’t know whether that is true.
The problem for me was that something went wrong on or about 6/3/10 and I lost the ability to double check because “spam” comments were dumped and not stored in the spam folder. I thank you for bringing this issue to my attention.
I tried uploading a newer version of Akismet. I tried changing the settings. No matter what I did, for several days with Akismet activated, I was not getting any new additions to my spam folder. I turned it off and immediately saw spam again, so I don’t believe the spammers took a vacation. I left Akismet off for over a week, and then tried again with a new update.
As I said, everything seems to work as it should now. Spam goes to a spam folder and I have thirty days to check whether something of value was misdirected.
Thanks for alerting me to the issue,
Tammi
.-= Tammi Kibler´s featured blog ..Freelance Marketing: Market Your Writing With Business Cards =-.
Hi Tammi,
Akismet is definitely NOT “as responsive to a blog owner’s indication that a filtered comment is not spam”. It seems to only take a few clicks to flag someone as a spammer and dozens or more to get them unflagged.
Kristi works for an SEM firm and has much experience in both commenting and blogging as her time is split between guest posting on major SEO blogs and building links for businesses.
She left a comment in this post. She wrote this:
“I don’t know how many it takes to get in the spam filter, but it takes a LOT to get out of it. I have dedicatedly marked commenters in my spam folder as safe, and it has taken months for one or two of them to get out of that area.”
Did you read the information about the Akismet configuration box that if checked immediately deletes comments left by those who have been flagged as spammers on all posts that are 30 days old or older? Read more about how Akismet works at those links.
You are missing great opportunities to promote your blog which I explain in my post about building traffic using optimum anchor text.
See how to use keywords in your posts and how to use KeywordLuv for what to do with the keywords you select.
When you realize why keywords are important and see how many bloggers who are not spammers are being prevented from having their comments from appearing in our blogs you may want to reconsider your belief that Akismet works properly.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv Community =-.
Hi Gail,
Thank you for your comment on my blog. You prove the point so many are trying to make here.
The problem a few weeks ago was that Akismet was dumping filtered comments before we had a chance to check them, not that Akismet helps blog owners filter self serving comments that add nothing to the blog conversation.
You will do your customers a great service if you direct them to the comment you left on my blog and point out that this sort of advertisement annoys many blog owners and can get an IP blacklisted in Akismet when a blog owner chooses to mark it as spam.
Regards,
Tammi
.-= Tammi ´s featured blog ..Freelance Marketing: Market Your Writing With Business Cards =-.
This is bad! In teaching people how to make $100 bucks a day in their own online business, I always field questions from people interested in making money from home. I guess I have to make sure that everyone has another way to contact me with questions. Thanks for filling us in on this, I never would have known.
.-= Leny Pearson´s featured blog ..$100 Bucks A Day With A Free Online Store =-.
Hi Leny,
Anyone who ever uses a URL for a business or keywords related to businesses in a KeywordLuv enabled blog or who uses words like marketing, selling, business or sales in their comments is most likely already flagged by Akismet as a spammer.
You can find out using the Akismet test pages I created. There are two – one for 2.2.7 and one for 2.2.9 on two different blogs. It would be best to test both versions and to test every name / keyword / and URL (including specific pages and variations w/ & w/o www and trailing slash) .
We have worse news. I have now seen that even with Akismet disabled the comments of anyone who has been flagged as a spammer will not appear. WordPress most likely uses the Akismet spam list and forces every comment they leave to be moderated first even in blogs that do not use Akismet.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Affiliate Tips Tuesday: How to Deep Link ShareASale =-.
Dear Growmap:
Regarding Mitch, perhaps you are right. Perhaps I am judging him too harshly.
However, I thought it was Mitch himself who declared himself really really smart and therefore wanting to be part of the plutocracy.
If this is just a matter of Mitch not being able to understand the issue, then I am corrected and I apologize.
I certainly never abuse my cat when he makes a mistake.
Stetson
Comment from the Linda Christas College Blog:
I have only one concern here. Does Mitch allow Akismet to abuse visitors to his blog? Does he or does he not follow the first principle of business and that is to be nice, and only allow services to operate on his blog that are nice TO EVERYONE.
If Mitch’s answer to that is that he doesn’t use a service that mistreats people FOR ANY REASON, then I have no issue with Mitch, and I would consider becoming Mitch’s admirer.
If he does use an abusive service, then there isn’t a chance on Earth that I would consider allowing Mitch into my business or personal world now or later on in life.
Bobbie ’12
Name Bobbie | 06/19/2010
I love Paul Sylvester’s idea.
If I can help in any way, please count me in.
Lara
We are already doing what Paul suggests. I encourage all bloggers to use the link at the top of this post and go test the names and URLs they use when commenting. The more data we have the better.
I have no doubt that many will be shocked to find out that THEY are flagged as spammers and the more that happens the more bloggers will decide that either Akismet must change their ways OR they must NOT use Akismet.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Comment from the Linda Christas College Blog:
My issue with Akismet-enabled blogs is that comments keep going into spam (which most bloggers do NOT check) or I’m blocked altogether ……… Akismet denies having any sort of global blacklist and say they are simply tailoring the filter for each blog individually. However, to prove that is false, I set up a new, fresh WordPress blog, applied and received an Akismet API key and did some test comments. Sure enough, every single one went directly to spam, even though I kept voting them out of spam. If it were tailoring to my input, it would stop trashing my comments. Worse, when contacted, Akismet is completely unhelpful and unsympathetic, even when one can actually get a reply out of them, which is difficult at best. It would be one thing if the Akismet system simply deleted bot spam. I’m not a bad programmer, and I’m certain I could devise a way to block only bot spam. This would be perfectly legitimate. However, to trash out of hand a human’s well-thought-through comment that he or she spent their valuable time writing is a sin, in my opinion.
Name Ted
I can confirm that being flagged as a spammer affects your ability to comment in ALL Akismet-enabled blogs EVEN IF they consistently keep approving your comments and marking them as not-spam.
If there is anything about Akismet that is tailored to our particular unflagging of comments as not-spam it is singularly unresponsive.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Follow Friday: XLNT New Social Networking Blog =-.
Strikes me many people have been off topic. The point Gail is making is there is evidence that Askimet censor comments before they get to you Spam bucket. That’s serious because you have no say over their criteria.
Askimet is a network service that relies on spammers being reported. So if you get on their list and are never told that’s serious.
I have disabled Askimet and now moderate. It’s a 30 minute job absolute max. unless you have a high commenting site. If your Blog is at that level then it’s a simple business choice.
Allow legit comments to be labeled as spam or check your spam bucket every day or to to see if any legit ones have been labeled spam.
The post was never about the ethics of how people comment it was simply to draw attention to a serious flaw in Askinet if like me you want as many of your target audience to engage.
.-= Andrew Peel@Financial Planning And Budgeting´s featured blog ..What Is The FamousBloggers ComLuv Internet Cash Contest? =-.
Hi Andrew,
The comments in this thread make it obvious:
It is up to Akismet to improve their plugin to allow legitimate commentators to be unflagged and unless and until they do that each of us needs to make sure we are not turning anyone away.
Those like Mitch, Todd and Summer should put out a “FOR MEMBERS ONLY ” shingle that links to a comment policy stating that they flag real comments as spam at their wim so the innocent visitors they injure at least have some warning.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Local Search Directory Listings =-.
This is precisely the point, Mitch.
You now know what it feels like to be bullied and rejected.
Exactly what you are doing to everyone on your site Akismet has targeted.
So be angry, Mitch.
Now you understand at least how it feels.
You don’t like it on the receiving end.
In other words, what you are doing to others you don’t like done unto you.
Doesn’t that AT LEAST tell you something, Mitch.
I doubt it. You seem much too blinded by your mirror image for anything to reach you, Mitch.
It is people like this who make life so unhappy for others.
I would love the opportunity to confront you in person Mitch, instead of your hiding behind Akismet.
However, most self involved people really like it when they don’t have to get their own hands dirty as they go about proclaiming themselves superior at the expense of others.
However, dare to try to confront them with the truth, and brother, you see how shallow they really are.
What a pathetic way to live life traveling up and down the East Coast, Mitch
I certainly wouldn’t consider for a moment hiring someone so centered on shouting to the world how superior he or she is.
Please take your blog off the net until you can get to a place where at least you will treat the elderly who have been banned by Akismet decently.
Stetson
Hi Stetson,
I have known Mitch online for a while and feel you may be judging him too harshly. There IS a difference between knowingly being self-centered and simply not completely grasping a complicated issue.
I have never got the impression that Mitch considers himself superior to others. In order for people to truly understand the positions of others we must all treat each other with respect. It is unwise to make assumptions when there is really no way to know others differ from ourselves.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Building Traffic Using Anchor Text =-.
First I’ve heard of this. I have yet to see anything looking amiss on my own blog, but then again I get tons of spam and few comments. Perhaps it’s time for some experimenting. The heads up is appreciated. Good work.
.-= Paul Novak´s featured blog ..ComLuv Blog Contest and Me Losing =-.
How would you know? I see that you’re entering our FamousBloggers ComLuv CASH Blogging Contest so you will be getting more comments and readers soon.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv Community =-.
Hi Gail,
I was just wondering what happened to the comments I wrote to this post? I can’t find them anymore – nor the replies that were made to them. Is it a technical issue, or censorship? 🙂
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s featured blog ..I got an iPad !! =-.
Nevermind, just found the link to the previous page with comments 🙂
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s featured blog ..I got an iPad !! =-.
Hi Klaus,
When a post has this many comments it gets really confusing to find them all and the links I use to jump between them don’t always work. I’ll have to look at the settings again and see if I can fix that. If anyone has suggestions on what works best or how to manually change how comments are displayed I’m all ears.
The only comments I edit or delete are those that link to something illegal or obscene. I do notcensor anyone based on their disagreeing with me or the substance of their opinions.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How to Build a Successful Blog Based Business =-.
I find this thing interesting, Gail, in that some of your friends here have decided to come to my blog and attack me, making comments on a post that has nothing to do with this subject. If they or anyone else thinks attempting to bully me into anything is wise, I’d tell both of them to think again. Lora and Leone have come over and not added anything to the discussion by making erroneous comments on a topic that has nothing to do with this; I’m leaving the comments, but not tolerating this type of thing again. And trust me, I do have ways to get back, especially at Leone, who left me a website, so it had better NOT happen again.
If this is what civil discourse is supposed to be about then I want no part of it. Shame on the people who decided to comment on something on my blog that had nothing to do with the topic. They obviously don’t know better, and no, I don’t appreciate it. So, since this is the type of person you have coming here, I guess I’m not welcome, so I won’t be back. And let’s see about Linda Christas as well.
.-= Mitch´s featured blog ..Jeanni, R.I.P. =-.
The b**ch (Leone) also attacked me: http://www.strictlyonlinebiz.com/blog/affiliate-marketing-guide-for-nigerians/1101/#comment-2149
Growmap, what’s going on? What exactly is your association with these mean spirited folks?
.-= Udegbunam Chukwudi@Make Money Online´s featured blog ..StrictlyOnlineBiz’s Top Blog Posts Of The Week 15 =-.
@sonlinebiz,
I must say, After reading her comment. I really don’t get how that can be mean spirited. She after all never really attacked just spoke her opinion. I for one understand where she comes from and don’t think it is fair to call her names. Akismet is really “Flawed” plugin and I would disable it on my site but I’d have to moderate all comments and I really don’t have time. I’d rather put my time into blogging and commenting on other blogs. I also understand your point but please lets be civil about this. I don’t see how she attacked but spoke her mind!!
.-= techlinkblog´s featured blog ..I Pay to show my support for these shows!! =-.
Hi Paul,
You do know you can put your name and still link just your keywords in the name field here, right? The post that explains how that works is in CommentLuv.
It does not take any more time to reviews comments in pending than it does to review them when Akismet puts them into the spam section. Are you saying you never look at what ends up in spam or worse yet you let Akismet delete comments instantly that you will never even get to see?
I doubt that anyone is any busier than I am; however, I am unwilling to allow Akismet to refuse my readers the opportunity to express themselves here.
I know time is the most precious thing we all have. It is the first thing I wrote about in that KeywordLuv post. It explains why keywords and commenting are important to ALL of us. Please ask yourself if you would make the same decision if it was YOU whose comments were banned.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv Community =-.
That comment stinks of meanness to me. Punto en boca! If you have a problem with your comments landing in the spam folder, you might as well contact the blog owner and ask him to always resue your comments from the folder.
I always make it a point to check my spam folder everyday. Maybe we all should try that and quit b**ching or simply uninstall the plug-in and let those of us that enjoy it, enjoy it in PEACE!
.-= Udegbunam Chukwudi@Make Money Online´s featured blog ..How To Setup A Subdomain CDN Via CPanel =-.
Hello Chuks,
In case you only see this in email I will paste what I told Mitch here too:
You do know that I did not suggest that anyone come to your blog to discuss this with you further over there, right? No individual is responsible for or able to control the actions of any other adult individual.
While if it were me I would have kept the discussion HERE and not in an unrelated post on your blog, I believe they hope to get you to see their point of view. When both parties are focused exclusively on expressing their own concerns neither one is listening to what the other is saying.
Mitch wrote, “So, since this is the type of person you have coming here, I guess I’m not welcome, so I won’t be back. ”
I asked Mitch if he thought it made sense to blame ME for the actions of others and use that to conclude that he was not welcome in MY blog. Everyone is welcome. I don’t control what you write or what they write or where any of you choose to put it.
Squabbling does little to bring about true understanding. You are all adults and responsible for your own words and actions.
I will add that all of you are acting like children. You as a Doctor should be wise enough to know better. No matter how emotional a topic may be it is NEVER ACCEPTABLE to resort to name calling. It is fine to disagree but NEVER to attack someone else.
I just read what Leone wrote and encourage you to re-read it too. Where do you see an attack in what she wrote? I will copy and paste her comment here:
Leone says:
June 19, 2010 at 7:11 pm
I am very sorry you think reactivating Akismet is a smart thing.
I cannot participate on this site because Akismet will delete my comments if I use my url.
That you rescue me in spam makes the the decision to reactivate even worse, since then I know you know that you allowed your “business” to trash me in the first place.
In other words, you are evidently a person who opts for personal convenience over brotherly love every time.
If keeping Akismet is the smart thing to do, I do hope you become less smart in the future.
Until then, at least this one potential client and fan won’t be back here.
Leone.
Chuks, what words here sound like an attack to you? Why would you call her names or call her “mean-spirited”? I have read her comment over again and I still do not see what you’re talking about.
I know them the same way I know you – from discussions in blog posts, emails and Twitter. The more I know of the mission of Linda Kristas the more I admire their work. They are being unfairly attacked because they have passionately attacked something they sincerely feel is important enough to keep bringing up for the greater good.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place =-.
Hello Mitch,
You do know that I did not suggest that anyone come to your blog to discuss this with you further over there, right? No individual is responsible for or able to control the actions of any other adult individual.
While if it were me I would have kept the discussion HERE and not in an unrelated post on your blog, I believe they hope to get you to see their point of view. When both parties are focused exclusively on expressing their own concerns neither one is listening to what the other is saying.
You wrote, “So, since this is the type of person you have coming here, I guess I’m not welcome, so I won’t be back. ”
Mitch, does it make sense to you to blame ME for the actions of others and use that to conclude that you are not welcome here? Everyone is welcome here. I don’t control what you write or what they write or where any of you choose to put it.
Squabbling does little to bring about true understanding. You are all adults and responsible for your own words and actions.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place =-.
I have an Idea and it might be a good one. What if we start making list of blogs that aren’t using Akismet? How would we know and how would we advertise it? I also am going to try an experiment on my blog. For the next Week (Sunday through Saturday), I have disabled Akismet. I will make a blog post about it Monday. I want to see if there is any major difference in comments versus spam.
If you think I should keep Akismet disabled. Encourage people to visit my blog and comment. I actually would like to develop more of a relationship with my readers. I will however be looking Alternatives, and seeing if there is anything better than Akismet. I am still going to use Recaptcha because that will at least detour most of the spam bots at least that is my hope. I would love to have devotion of my readers like they have for you “Gail“.
.-= Paul Sylvester´s featured blog ..Here’s an easy method to learn the way solar panels work =-.
Hi Paul,
I have Akismet disabled in this blog and in all of the other blogs I have access to except for the two not yet launched blogs we are using to test Akismet.
Anyone who decides to turn off Akismet need to be sure they have the box checked that keeps is supposed to allow comments to immediately appear if the commentator has previously had one comment approved and puts all others in pending.
I say supposed to because some regular commentators’ comments are going to pending but they have been using different names and I am not certain that any should have immediately appeared. I’ll test that later too.
All that happens when you disable Akismet is that instead of comments going into spam they go into pending. If you’ve been reviewing your spam comments anyway it doesn’t take any more time doing it this way than it did before I disabled Akismet.
I am making a list and the best place to put it would be on Kristi Hine’s (@kikolani‘s) DoFollow Blog Directory. I’ll talk to Kristi about that when she gets back from vacation.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
The following is an e-mail I just sent to Alex Shiel and Matt Mullenweg of Akismet. In the past, I have been ignored by them. We have installed a segment within our business courses in terms of what NOT to do if you are an entrpreneur, and prominently on that list is installing any spam filter that behaves like Akismet. The only reason Akismet can exist is the damage they do to businesses and personal relationships is invisible. If they did what they are doing in front of anyone in person, 99% of the enthusiastic Akismet supporters would be appalled. Dr. Otto Benchley, Linda Christas College
Alex Shiel: E-mail: support@akismet.com
Matt Mullenweg Matt@mullenweg.com
To: Alex and Matt:
We are still seeing our scholarship providers blocked universally by Akismet.
If this continues, we are going to have to step up our activity in support of Gail Gardner and her effort to bring down the Akismet war ship.
Why anyone would intentionally install Akismet, with support personnel as unresponsive as my personal experience seems to indicate, is in this case a virtual mystery.
I just think that the reason Akismet has gotten away with hurting businesses for so long is that what you do is silent and invisible.
No one in their right mind would hire someone to stand at a business’ front door and slap the face of persons who OTHER BUSINESSES have indicated an aversion toward for any reason.
But, that’s exactly what Akismet does. It takes a few votes and then begins slapping folks on sites where no relationship has been established one way or the other.
Alex, you have on at least one occasion mentioned to our faculty that Akismet is just doing what users want. That’s not anywhere near the truth.
And, Akismet must either change its policies or be eliminated.
Already Akismet is being used as an example in our business classes of a classic way to kill a business.
I feel that Akismet is very much like any evil dictatorship. The dictator will never change until he is deposed.
Why the human heart is like that sometimes, I have no idea.
Dr. Otto
[NOTE from GrowMap: this comment was sent to pending, apparently by WordPress since Akismet is disabled in this blog.]
Thank you for sharing this with us here, Dr. Otto. I will be very interested in knowing how Akismet responds.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place =-.
I can only feel sorry for a fellow like Mitch who obviously prides himself on his intelligence.
Clearly he wants to lead, and believes himself to be broad of thinking.
And, yet, right away he demonstrates his decision making ability to be very limited.
Who would vote to have a Mitch in the plutocracy immediately after having been attacked on his site by Akismet.
I certainly wouldn’t.
As a matter of fact, I would work actively to remove all the Mitch’s in the world from any position of influence whatsoever.
They talk a good game until you watch them shoot a few people every day.
I hope Mitch takes his “broad” view and finds a corner somewhere where he won’t be so dangerous to good will among men.
Lara
Hi Lara,
I know you are frustrated with this whole thing but you’re being a little hard on Mitch. I could be wrong, but I don’t think he really understands the consequences of his decision on this issue.
Just as I told Mitch he can’t join the plutocracy you can’t be voted into it either. The Bilderberg Group already controls the Global Economy and all we can do is set up our own communities and quit thinking we can “get rich” or influential in a world they control.
My posts on Supporting Small Businesses and Word of Mouth have more details on what we as individuals CAN do.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Lara, I’ve known Mitch for a long time and I can safely say that he is an honorable man, and very intelligent to boot. If he has any flaw it’s the fact that he won’t take any crap, and why should he or anyone else have to sit quietly while someone else has a go at him or something that he believes in. I respect him for that.
I would rather there be more people like Mitch in the world, not less.
.-= Sire´s featured blog ..Taking Off Your Clothes For The Greater Good =-.
Comment left on Mitch’s site. I think this person is absolutely correct.
I know it because I am one of the great unwashed that has been banned by Akismet. I cannot have a personal or business relationship with anyone who has Akismet activated in any way. And, when that happens to me, I make sure others know to put the site on OUR banned list. We have a group of 15 businesses who have all been banned by Akismet. All of us spend money online.
We have three barbers, two travel agents, one physician, and several others. Why anyone would intentionally cut their own throats by installing Akismet AND then the throats of their visitors is a mystery…….Personal convenience??
Just because a person can’t SEE Akismet kill their business does not mean that it isn’t happening. As a matter of fact, it is the invisibility of the slaughter that makes it possible.
Do you think any shop owner would put up for a minute someone standing in the front doorway and preventing new customers from entering or if they manage to enter, ridiculing them while in his or her shop.
Seems obvious that that would be really moronic. However, that’s exactly what Akismet does( or any spam filter) that eliminates folks without the blog owner’s OK, whether deleting messages or just spitting on potential customers, it makes no difference. Well maybe it does. Business owners who RESCUE comments are worse because then I know they know they are being rude on purpose.
I just hope that somehow the Mitches of the world get this message. Judging by his site, he does have a brain. But, even so, he just doesn’t come anywhere near “getting it” in terms of basic human or business relationships.
Stetson
Comment left for Mitch:
Dear Mitch,
I was very sorry to see on Growmap that you believe using Akismet is a proper business decision.
I cannot participate on your site because Akismet will trash my comment if I use my url. So a proper relationship with you becomes impossible.
That you rescue comments only makes it worse, Mitch, because then I know you know you are trashing folks for personal convenience.
It’s like your hiring someone to throw new visitors into the street and then hiring someone else to dust off their clothes out there.
I will never understand someone who is in business who intentionally opts for personal convenience over new business and brotherly love.
I won’t be back here until you deactivate Akismet. I can’t be treated well here, and worse, I know you know it.
Anyone who asks, I will unfortunately tell them to avoid this site as well.
Reason: Several of my friends have been banned by Akismet as well, including my grandmother…..MY GRANDMOTHER.
Leone
[NOTE from GrowMap: Thank you for taking the time to share this comment with us here. Your comments should immediately go live here in the future if the name and email you use are exactly the same. If they are not I have to approve one for each variation first before it will appear right away.]
Hi Stetson and Leone,
Thank you for taking the time to share your experiences and leave detailed information. I do want to share some points that many will have missed.
In defense of those bloggers who do take the time to rescue comments from spam they were NOT aware that commentators did not see a message that their comment was being moderated. They were not intentionally being rude. I count myself among that group who did not realize the seriousness of this issue. I once felt that as long as the comment was not lost and I approved it that them ending up in spam was not a major issue. I now believe I was wrong and we can not allow Akismet to behave in that manner.
In defense of the bloggers who checked the box that actually DELETES comments outright most of them have NO IDEA that is happening. Kikolani is one of the most beloved and caring bloggers you could ever meet. She had that box checked because she read it the same way I did. Three of four advanced bloggers I asked thought the box meant spam was deleting after 30 days NOT that comments in POSTS OLDER THAN 30 DAYS were instantly deleted! The second she realized that is what it did she unchecked that box. I have GOT to make time to write a post about that!
In defense of all the bloggers who still don’t understand why a few of us are making such a big deal out of this IT IS A BIG DEAL. I hope if you’re in that camp you re-read the comments of the people who have been flagged as spammers.
I guarantee you every one of us has thought a REAL comment was spam. Many real people who are new to commenting leave comments like “great post” because they sincerely thought it was a great post. They don’t know anything about spammers or why that will get them flagged as a spammer. I bet that is how Leone’s Grandmother got banned.
We have to be willing to think beyond only what is best for us and consider what is best FOR ALL.
P.S. Stetson, I would love to “meet” your group of businesses and share with them the lists of blogs that have disabled Akismet and whose owners understand the value of welcoming business owners to their blogs and why anchor text is important.
.-= Gail @ Support Small Businesses´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
When I started reading blogs and came across great post or interesting articles – I would just leave a comment like “Great Post” and I certainly don’t know why people spam and what spam is. After all how would you praise a great post beside saying “Great post”?
Sooner of later people using akismet will realise it is actually deleting genuine comment and deleting comments in post more than 30 days old is either a serious bugs or the act of paranoia.
Thank you Wilson for confirming what I already knew – that new commentators DO leave comments like “great post” because they sincerely enjoyed a post!
The reason bloggers think those comments are spam is because they are what lazy spammers use when they flood our blogs with automated comments.
Just because a spammer commonly uses specific words does NOT mean that every comment like that is from a SPAMMER.
There are many people who are more concerned about what others will think about them if they allow certain types of comments than they are about being helpful and friendly.
Others think that the world revolves around them and they don’t want to read any comments they don’t think are interesting TO THEM. The problem with that is that nothing is interesting to everyone and everything is interesting to someone!
From the comments here and in many other discussions about comments and spam that I have been involved in lately, it is not just Akismet that is intentionally deleting real comments – it is bloggers running off their readers and commentators on purpose.
The most likely reason that Akismet has that “delete comments in older posts” option is the same reason that WordPress has an option to close comments in posts after 14 days (or other timeframes a blogger selects): most are more concerned about eliminating spam than they are in interacting or assisting businesses that want links.
There are going to be many more discussions about what is spam and eventually I believe bloggers with different preferences will move in separate circles so that everyone gets what they most desire.
Those who are opposed to keywords, businesses, and choose to believe that any commentator who links to a business ONLY commented for a link will have a different audience than blogs like this that welcome business owners.
This reply I wrote may be of particular interest regarding why I feel very differently about welcoming comments from businesses.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers- How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
I just left the following comment on Udegbunam Chukwudi’s site. He said here that he has done the “smart” thing” and reactivated Akismet, but deleted the auto-delete feature.
Dear Udegbunam,
I am very sorry you think reactivating Akismet is a smart thing.
I cannot participate on this site because Akismet will delete my comments if I use my url.
That you rescue me in spam makes the the decision to reactivate even worse, since then I know you know that you allowed your “business” to trash me in the first place.
In other words, you are evidently a person who opts for personal convenience over brotherly love every time.
If keeping Akismet is the smart thing to do, I do hope you become less smart in the future.
Until then, at least this one potential client and fan won’t be back here.
Leone.
[Note: this comment went into pending instead of live immediately, indicating that you have not previously had a comment using this specific variation of your name and URL here before. Any future comments should immediately appear here.
Comments that use EXACTLY the same name and URL (probably down to whether there is an extra space at the end or not) should immediately be visible to you in the future.
Each variation you use will have to have one comment approved first before that name/URL combination can immediately see your comments. This is because computers are VERY specific about what is equal to what.
This is because I have a box checked that only allows comments to be visible from commentators who have previously had one comment approved. This is necessary to keep obscene and unsavory comments from going live.
I’m through with my testing Wp-Spam Free without Akismet and I’m back to using the two @ the same time as the former suddenly started letting in spam comments that Akismet would have generally caught.
I just did the wise thing and deactivated autodelete of spam comments on posts older than 1 month.
.-= Udegbunam Chukwudi@Make Money Online´s featured blog ..How To Sell A Blogger Blogspot Blog Without Hassles =-.
Hello Chuks,
No spam filter keeps all spam out. I don’t see much difference in using Akismet and reviewing everything it puts into spam or not using it and reviewing those same messages now going to pending.
Deactivating that auto-delete feature is definitely a good idea. Thank you for doing that. I will try to make time to write a post with screen captures showing bloggers exactly how to do that in both self-hosted WordPress and WordPress.com hosted blogs.
If anyone wants to write that post I will feature it in a separate post on GrowMap and link to it from this post too. Many will be reading this post for a long time to come and it will probably end up being PR3 or PR4 (provided this blog doesn’t end up Google-slapped – I can’t control that but I don’t intentionally do anything that will cause that either.)
.-= Gail @ Social Media Marketing´s featured blog ..Best of GrowMap – Our Most Important Posts All in One Place =-.
What we all need to remember is that most people DO NOT take the time to let us know when their comments disappear or they can’t find what they want on our sites or they don’t know how something works. THEY SIMPLY LEAVE – and usually they remember and DO NOT COME BACK.
That is the reason that usability is so important and why this issue is far more critical than many so far realize. I go out of my way to shop where I like the owners and those who work there. I don’t care if I pass three other similar businesses on the way there or that they charge slightly more or maybe even significantly more.
Unlike some other people I understand you get what you pay for and every business must charge enough to STAY in business. Just because certain multi–National Corporations have ways of selling products at below true cost by dealing unfairly with their wholesalers and employees and transfering costs to the government that THEY should be paying out of their profits as true costs of doing business DOES NOT mean that we can buy from them and not be tarred with the same brush of guilt.
I am hopeful that more and more bloggers will start understanding what is at stake and use their words to help others to see the truth. Only those who start supporting their local small businesses and high quality online small businesses can build an economy WE control instead of being pawns in the coming Greater Depression.
We don’t have any time to spare so NOW would be a good time to start making changes. Every dollar we spend and every choice we make either contributes to the problem or to the solution. More details on how that works in the post in CommentLuv in this comment.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
Do you folks use the spam blacklist feature under Discussion? Since I’m disabling Akismet and enabling captcha and admin approval, I thought it would be a good idea to use the blacklist feature. I found a site with a 407-item list: http://goo.gl/Jafv
I didn’t read all of the items, but I see that “business” and “marketing” are not on there. 🙂
.-= Lane Lester@website design´s featured blog ..Profit Through The Power Of Words =-.
Hi Lane,
I urge people to think before adding new words to blacklists. Many block words they didn’t realize they would be blocking. For example, if you block on common word for a portion of your anatomy you also block assume, assumption, assumed, brass, embarassment and hundreds if not thousands of other words.
Imagine all the comments that will end up in spam or deleted if you block the wrong words? Those with experience using negative keywords in AdWords will have some excellent training in what NOT to block.
I also urge people to use caution about what you download. I am not comfortable downloading any executable file from a site I do not know. That list is a zip file. It is probably safe but why would a list of 407 words need to be zipped? Text is very small.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How to Build a Successful Blog Based Business =-.
Thanks for the warning! I’ll give that list a more careful look, particularly in terms of words that may be parts of innocuous terms.
I agree about it being strange as a .zip file. It was just plain text, and since I run Linux as my main OS, I don’t sweat the executables.
Off-topic to this reply, but I have to say in your comment about selfishness and greed being the cause of our economy’s problems, that I think you know that S&G without the collusion of government could not have wreaked the havoc we’re seeing.
.-= Lane Lester@website building´s featured blog ..Ad Unit Magic =-.
Gail,
As requested leaving you a comment to see if it gets through. I am about to disable Askimet and WP Spam Free. I already have comments set to moderate and have wondered why my visits have been increasing. Alexa proves this.There has been no equal increase in conversions. Interesting to see if there is a change when I change my approach.
Andrew
.-= Andrew Peel@Ways To Earn Extra Money´s featured blog ..What Is The FamousBloggers ComLuv Internet Cash Contest? =-.
I would have to say that it is most likely BOT’s that are visiting your site if you have an increase in Alexa. Have you thought about using Recaptcha? That would definitely help with spam!!
.-= techlinkblog´s featured blog ..Here’s an easy method to learn the way solar panels work =-.
Hi Andrew,
Your comment was in pending which is what happens when you have not had a prior comment approved using exactly the same name (including keywords and spacing) and URL . If you leave another comment it should appear immediately.
WP Spam Free blocks words like business and marketing and sales and selling and I find the “your comment is spammy” wording a little rude. The major issue with it though is on blogs where when you get that message and back up your comment is gone.
I rarely ever write a comment again but I do tend to copy mine now BEFORE I click Submit just in case something happens and I need to paste them back in.
Alexa measures our traffic much differently than Google Analytics. I have yet to ever see any analytics programs that agreed on anything but at least usually they’re close. Alexa and GA are not even close. Alexa must be measuring a lot of something that GA does not count.
As Paul (techlinkblog) mentions, some tools count bot traffic and others filter it out.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Building Traffic Using Anchor Text =-.
Now i can understand that why people like to comment on post i like this interesting share and i take also a interesting information about commenting.
Thanks for share with us.
Nice blog i like it.
Many bloggers have not had discussions and done research using the ability to comment in blogs. Some only use their blogs like diaries instead of as reference resources the way this one does. I greatly prefer using a blog for this type of thing over using a forum.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How Much is a Memorable Logo Worth? =-.
The comment above yours would be classed as spam on my site – manually classed as spam. It’s nonsensical and doesn’t show that the person has done anything more than comment.
Can I ask why you allowed it through? Are you allowing all comments through?
.-= ray´s featured blog ..WordPress v3.0 Released =-.
Hi Ray,
Have you ever studied another language or tried to communicate with anyone whose native language was not English? I have and I can tell you that it takes years and years of diligent effort to learn to write well in another language.
Many people who struggle to write in our language are very intelligent and have much to contribute. They also can learn much here IF they are regular readers.
I don’t know about you but I choose not to stay where my input is not welcome so I welcome all who sincerely wish to gain wisdom and learn new skills and in turn share what they know with me.
Not everyone – even those whose native language IS English – writes brilliant comments. Some are shy or just not used to commenting in blogs.
Most bloggers tend to be in the top 5% of intelligence and even they had to learn how to leave better comments. If we are so quick to judge and effectively slam the door in the faces of those who took the time to communicate with us we are being rude – and IMHO – unwise.
No, I do not let all comments through. I delete those that are obviously spam (unless I’m using them as an example – and those are clearly explained).
What many bloggers do not realize is how many real comments they are deleting and how many people who could have become their regular readers and commentators they have run off.
If I deleted your comment instead of approving and answering it how motivated would you be to read my blog or comment in it?
Everyone is welcome here – even those who came to get a link but stayed to improve their skills and learn something. They often become some of my most loyal readers.
Judging our commentators unwisely is exactly like another mistake I have seen people make: judging others by their appearance. Both are very costly mistakes to anyone who desires to succeed. Let me share a story that makes that easy to understand.
My neighbor who owned a cattle ranch walked into the car dealership with CASH to buy a new 4×4 truck to use on his ranch. He was young, wearing Wrangler jeans and a blue Wrangler work shirt and cowboy boots as he usually did. Not a single salesperson wanted to talk to him even when he TOLD THEM he wanted to buy a truck NOW. The ASSumed he didn’t have money because of how he was dressed.
Now if they were smart they would have realized the boots he was wearing were expensive – because no working rancher or cowboy skimps on boots. If they were really smart they would not judge people on appearances. They were neither.
So even though he had ALWAYS bought THEIR brand of truck, since they didn’t want his business he went on down the road to the other brand and paid cash for a truck there.
Later that week his best friend who worked for the city and was wearing a uniform happened into that first dealership. All the salespeople rushed over to help him because HE had a J.O.B. (Just Over Broke) with the city.
He told them he was just window shopping because on his salary (under $14 an hour) he simply could not afford a new truck. He also told them they messed up because our neighbor had just PAID CASH for a new truck and he had REALLY wanted their brand.
He would have NEVER switched brands or dealerships if it were not for the way they had treated him.
The people who APPEAR to be wealthy are usually in debt up to their ears while those who actually ARE wealthy rarely feel the need to act the part. Those as old as I am will remember Jack Klugman from the television show The Odd Couple.
In real life, Jack Klugman dresses pretty much just like he did on that show. If he weren’t famous you would never know he is proabaly a millionaire – and one of the nicest people you would ever want to meet. He drove a Mercedes back when I used to bump into him – but it was a Mercedes about ten years old if I recall correctly that had been repainted my favorite wine red color. I commented on the paint job and we chatted briefly.
The grooms and exercise riders at the training center across from his very impressive horse farm used to call it Taco Bell because the entryway was so huge you could see it clear across the river from Galway Downs (formerly called Rancho California Track and Training Center). The entrance had Spanish Architecture with arches that from a distance resemble a Taco Bell.
That entryway cost more to build than most of the homes most of us live in. I wonder if Jack had it built or it was there when he bought the ranch. That kind of spending on appearances would seem out of character for someone as sweet and unpresumptious as he is.
In my lifetime I have known many people who are all flash and little substance – who try to “look” rich but are anything but. I have also known many very wealthy people of deep character and pure hearts.
Those who care to open their eyes and listen to their hearts can easily see the difference – but only if we stop being so quick to judge and give each person a chance to reveal their true selves.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
P.S. Almost all comments like that one that really ARE spam can be seen by searching for part of the comment in quotes in any search engine – which I did before approving that comment.
Spammers almost always use the same comments over and over while real people leave comments you can NOT find in a search engine anywhere else because they wrote them just for you.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Dear Beeb,
There is understanding and then there is UNDERSTANDING.
Personal convenience does not (or should not) even come into the picture.
In other words, it doesn’t matter whether there is a spam filter that is 100% accurate or not.
A professional business person, and/or a person who refuses to let others be abused in his/her name, won’t install anything that violates the principle of cordiality.
Even though I am not a practicing Christian or anything else, some people who brag about their Church participation turn right around and start throwing people in the street on their blog, in complete violation of the ethics of their religion, and they just don’t seem to understand that.
Beeb, if you are saying that ALL comments go to moderation, that is acceptable.
But, to have back to back comments treated differently is rude and a violation of every possible rule of proper social behavior.
We don’t slap one person and kiss the next indiscriminately, no matter what.
It’s bad for business, and it’s bad for peace on Earth.
Leone
I have no problems whatsoever with Askimet declaring certain comments as spam. I certainly had no problem with Askimet declaring the posts from Dr. Ann as spam because the same exact words kept coming up time and time again on my blog and other blogs. I understand someone deciding to start a campaign against something they feel is unfair, but the way she went about it was pure spam.
I’m with Sire; it’s all about training and people deciding to do the right thing with comments and the like. In my opinion, Askimet has been a savior, and I don’t really want them to change a thing.
.-= Mitch´s featured blog ..An Interview With Marelisa Fàbrega =-.
Mitch, when Akismet decides that YOU and Sire and others we personally know who are our best commentators are spammers will you still feel the same way?
Have you EVER seen me leave a comment ANYWHERE that looks like spam to you? You know that I focus on KeywordLuv enabled blogs so I use different words in the name field. Did you read the excerpt that mentions all of the name and URL combinations Akismet was blocking because in their system I am a spammer?
MY comments were being instantly deleted in blogs with one box checked – a box for which the wording could be read two ways and that three of four people I personally know including Kikolani and myself thought meant Akismet deleted spam after thirty days. What really happens is Akismet deletes comments immediately if the POST is OLDER than 30 days.
That means if I write a really great comment in a post from more than thirty days ago in any blog with that box checked it is instantly deleted before the blog owner even sees it. Kikolani.com had that box checked until Kristi and I realized what it does. Needless to say Kristi immediately changed that setting (and so should every serious blogger).
Did you know that many excellent bloggers including Barbara at Blogging Without a Blog do NOT pull real comments out of spam unless the commentator contacts them. Most commentators are not doing that because most assume their comments are in pending or moderation status – not spam – because they ARE NOT SPAMMERS!
The reason some bloggers now believe those related to Linda Christas are spammers is because of their passion for helping us to see what is going on with Akismet. Even I did not realize how serious a problem this was and I have been testing for a long time.
They have repeatedly gotten flagged as spammers, and then unflagged and then re-flagged and then unflagged and they’re frustrated and tired of wasting their time – and I don’t blame them. This issue caused them to teach their students to avoid WordPress blogs. Do you realize the influence of colleges on future behavior?
Those students will go on to lead companies and write blogs and have great influence. Why do you think Apple puts their computers into schools? The more I know about Linda Christas the more I admire their ethical standards and their willingness to be whistleblowers – knowing full well what happens to those who dare to expose an unpopular truth.
I agree that perhaps their campaign in comments was not the best way to go about influencing bloggers to change or getting Akismet and WordPress to stop treating our visitors rudely – and that IS what it does – but it worked in that we now know what is happening.
Let me put a finer point on this. If you are a hobby blogger and you don’t mind being rude then maybe you won’t miss those 10+% of people who never come back because they can’t comment.
(That 10% will keep growing by the way until it is 15%, 20% or more in the same way that the percentage of Americans who now have “bad credit” keeps growing as more and more lose their jobs or have huge medical bills – their own or their parents – or have a real emergency.)
If your blog is associated with a business that 10% can mean the difference between thriving and going under. If you are a serious blogger that 10+% reduction in readers will reduce your traffic and income by that same percentage.
Influential people who do not consider the long-term consequences of what they do and recommend and who do not clearly see how their actions have a ripple effect on the rest of the world are dangerous.
Traditionally, only those whose focus is money, control the media and have great influence. The Internet has allowed us for the first time to identify and learn from others of great wisdom and much higher moral standards. I for one am not willing to let that go quietly.
The plutocracy has little to fear from us. The masses do not seek us out and never will. They are happy living in their robotic lives doing what the media conditions them to do. We do not seek to convert them as that would be a waste of our time and futile.
We are only maybe .02% of the entire world population so let us go live in peace. It is ridiculous when you censor important posts we write because only .02% of business owners and bloggers are going to apply what we recommend anyway. Do you think we do not notice? It only confirms what we suspect about you.
That leaves you with 99.8% of everything. Are you so greedy that even that tiny percentage is too much for you to spare?
.-= Gail @ Support Bloggers´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
Actually, since you asked, yes, once you did leave a comment that looked like spam, and I mentioned it to you and you never came to my blog again. That was June 3rd of last year, so it’s over a year ago.
It’s interesting that you wrote this long response to me when I wrote one paragraph, and didn’t write anything to Sire, who highlighted this post on his blog today. I’ll say this one piece, then move on. I lost my page rank because Google decided they didn’t like my Text Link Ads, and I never cried about it, just moved on with my life. If someone decided they hated me enough to want to have me blocked by Askimet as always being spam, there’s little I can do to stop it. Askimet has been a wonder ever since I started using it years ago; I like it. Do I expect perfection? Not in any way. Did you make any valid points; yes you did. But I have other things to care about that affect me and my life more. These folks are always making changes, and I think their intentions are ethical; I’m certainly not going to call them out.
If you’ve including them as part of the plutocracy then you’re probably using the definition incorrectly, since Askimet is a free plugin. Those folks aren’t ruling anyone, and where’s their money that’s lifting them into the plutocracy? Heck, I’m striving to become part of the plutocracy, as I assume you are; otherwise, why should we even try making money online, or elsewhere?
Anyway, there’s my point of view. If y’all hate Askimet so much, kill the plugin and use something else.
.-= Mitch´s featured blog ..Are Americans Stupid, Or Do We Just Not Care? =-.
Hi Mitch,
I approved Sire’s comments and found one and answered it. I still haven’t figured out where the other one is. I never intentionally ignore anyone – especially not here. But I am extremely over-committed and doing my best to keep all the plates spinning.
We don’t hate Akismet; we don’t hate anyone. It may come as a surprise to you that no, I am not interested in becoming part of the plutocracy – which, by the way is virtually impossible.
I am not even interested in aspiring to what traditional businesses call success because I will not do what I consider unethical and the largest businesses got where they are by taking advantage of many others and keeping them down.
If you care to know where I’m coming from you can read the post I’ll feature in CommentLuv and the one about Word of Mouth. Be sure not to miss the statistics about where the money is now. If you aren’t interested it won’t hurt my feelings a bit. Honestly, I don’t really think we’re on the same page.
There is a big difference between doing something that Google penalizes you for on your site and a plugin that permanently bans a commentator from the majority of the entire WordPress community.
As has been repeatedly pointed out in this discussion if you are serious about being online or running a business you simply can not insult potential customers in this way.
The difference between success and failure is often less than the percentage of commentators Akismet is blocking already and that number will continue to grow to a larger and larger percentage over time unless Akismet is improved and/or bloggers become more conscientious about who they’re banning as spammers.
I have very limited time and you can ask anyone – I really haven’t been commenting much because I am so busy. I certainly would not wish to offend you again by leaving comments you feel are inappropriate for your site.
That would be particularly unwise now that I know how Akismet works because you could have me banned again. (Akismet graciously unbanned all the examples I used in this post without my asking.)
The laws and obstacles to even getting to be part of successful business are so onerous that the cards are stacked against even achieving that level of success.
IMHO, those who play the Stock Market would be better off going to Vegas. At least there you (theorectically at least) know what the take-out is and what your odds of winning are.
I’m not sure that these issues are such that everyone is going to be able to truly comprehend them.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
We say a lot of things that are similar, so we’re in agreement more than it might seem. I want to be a part of the plutocracy; I want to be rich and I want to have a say in what’s going on. I want to do it my own way, which of course makes it harder because I refuse to step on anyone, or take advantage of anyone to get what I want.
For clarification, you only wrote one post that was kind of spammy, and I let it go, but did mention it to you at the time, because I felt you deserved to know my feeling on it. So I didn’t delete it or send it to Askimet. The problem was that it wasn’t on topic, and was more of a sales pitch for some things; at least that’s how I took it. But see, because I knew it was you, and had some history with you, I figured your overall intention wasn’t to be spammy.
And that’s kind of one of my issues. Obviously I get a lot of messages that end up in the spam filter. I look at every message, and every once in awhile I remove one that I know isn’t spam. Some folks aren’t as diligent; that’s a shame, but it is what it is.
By the way, I had read that post before. I work for myself, and marketing and sales isn’t one of my strong suits. Truthfully, word of mouth marketing is what’s paid my bills for almost 9 years now, and I’ve traveled up and down the East Coast because of it; even given seminars because of it. But it’s not the easiest thing because people only call you when they need you, and luckily for them, but unluckily for me, they don’t always need me in the same capacity.
Anyway, you’ve said you don’t hate Askimet, and I obviously don’t hate Askimet, so if your intention is just to keep them on their toes then it’s all good. However, my point in mentioning the PR thing with Google was to illustrate that I’m not one of those folks who does anything based on what some other entity believes I should be doing. And that would go for Askimet as well if someone decided to go after me and poison my comments. As a black man in America, I’ve fought much bigger issues.
.-= Mitch´s featured blog ..Do You Have A Social Media Strategy? =-.
Hi Mitch,
I assure you that I don’t use comments to advertise anything except perhaps my point of view. That said, I know that my vision of what is related is far broader than what most can see. Because of that my comments could seem off-topic to someone who doesn’t see any obvious connection between their post and my comment.
I know this is true because I chat with Dennis and he often says “what does X have to do with Y” so what I see as related is not related from his perspective.
I have had a commentator say that my post was “all over the place” – another indication that there was too much in it that reader did not see was related. Only those who can see the big picture can wisely implement the individual pieces.
When we (collectively – everyone – not just us) object when small businesses try to get our attention and consultants want to just let us know what they have to offer but tolerate mainstream advertising that makes it nearly impossible for you, me, consultants, and small local and online providers of goods and services to get a foothold much less become successful.
We have simply got to start uplifting the people who offer exceptional products and services. We need to take the time to write reviews for others and write about and link to them so others will know about them BEFORE it is too late.
The economy IS going to FAR worse. It is already much worse than the mainstream media would have us believe. Affiliates are seeing continuous declines across all niches especially for sales to Americans. The statistics in that WOMM post indicate that over 20% of Americans are already underemployed – many working two or even three jobs and making less than half what they once earned.
There is no way the economy CAN recover when so many are earning so much less than they used to and every dollar buys less and less. Inflation is going to keep increasing. Gasoline and utilities are predicted to double or even triple.
I sincerely believe that even if you make $100/hour you will be better off planting a garden because who knows how much food that $100 might buy if inflation gets worse or how much you can earn if a depression worse than the Great Depression occurs.
Everyone needs to start buying and storing staples like beans, rice, pasta, flour, corn meal, etc. and learn how to cook them. Packaged convenience foods are less healthy and far too expensive. Few realize you can buy twenty pounds of potatoes for the cost of one bag of potato chips.
To be successful we must be better at marketing unless we have years to wait for natural WOM to do it for us. That is an unavoidable truth. As bloggers and consumers we need to welcome messages from small local and online businesses or there won’t be any and we will have no choice but to only buy from multi-national corporations.
Neither you nor I nor anyone we know can be a part of the plutocracy. The same families have ruled for centuries and even if you managed to marry into one of them you would still not BE one of them. They are not going to give anyone a say in their game that isn’t one of them. Instead of living in their world I believe we should start a separate world of our own.
Wanting to be rich as a goal can’t get you there especially if you are ethical. Success comes from doing something very well very consistently that provides value to others.
.-= Gail @ Support Businesses´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
I am using akismet in all my blogs and it is doing job well. I can’t find any mistake with it. But I hate spamkarma.
Please read this post and the comments and you will know that Akismet as it currently opreates is definitely costing every site that uses it to lose comments. When someone can’t comment they are unlikely to return. If you’re in business you are losing leads and sales.
It is as simple as that and as complicated as all that you can read in this post and the discussions going on in the comments.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Hi Paul,
That Akismet deletes legitimate comments in blogs that check one particular box when configuring Akismet has been confirmed by Alex from Automattic.
Bloggers must be certain NOT to use that setting if they care about their commentators. No spam filter will ever be able to completely filter out all spam. I for one would rather see a higher number of spam missed than lose any real comments.
The problem is partially caused by human error; however, there ARE ways to improve Akismet as I explain in that link.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers: How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
I confess I’m ignorant of the techniques of comment spammers. Is my tentative plan to switch from Akismet to a captcha plus admin approval a reasonable scheme? Or will software captcha solvers plus human spammers get around such a barrier?
Hi Lane,
Honestly I do not have the optimum solution yet. The best solution would be for WordPress and Akismet to work with those of us in the blogging community clearly understand this issue to improve Akismet. I do not know what the odds of that happening are.
As Linda Christas college has pointed out one of the major problems is the way commentators who have been incorrectly flagged as spammers are “treated” when they leave a comment. They do not see any kind of “your comment is being moderated message”.
Either the comment disappears and they are left on the blog post wondering if it went through or not or worse they see a blank white page.
The white page is an indication that Akismet deleted your comment and the blogger will never have an opportunity to see it.
If your commentators complain about that happening or you can find someone to test it for you changing Akismet configuration settings will at least stop Akismet from deleting comments you never see and sending your readers to a blank white page.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Dear Been,
It actually doesn’t matter whether you review the comments or not.
Having Akismet throw somebody into the trash, and then rescuing their comments is like having someone thrown out of my shop and then hiring someone else to go out there and and brush him or her off.
That’s not how a good business person conducts his or her enterprise.
Lara
Hi Leone,
Thank you for taking the time to stop by my blog and comment!
I absolutely understand what you’re saying. How do you handle spam on your blog? Unfortunately, I’m not aware of any spam plug-ins that don’t mistakenly filter real comments from time to time. (Same thing with my email – I always check my spam folder and inevitably find a few legitimate emails in there) The solution I came up with was to put the notice above the comment box here that lets visitors know that comments occasionally go into moderation but will be approved as soon as I see them. (I check my spam comment filter daily)
I’m definitely open to any suggestions as to how to improve my spam filtering. I didn’t have any spam plug-ins for a while, but the spam is just out of control; I don’t want my readers to have to scroll past inappropriate content every time they leave a comment – profane spam comments are offensive to the reader and would drag down the quality of my site.
.-= Beeb Ashcroft´s featured blog ..Sneak Peek: CSN Network =-.
I’ve known from day one that there would be some flaws in Akismet. There has to be because of it’s ‘educate’ feature. There are bound to be people who use emotive issues to spam comments when really all that is needed is to delete it. I can’t see how Akismet can stop this unless it removes the feature and that would only render the plugin useless over time.
It would be better to educate people as how to use it properly but unfortunately that won’t stop the morons.
I did have a longer comment but lost it when clicking on one of your links. Too bad, I can’t remember all that I said and I don’t have the time. I’ll tweet the post because I think others may find it very interesting.
.-= Sire@Everyone Makes Mistakes´s featured blog ..Why Does Sex In Advertising Sell? =-.
Finally! Sorry for the delay in responding Sire. I couldn’t find this comment. I knew I approved two and found and replied to the other one right away. I assure you that if I miss responding it is definitely not intentional.
This problem was actually caused by human error more than by Akismet but only Akismet can fix it (by improving their algorithm).
Many hobbiest bloggers and even some serious bloggers are marking comments they do not like, disagree with, or have business URLs in them as spam when they are not.
Even the most experienced of us still struggle to decide what is spam and what isn’t. Now that I often know my commentators at Twitter or StumbleUpon before they ever comment I can tell you that many of them leave comments that most bloggers would take for spam.
Newbie commentators DO write comments that are really short, very general or just plain vague like “great post”. We don’t want to be flagging everyone as a spammer before they even know how to write quality comments.
Mitch thinks my comments are spammy and Akismet had many of the names/keywords and URLs I commonly use when commenting flagged as spam so obviously others do too. That is another reason why it makes sense to develop strong commenting communities.
Until Mitch mentioned it I was not aware of your post on this issue today. I will go check it out now. If I had seen it I would have been by right away and shared it with others. I’ll go comment and share it now.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
No problems Gail. I don’t do my posts to get noticed, I do them because I hope they are either entertaining or informative in some way. That post was the latter and had several links that I thought were of some value.
I’ve deleted comments when needed and spammed them when they were obviously spam. Ann’s I deleted but others may not have been so generous.
.-= Sire@The Noble Blogger´s featured blog ..Do Women Give The Penis The Respect It Deserves? =-.
Hi Sire,
I respect you for being wise enough to not penalize any commentator by flagging them as a spammer. Deleting what they write is sufficient.
When Ann and ToysPeriod started posting about this their comments were off-topic to the posts where they left them (but certainly pertinent to the blog) so it is not surprising that they were flagged as spammers; however, that happened repeatedly BEFORE they started doing that.
What concerns me more is that hundreds or even thousands of innocent commentators who are new to visiting blogs have been flagged as spammers. I am positive that many of the “great post” type comments we all see are from people who sincerely just wanted to say “great post”. (Often there is no link so it can’t be for the link.)
Sometimes we forget that everyone does not know what we know or have the experience that we have.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Twitter Tools: Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts =-.
I have had to also add in the reCaptcha plugin for my spam comments on my blog. I am hoping this will not put as many comments of people who are actually human to comment. I was getting a good 100 spam a day in the spam folder but I was also finding legitimate comments there to. Now Maybe I can find them more easily!!
.-= techlinkblog´s featured blog ..Don’t Do business with: “Check Management Services [CMS]” (collection agency) =-.
Please do let me know if that makes a difference? I get 150-200 comments per day in this blog that used to go to spam and now go to pending. I cleared them about twelve hours ago and there are already 115 more to review now.
There is really no difference between reviewing them in pending and reviewing them in spam UNLESS you do the right thing and flag the spam as spam. If you do that it doubles how long it takes. If you delete them directly it takes exactly the same amount of time as it used to take to rescue the real comments from spam.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Some things to understand when it comes to comments:
— 90% of spam are bots, so you can drastically reduce that by having some way to ask Are you Human?
— The other 10% of spam are from sites like CAPTCHA Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me?. Where some one is tricked, Fooled, or paid to identify these systems to allow a bot or person to get past the system.
After using the ReCaptcha Plug, the spam comments have drop drastically and I no longer get 100 comments in day. Just today, I have gotten 5 comments when by now I would of had 50 or 60 comments. You should try it on your blog. You would be surprised on the comments. Should be able to find those comments that aren’t spam in the first place more easily. Less in the spam queue makes it that much easier to find the non-spam comments!!
.-= techlinkblog´s featured blog ..Quit Facebook isn’t over yet!! =-.
Wow I am quite surprised that akismet decided to remove that test page. I found it quite helpful in determining if my comments were being blocked by akismet or the blogger themselves. This will just result in more people contacting either the blogger or akismet directly to try to resolve the problem. I guess some blog spammers are so aggressive that they forced this move on akismet. It sure seems to be opening to door for a new, better comment spam filter.
They removed it immediately after this post was published. I put up Akismet test pages to gather additional information and to allow bloggers to find out if Akismet has them flagged as spammers or not.
If there is a “new, better” comment spam filter I hope someone will let me know.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
Am curious to see what follow-up takes place by Akismet, if any. I get a ton of spam (the kind you described above) but occasionally a commenter’s comments land in there, and I have wondered why. One guy told me that it was because his URL is too long. Those are the kinds of things they should NOT automatically consider spam because is that not just ridiculous? Now there is a limit on sensible URL lengths?
Ultimately, though, I blame the spammers for the mess. I know there is the notion that it’s “marketing” and if it were unintentional, that would be one thing. But because it is intentional, innocence is lost.
I am open to using something other than Akismet. I moderate all first comments anyway (first one left), so I could easily be done with it.
.-= Tia@Complete Guide to Blogging´s featured blog ..Should you become a pro blog writer? And a new blog to show off… =-.
Hi Tia,
I am testing using no spam plugin and relying on the check box that sends all first comments for moderation to catch the spam. It isn’t as handy as using Akismet but I want to find out who can get through now that could not before.
I am hopeful that Akismet will be open to feedback from the blogging community once we have more research to show them. Bloggers can help by testing their own names and urls here.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Very interesting article – thanks for posting this. So my question is, are the comments only being lost on blogs that have spam set up to automatically be deleted? For example, I have Akismet configured to put all suspected SPAM into the SPAM folder, which I review daily. There are often real comments in the mix, which I approve immediately and go live on the site. So am I seeing all the comments that are being left? It doesn’t make sense that they would show me some SPAM and delete others before I even had a chance to moderate them, but that sounds like what might be happening? Also, it’s worth mentioning that I get at least 5-10 legitimate SPAM comments from the same website each day (You know who you are, scam diet website!) – if their URL isn’t set to auto-delete, that makes me think I might be safe.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention – I’ll definitely be watching this site and looking into it further. I carefully scan through each SPAM comment in my filter each day and read them to make sure they’re not legit – I even visit their spammy websites to confirm that they’re just adbots!
.-= Beeb Ashcroft´s featured blog ..Sneak Peek: CSN Network =-.
Sorry, I didn’t see the first page of comments – the discussion there answered my question. Thanks!
.-= Beeb Ashcroft´s featured blog ..Sneak Peek: CSN Network =-.
WOW! So few people actually take the time to read through the discussion completely and find the answers themselves. There is usually as much or more information in the discussions in my comments than in the posts and even though I do try to be concise my posts tend to be long because they’re thorough.
How comments are handled when there are so many is rather confusing, isn’t it? When time allows I’ll have to examine the various settings to see if there is one that works better.
Thanks for coming by, reading and taking the time to comment – and even more thanks for letting me know you found the answer. That saved me a lot of time linking in the explanations again here for you. I hope you’ll be a regular visitor. 🙂
Do read the post I’ll put in CommentLuv in this reply. It explains how you can use KeywordLuv to make your blog easier to find and tell readers here what your site is about even before they visit.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv Community =-.
Wow, I had no idea this was going on. I just went to checkout the spam folder and I also noticed akismet was spamming my own ping-backs from other pages on my site…weird. I agree this is a pretty big deal…I assume you will write a post later to keep us up to date. Thanks for pointing this out.
.-= AJ@Premium WordPress Themes´s featured blog ..C&M Clean And Minimal WordPress Theme =-.
Hi AJ,
Yes, this IS a big deal. I am testing not using Akismet and manually handling spam in this blog and others.
I am asking bloggers to use these two test pages I have set up to find out what names and URLs they use are being sent directly to spam or deleted:
Akismet 2.2.7 test page
Akismet 2.2.9 test page
You can also use those pages to test any comment you submit anywhere that gives you a white screen after you enter it. If you use the test page to test comments please leave a second comment with details about why you are testing, where you comments disappeared, etc.
To use it all you have to do is comment as you normally would. I have temporarily changed the setting in those blogs that normally would require you to have a previously approved comment before your comment would appear without moderating.
1) If your comment immediately appears the username, URL and text you entered are not being blocked by Akismet.
2) If you comment does NOT immediately appear either your URL or name have been flagged as spam OR there is something in the wording of your comment that Akismet doesn’t like.
3) If it does not appear try a different name and the same URL and comment to see if the NAME you use has been flagged as spam.
4) By changing ONE THING at a time (name, URL, the words in the comment itself) and retesting you can determine what it is about your comment that Akismet doesn’t like.
PLEASE leave another comment in each text blog and/or here with as many details as you can about what you tested and what your results were.
The more detail I can collect the better so test and leave as many comments as you wish. I assure you I will greatly appreciate your assistance and it WILL benefit us all to have a clear picture of how Akismet is working.
I will publish my findings and hopefully Akismet will consider them and improve their plugin. The ideal solution for us all is for Akismet to work better.
.-= Gail @ Support Bloggers´s featured blog ..Twitter Tools: Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts =-.
OMG, I get about 100 spam messages in any given day (mostly spam pingbacks).
I praise you for manually going through your comments. That takes some patience, but from what you’ve said, very worth it.
Thanks for those links I will check them out.
.-= AJ@Premium WordPress Themes´s featured blog ..Shaken Grid WordPress Theme =-.
Wow, I had no idea this was happening. I get a lot of spam but they are in the “spam” folder. Most are outright garbage with tons of links to bad sites. I’m surprised that Akismet doesn’t just dump these comments immediately and block the ip address from further comments. Hopefully they hear you Gail and fix this issue. Thanks for alerting us!
.-= Tim @ Classic Car Auto Insurance´s featured blog ..Save on Auto Insurance =-.
Hi Tim,
Your comment reveals why this is going to be such a serious problem. Akismet isn’t a person – it is an algorithm that is only as accurate as the bloggers clicking the spam button.
In blogs that put a check in a box Akismet DOES immediately delete all comments that are flagged as spam. The problem is that legitimate businesses and bloggers are also flagged as spammers – me for example. Do you really want to have all the comments I leave in your blog deleted instantly?
For those who wouldn’t care about that I ask if they really want all of THEIR OWN comments to be deleted or sent to spam. That IS happening to a lot of people we know. Many bloggers equate any business related URL with spam and boom – you’re gone.
Akismet could improve their algorithm in three ways I can think of off the top of my head:
1) Increase the number of spam reports before someone gets flagged as a spammer
2) Remove them from spam if some number of bloggers flag them as not spam (so the spamming/deleting of legitimate commentators is temporary instead of permanent)
3) To really increase accuracy identify a pool of trusted bloggers whose spam and not-spam clicks are weighted far more heavily. These need to be carefully chosen from among those who are selfless, not vindictive and clearly understand the difference between a relevant comment and spam.
.-= Gail @ Support Small Businesses´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
I thought number 2 was part of their algorithm?
As to 3, that would be a hard ask as you can never tell when someone has an ulterior motive.
.-= Sire´s featured blog ..Taking Off Your Clothes For The Greater Good =-.
Hi Sire,
Number 2 is but it takes way too many not-spam to affect a change. As for number 3 you can not tell who has ulterior motives and who doesn’t? It is very obvious to me. I’ll give you some examples of people who I believe would be absolutely trustworthy: Kristi Hines, Derek Semmler, Ron Cripps, Mary O’Brien – none of them would ever flag someone as spam vindictively and all are 100% honorable.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Building Traffic Using Anchor Text =-.
To address Claire’s point.
No, Akismet is not very effective at all for us.
What Akismet does is throw away about 10% of the first time business we would otherwise have had, and another 10% of the new friends we would have made if Akismet were not in place.
Finally, and most importantly, to congratulate Akimet for providing personal convenience at such a cost, in terms of human kindness, business profit is frankly just a bad decision all around.
If one wants to invite people to comment on a blog, one should never allow an Akismet to trash heartfelt efforts to accept such an invitation.
I appeal to Claire and to anyone else who is not seeing clearly to please please do something else to cope with spam. You have chosen a very rude and unnecessary group to speak in your name.
Lara
Thank you for your eloquent explanation of this issue Lara. It is one that takes some time to understand for many people – even me.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
That’s the problem with Akismet they decide what the scoring is. I would rather see the comment and decide if I want to approve it or not. There are plenty of other plugins to use plus they don’t have the restrictions that Akismet does before you have to purchase paid use of it.
Thanks for the tomboy notes tips – I’ve been looking for something like that for a long time.
Hi Leanne,
I agree that we need to SEE the comments. Maybe some hobbyist bloggers don’t (until it is THEIR comments that are being deleted) but business blogs and serious bloggers must not be insulting their commentators.
You’re welcome on the Tomboy Notes tip. It is a huge help in organizing my vast research and storing all the URLs I find in one place. Be sure to figure out the Notebook feature and when you create notes remember to add variations of words to make sure you can find your notes quickly again when you use the keyword search function.
Do read the post I’ll put in CommentLuv so you can use your optimum anchor text here to build traffic to your blog.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv Community =-.
It’s shocking. The system needs to be more transparent.
.-= Rodney @ Arthritis Relief News´s featured blog ..Arthritis – Treating Mild Osteoarthritis Pain =-.
Hi Rodney,
Yes, that would certainly help.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Twitter Tools: Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts =-.
Akismet is very effective in sorting out all those spam comments. Its helps in remembering spam. It does the hard labor of monitoring for you.
Well Claire,
Akismet is very useful but we can simply not have it flagging real comments as spam. Maybe they’ll come back and rejoin the discussion here and make the necessary improvements to have it behave better.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers: How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
The way I see it though is one person’s spam may not be another’s, and I don’t want to contribute to them missing out on a comment they may want by telling Akismet it is spam. So I just delete.
Hi Eric,
If all bloggers were wise enough to clearly understand the difference between spam and comments they should just delete we wouldn’t have this problem!
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Best Product Feed Solution for Yahoo Stores =-.
I wonder if I have the time to put into the ‘testing’ phase. Moreover I am of the firm view that they could do this.Aren’t these people in knowledge of the ‘relevancy’ aspect?
I believe they are and this is just a temporary doubt phase.
You could just wait until I finish testing and publish my results. Any reader who wants to know if their names or URLs have been flagged as spam at Akismet can use the Akismet test pages I provided for that purpose and to gather more data.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Twitter Tools: Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts =-.
Many website blogs are using tools to prevent spam comments. Most of the bloggers are looking for backlink to their websites.
Most blogs try to filter spam. There is absolutely nothing wrong with building links, making your site easier to find or using plugins that attract readers of other blogs back to your own site. That is what our CommentLuv community is all about.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
I’m going to deactivate Akismet and let Wp-Spam Free run alone and see what happens on my blog.
Hi Chuks,
Although I will be very interested in what you have to report, as a frequent commentator in blogs that use that plugin I find it very rude. I also object to it blocking words like business, marketing and selling.
Supporting small businesses is key to improving economic conditions around the world and any plugin that blocks our ability to discuss business is not one I can support or use.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers: How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
Gail – glad to see this post. I had contacted Askimet when Ann at the college had also contacted me. (but then read others’ posts that they felt she wasn’t legit so I never really followed up with Askimet on their lack of reply).
I just tested myself on the blogs I have and it seems I’m not being sent to the spam bin nor disappearing entirely.
Is this all a result of someone being too trigger happy with the spam option vs the trash option? If we sent a comment to trash we aren’t marking them as spam, correct? That’s what I do if I find the comment to be somewhat questionable.
.-= Michelle Mangen @ Your Virtual Assistant´s featured blog ..Hate Paypal Fees? Check out the alternative =-.
Hi Michelle,
That is part of it and those who write comments in support of small businesses like I do are more likely to be reported as spammers. Many people equate all things related to business, marketing or selling as spam.
So yes, if people mark our comments as spam we get flagged and in blogs that have the box checked to “Automatically discard spam comments on posts older than a month” our comments are immediately deleted.
There is a larger issue here though. Comments are disappearing in blogs that do NOT have that box checked and when the name and URL are not flagged. Akismet appears to have increased their aggressiveness at deleting comments based on the words in the comment itself.
I sent you an email with additional information asking you to join in a discussion about the best way to proceed.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
I think most people should realize that they do track comments and what people say. Read my article on the subject.
I encourage readers of this post to read this new revelation from Paul Sylvester on his TechLinkBlog. There is far more to this issue that even what you can read in my post and all these comments.
I can confirm that the comments Paul wrote that included information about the white page after commenting issue NEVER APPEARED IN SPAM here. They were immediately deleted by Akismet.
That is true even though other comments Paul wrote the same day were immediately visible in this blog. That means that even your regular reader’s comments can be and ARE being immediately deleted by Akismet based on words in those comments.
In another comment on this page Alex from Akismet specifically said (jump to that comment using that link if you wish):
“The Akismet plugin for WordPress does not delete or hide spam comments unless the user has specifically requested it to, by checking the “discard spam comments on old posts” box. It’s controlled by the user, and totally optional.”
There is no doubt that Akismet DID selectively delete SOME of Paul’s comments but not all of them. What Alex wrote is clearly untrue.
For those who do not understand why this is so important I offer these two reasons:
1) Our time is one of our most precious assets. Having our comments disappear wastes our time.
2) It is imperative that we be able to find and share information about what we wish to know and products and services we want that are offered by small local and online businesses for whom buying International advertising (the Internet IS International not localized) is financially impractical and largely impossible.
We need to clearly understand that supporting small businesses is THE solution to the economic woes coming upon us all. The sooner we start acting on that truth the less the current economic downturn that WILL continue to get worse will affect us. Read more in the post I featured in CommentLuv in this reply.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
I love what Dr. Otto has said here. I never thought of it this way. However he is so right. Mullenweg and Shiel are doing exactly what I am reading happened in the early days of the Nazis. And, just like the early days of the Nazis, lots of people are backing them, until, of course they themselves become victims of this spam hysteria. I have copied Dr. Otto’s comment below. It needs to be seriously considered and re-considered:
Here it is again:
“If Akismet wishes to ban an ethnic minority or a woman owned business, or a handicapped nonprofit or a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew or a Liberal or a Conservative or any other “unpleasant” WordPress commenter, they can do that, and they can do it anonymously in the same way the Gestapo and the KKK operated during their worst days.
Thanks be to God that Alex Shiel and Matt Mullenweg, carrying on in the worst traditions of the Saxon personality,do not have the power that those organizations once had. Or is Akismet the reincarnation of such evil? Since the net is our new relationship builder, I believe, once again, we very much need to scrutinize the attitudes of men like Shiel and Mullenweg. For some reason, these sorts of personalities continue to arise in specific cultures if not strictly controlled. And, unfortunately, somehow this type of personality commits the worst possible social damage while claiming to be doing what the “people” want.
The Europeans, especially the Germans, have taken remarkable measures to prevent these sorts of aggressive personalities from harming others. In the US, evidently we haven’t as yet broadened our consciousness sufficiently to detect and control men such as these.
Akismet will take a few votes and then use that as justification for a universal ban. (And, when banned, we have had any number of Akismet users say that ToysPeriod must be guilty of something. Surely Shiel and Mullenweg have a reason for their actions. Yes, they do. They do it because they have access to power.)
Alex can and will deny what Akismet does, and he will continue to deny what he is personally responsible for, that is not taking steps to remedy injustices.
I’ve seen the correspondence from Alex admitting to the Akismet policies regarding deletion, spam designation, and banning.
In effect, not to put too fine a point on it, Alex is either not telling the truth or he is lying.
I’m shocked at the revelation. How could they???
Well Peter,
This is a complicated situation and there is no obvious simply resolution to it. That said, Akismet should have been far more clear on what that Akismet configuration check box did.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers: How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
As a fellow Saxon, I would like to address what Alex Shiel said above.
On several occasions, we have asked Alex Shiel and Matt Mullenweg, both, to rectify the Akismet abuse of our scholarship providers, especially ToysPeriod.com.
Approximately one year ago, Alex did that once, and, like a bolt, the thousand of so WordPress sites that were deleting or sending to spam comments with their url cleared.
Since then, ToysPeriod, which is one of the highest quality sights on the net, with several Google starred articles just this past week alone, has been virtually banned from WordPress commenting via Akismet.
Alex was SEEMINGLY as honest with our Provost, Dr. Voisin, as he is ever going to be.
He told her categorically that, yes, Akismet was banning ToysPeriod, but that Akismet was just doing what its users wanted. Then on another occasion, Alex did what he is doing here, that is, telling the world that what he said previously was not so. Which is it?
There isn’t any way in the world ToysPeriod deserves such treatment.
Never has a comment with their url attached been of spam quality.
So, on the one hand, Alex Shiel denies that Akismet is to blame, and in the next breath, he says that Akismet just does what its users want.
If Akismet wishes to ban an ethnic minority or a woman owned business, or a handicapped nonprofit or a Muslim or a Christian or a Jew or a Liberal or a Conservative or any other “unpleasant” WordPress commenter, the users can do that, and they can do it anonymously in the same way the Gestapo and the KKK operated during their worst days.
Thanks be to God that Alex Shiel and Matt Mullenweg, carrying on in the worst traditions of the Saxon personality,do not have the power that those organizations once had. Or is Akismet the reincarnation of such evil? Since the net is our new relationship builder, I believe, once again, we very much need to scrutinize the attitudes of men like Shiel and Mullenweg. For some reason, these sorts of personalities continue to arise in specific cultures if not strictly controlled. And, unfortunately, somehow this type of personality commits the worst possible social damage while claiming to be doing what the “people” want.
The Europeans, especially the Germans, have taken remarkable measures to prevent these sorts of aggressive personalities from harming others. In the US, evidently we haven’t as yet broadened our consciousness sufficiently to detect and control men such as these.
Akismet will take a few votes and then use that as justification for a universal ban. (And, when banned, we have had any number of Akismet users say that ToysPeriod must be guilty of something. Surely Shiel and Mullenweg have a reason for their actions. Yes, they do. They do it because they have access to power.)
Alex can and will deny what Akismet does, and he will continue to deny what he is personally responsible for, that is not taking steps to remedy injustices.
I’ve seen the correspondence from Alex admitting to the Akismet policies regarding deletion, spam designation, and banning.
In effect, not to put too fine a point on it, Alex is either not telling the truth or he is lying.
Hate to call another man dishonest. However, in this case, the man doesn’t seem to have any shame or integrity at all.
I have personally written to him this week to ask once again that ToysPeriod be cleared. And, of course, the third response other than blaming Akismet users for their poor judgment or denying that Akismet does anything at all, was what I received from Alex, and that is no response at all.
The unfortunate part of all this is, many Akismet users will probably believe this man, and, to that extent, the damage to relationships throughout the WordPress world will continue.
Dr. Otto, A Saxon who has learned to control himself
[NOTE FROM GROWMAP: This comment went directly into spam; I rescued it from there.]
Fortunately for the readers here, unlike many other people I do not take how people SAY their systems work as the truth – I test them to find out how they actually do work.
Alex has admitted that the white pages are caused by Akismet and it is obvious that many bloggers are allowing comments to be instantly deleted by them because they do not understand the Automatically discard spam comments on posts older than a month option.
When bloggers realize how many of them are already flagged as spammers (and I am already compiling a list) they will be shocked – and being flagged a spammer yourself will be a strong motivation for bloggers to recognize this issue and do whatever we need to do to make our blogs once again friendly for our readers and commentators.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
In response to Lane:
I suppose what I am saying is that “deletion” has never been my primary concern, although a very bad thing.
My principal problem with Akismet was its spam designation problem.
If I am understanding Gail’s point, she is saying that if we use the spam marking feature of the Akismet software, and allow that feature to be reported back to Akismet, they in turn will send a message back to the user’s system to delete future comments for that user.
If that’s not what Gail meant, what I mean is that I wasn’t even aware of the deletion problem.
I was aware of two problems:
1) White paging. From my perspective this didn’t mean a deletion but a blocking which meant that the comment was never allow in in the first place.
And,
2) My main problem was Akismet’s policy regarding sending folks to spam.
80% of our problem with Akismet did not result in the deletion of comments but rather the relegating comments to the spam folder that definitely didn’t belong there. Even if the blogger then rescued the comment, the damage had been done to a new relationship. People generally don’t take it well, when “cheap comments” are accepted and posted with a pending moderator sign, but their’s disappear into oblivion.
So, Lane, if you are suggesting that we disable the delete function in the Akismet software, and just keep the spam function active, that’s not going to solve my MAIN problem with Akismet.
Again, I think that’s what Gail said, but not being a techy, I’m not completely sure.
Lara
Hi Lara,
Based on what many have observed and what Alex from Akismet specifically stated (in the comment at that link), the white page indicates that a comment was immediately deleted because the commentator has been flagged as a spammer and the blog where it was left has checked the box that says “Automatically discard spam comments on posts older than a month.” as I explain as I explain in this comment also found in this post.
Akismet clearly does not recognize the difference between the original original definition of spam and the erroneous flagging of quality comments as spam.
If bloggers were only affecting the ability of commentators to leave comments in their own blogs instead of globally the way Akismet works might be OK.
That only a few instances of someone who does not understand the implications of marking something as spam can send any commentator into limbo forever across the entire WordPress blogosphere is simply not acceptable.
Note that we do not know if one person who marks you as a spammer three times might be enough or it takes three different people to flag you as a spammer to get you banned – if indeed three is even the criteria.
On top of that we have no way of knowing what words are automatically deleting our real comments. It makes no sense that words that many would obviously find profane and pharmaceutical related spam gets through but words like business, marketing and selling are forbidden.
We can never support any system that discrimates against legitimate businesses and bloggers who use the Internet for online visibility. The excuse that “our users want us to” is just that – and excuse that leads us to question Akismet’s agenda.
My question for you Lara is whether you consider not having comments go live immediately a big disadvantage. We would greatly prefer that real comments be instantly visible but we may be forced to pre-moderate if we can not find another solution as the huge number of objectionable comments that come in every day can not be allowed to go live.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Is this from their latest update? I’m hesitant to use Akismet and after reading this, even more so. I don’t get a bazillion spammers commenting on my blog, so I can manage it manually at this point.
.-= Margaret (Nanny Goats)´s featured blog ..Do You Call It Soda or Pop? =-.
Hi Margaret,
The only time I have ever seen my own comments disappear in my own blogs is since we went to the latest version in that blog; however, it appears that this is how Akismet has worked for some time.
We bloggers who get 100+ spam comments every day have some serious decisions to make regarding how to manage spam and not block comments from real people. We are discussing what to do next now that we know what is going on.
If Akismet is interested we will provide feedback on how it could work better. If not we will have to find another solution. If you don’t need it I definitely wouldn’t install it.
I definitely did not find what I expected when I visited your blog. 🙂 I was expecting a goat dairy not a humor blog. If you read the post I’ve featured in CommentLuv in this reply and would like me to edit your anchor text let me know.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv Community =-.
The term “spam” that Lane mentions is a term like liberal, conservative,or racist. It is so cliche that labeling anything spam can get dicey.
Obviously, anything machine generated would be spam, and originally that was primarily what was thought of as spam.
Now, political views, religious positions, opinions offering an alternative to a blogger’s point of view, and hundreds of other things generated personally and with heartfelt intellectual intent are considered spam by many folks.
As a result, the whole purpose of the net is being undermined.
The internet was designed to share points of view, especially, at first, scientific points of view. There was never a thought that just having a different point of view would become spam, because it was the INTENT of the internet to gather different points of view.
So, when we start using the term spam, and especially when we have a third party making decisions regarding what spam is, we are opening ourselves up to tremendous abuses, as Akismet has so beautifully demonstrated.
The same thinking that excluded so many for so long within organizations such as the KKK included the very methods used by Akismet and some individuals to filter so called spam.
It is one thing if an individual blogger only wants to hear opinions that support his or her point of view. On an individual basis, sad as that might be, OK, sure, block away anything that might expand an individual’s horizon.
However, to grant the authority to an irresponsible outfit like Akismet, even if we only take on THEIR view of what spam is and eliminate outright deletion of content, is a major assault on the mission of the internet, is an assault on just plain civility.
Unless one actually wants to be rude to innocent commenters, allowing Akismet to handle judgments relative to what is spam is is in my view contrary to everything that plugins such as CommentLuv and the Do follow movement are all about.
I do hope that folks like Lane understand the power that “just allowing Akismet to decide what spam is” wields.
All one needs is to run afoul of two or three users of Akismet, and it’s all over.
Participation in the Akismet protected user community swiftly is denied that individual or business. Akismet with its spam policies currently has the power to send anyone arbitrarily to spam outer darkness without recourse.
Lara
Lara, I see I failed to communicate in my previous comment and would like to clear some things up. First, I agree with everything you said in this comment. Indeed, I put “spam” in quotes because of the highly variable definition it now occupies.
Another distinction I failed to make is between Akismet as a group of people and Akismet the software. Although Akismet-the-people are defining “spam” for Akismet-the-plugin, it seems that we could control what happens to so-called spam by editing the akismet.php code. Around line 860 I saw a routine that looks like it deletes some comments, and I would think that could be changed to merely mark it as “spam.”
Officially, Lane, Akismet deletes comments when a blogger selects a specific check box which probably calls in that code.
Akismet has run into the issue the Founding Fathers of the United States ran into – that the masses do not have the knowledge and wisdom to make high quality decisions.
Every collaborator I work with is very careful to only send what we collectively see as real spam: bot or manually generated generic unrelated comments intended only to gain links.
If the comment is not spam but they find the content or link objectionable they either edit it, unlink it, or delete it. They DO NOT mark it as spam.
The problem is they are wiser than the average blogger who happily marks anything they don’t like as spam not realizing that they are banning that commentator globally from blogs using Akismet.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Something really surprises me by the fact I haven’t seen it mentioned here. Maybe there’s a very good reason.
What I’m talking about is the possibility of editing akismet.php to eliminate the problem. I haven’t studied the code, and I’m not a PHP programmer, but it seems likely to me that somewhere in the file there are two tests for spam. One test puts the spam in the spam folder, and the other test deletes the comment. I would think it would be possible to edit the second test so that it also puts “spam” in the spam folder.
Hi Lane,
I’m not sure that the code in each blog would manage that. I would think that Akismet does it on their end but I do not know how it works and I am not a programmer.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Best Product Feed Solution for Yahoo Stores =-.
I find Klaus’ comment as follows interesting. Klaus says,
“As I said, it’s not censorship. It’s spam filtering.
It’s your own decision if you want to ‘outsource’ your spam filtering to Akismet or not.”
You know, Klaus is correct. It IS a choice. However, why would anyone who obviously has a choice from only a limited array of reasons for setting up a blog make the choice to use an Akismet.
The choices are:
-Personal pleasure. Socializing. Relaxing with others
-Advancing a business.
-Changing society by winning people over to your point of view
-Discussing with others a point of interest or passion
-A combination of the above.
Reviewing the reasons for blogging:
If one is on the net for socializing purposes, it doesn’t start things off very well if a new commenter is trashed or blocked totally by Akismet.
If one is on the net to advance a business, why would one make a choice like Akismet that has been demonstrated to lose 5% to 10% of business profits off the top minimum.
If one is blogging to change society, why would someone make a choice to start off by insulting the very society that one is attempting to change. By installing a filter like Akismet, an individual would actually be working for the opposite point of view, especially if the opposite point of view is represented by someone who has learned the basic rules of courtesy.
If one is blogging to discuss a passion, Bridge, Hang-gliding, Coins, etc, why would one make a choice like using Akismet. The visitor trashed may be just the fellow who has that one coin at a reasonable price you’ve always wanted.
So, when Klaus says it’s a choice, I agree. A very bad choice, an irrational choice, but a choice nonetheless.
I wish somewhere there were a list of the Klauses of the world. That way, I won’t bother them, and they won’t bother me. They can be as rude to each other as they wish.
The only reason Klaus is still using the freedom of choice argument I suspect is that he himself has not been made to suffer by Akismet. Were that to happen, I have every faith that Klaus would be first in line with a bat seeking to wreak havoc upon Akismet.
Dr. Otto
Thank you for adding your thoughts, Otto. Bloggers honestly have no idea how serious this issue is. Even I did not thoroughly understand why Ann felt my approving comments manually that ended up in spam was such a serious problem.
Now that I know what is in this post and we collectively see how seriously Akismet is “filtering” (I still say “censoring”) the comments of so many it simply must be replaced.
The reason we have been reluctant to get rid of Akismet is that is does keep objectionable content from appearing in blogs that choose not to pre-moderate. Some of us get hundreds of spam comments per day and can not allow them to automatically appear as they are profane and contain content unsuitable for mixed company.
We dislike going to full moderation because it makes it so much harder for commentators to know if their comment will ever appear. Pre-moderating also greatly reducing the willingness of others to comment and then share our content across Social Media sites. Sharing blog posts after you comment in them can greatly increase traffic to blogs as I explain in that post.
I keep a running list of posts to check to see if my comments went live and share them when they do but I am very busy and that means they might not be shared in a timely manner – and many blog posts are of a time sensitive nature or have a peak time of interest to others.
We are brainstorming replacements for using Akismet. The only reason I have not disabled it already here is that we are still running tests and I want to be able to see whose comments Akismet things are spam and whose it doesn’t.
When I say “we” I refer to many very well-kn0wn bloggers who share what we learn with each other and collaborate on many subjects including best practices and what plugins to use and recommend.
While we can not reach all bloggers, we do have influence with many and will do what we can to spread the word about the negative affects of using Akismet and what the best alternatives are.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Funny that the first guy to say something like this (and kinda get personal on the matter):
“I wish somewhere there were a list of the Klauses of the world. That way, I won’t bother them, and they won’t bother me. They can be as rude to each other as they wish. ”
… is actually from Linda Christas college – same as Dr. Ann. This is in line with what other bloggers have told me about comments from that place!
Also this is a topic I don’t think we could ever agree on. I’ll continue to use Akismet on my blog, at least until I personally experience these “never see comments” myself and/or a better plugin comes along.
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s featured blog ..Apple Showing Off HTML5 =-.
The reason that two people from Linda Christas college are interested in this subject is that it is seriously impacting a project their graduate students are involved in.
They were the first to make me aware of the serious issues they were seeing because they have been tracking whether their comments ever appear or not. I was not that organized about it – I leave comments, keep the URLs to maybe check later if I got around to it – and did not concern myself with all the comments that never appeared.
You do realize that anyone using Akismet who doesn’t like you can get you flagged as a spammer and then your ability to comment and build links back to your site will be seriously compromised?
If all of YOUR comments start getting deleted and the bloggers whose blogs you like to comment in never check their spam folders then you will care more about this issue.
“You do realize that anyone using Akismet who doesn’t like you can get you flagged as a spammer and then your ability to comment and build links back to your site will be seriously compromised? ”
Well – yes, but it really depends on your view. Are you commenting because you have something to say – or just to get the link back? If you’re commenting because you have something to so, who cares about building links. Anyway. I know what you mean, don’t worry 🙂
What I’m curious about though, is what kind of project their graduate students are involved in, that just so happens that they must comment on blogs and link their comment back to toysperiod.com?
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s featured blog ..Apple Showing Off HTML5 =-.
Hi Klaus,
For myself link or no it bothers me that I invest my precious time in typing comments that disappear. If the blogger doesn’t want to approve them that is their choice and a risk I am willing to take. Having Akismet decide that I can not comment anywhere is very different.
The students at Linda Christas are learning real world skills. Toysperiod provides scholarship funds so that many who could not afford more education can. The students are not required to leave comments or link back to ToysPeriod but they choose to in appreciation.
I believe teaching students how to assist quality businesses to STAY in business – especially now with the economy the way it is – is a very good idea and I applaud them for it.
All of us have got to get clear on what is important in life. Links are important to being found on the Internet. I for one want to be able to find what I want to find and I don’t want Google or Akismet or Yahoo or Bing or anyone else to decide what information I can read or what businesses I can patronize.
We collectively destroyed our economy through selfishness and greed. The solution is to support small local and online businesses. It is sad that so few Americans have any concept of the importance of independence, business ownership and community.
I know that sounds harsh but it is 100% true. Every dime spent in a multi-national Corporate store is money that could have made a difference for a neighborhood business and improved our economy.
I hope anyone reading this will consider reading that post and the one I’ll put in CommentLuv so they get a better understanding of how they as one individual can improve the world for themselves, their neighbors, their communities and everyone else.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
Akismet has told me straight out that they do what their users want them to do.
It is a sort of voting system. I don’t know if it is automatic or not.
But, after one or two users decide they don’t like what someone has to say, things like, I voted for Obama. Or I am a Jew. Or I think females should own businesses, once three users ” off their meds” somewhere have labeled a comment as spam, Akismet just bans that party everywhere.
One party I know of contacted Akismet and was evidently very persuasive because one moment he was banned everywhere, and the next he was clear everywhere on Akismet “protected” sites. I guess I don’t have the persuasive power this guy has. I haven’t been able to get my site “unbanned,” and believe me I’ve tried.
So, the question is not if they are doing what they are doing. The question is what can we do about it seeing as how everything they do is anonymous from their side of things.
I frankly don’t know how they get anyone to buy into the system.
Other systems may be annoying to users, but nothing is as annoying as a comment being hung by the neck until dead.
Or just not being treated properly as a good hearted commenter. To throw someone into a spam folder just because they belong to the same organization as someone else who voted for Obama, well, that’s just wrong.
Maybe the same folks who run Akismet are the same folks who run the voting machines in Chicago and Florida.
Leone
Hi Leone,
The reason Akismet is in such widespread use is that it is supplied by the company behind WordPress and WordPress really is the best blogging platform.
Now that we know what we know about Akismet though we need to make a change there. What worries me most is that we may have to replace WordPress some day. That would be a real drag far worse than dealing with spam comments.
What we all need to realize is that if you leave say three comments over time in one blog and they mark them all spam it only takes ONE PERSON who doesn’t like you to get you banned in millions of blogs. That just won’t do. Maybe they are the same folks.
Which of the millions of bloggers that use Akismet do they think told them we wanted them to delete real comments in a way that most will never figure out?
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers: How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
Gail, if Dennis Yu says that your comments end up in his spam folder, doesn’t that mean that your comments AREN’T getting deleted? Ending up in the spam folder is what I’d expect to have happen for comments that Akismet thinks is spam.
Hi Donna,
I’m still answering your other comment. Yes, it means that whatever names and URLs I use when I comment in Dennis’ blog have been reported as SPAM to Akismet.
In his blog it ends up in the spam folder and in blogs where that box is checked my comments are immediately deleted.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers: How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
In a comment from Dennis Yu which you can jump directly to in my post about Using CommentLuv he wrote what I have pasted below:
Hi Gail,
For some reason, your comments end up in my spam folder– so I actually go through a ton of spams since I know you often comment, and that your posts are so insightful, it’s worth digging through a heap of garbage to find them! I am a big, big supporter of small business and have always had a heart for the underdog. That’s why I started BlitzLocal.com and have persisted, even though that side of our business continues to lose money (although we hope this will change by the end of the year).
Dennis writes about Internet Marketing for Small Businesses and Large in his blog. That comment proves more of the names and URLs I use are already flagged as SPAM.
If Dennis did not know that I would be commenting he would not know to look for my comments. We have three choices:
1) Stop using Akismet
2) Start notifying each other using alternate methods every time we comment
3) Test the names and URLs in our own blogs BEFORE we comment elsewhere.
Let’s discuss this among ourselves and our collaborators and decide what sounds best. We need to research alternative plugins too.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
I’m feeling pretty stupid right now. I thought the checkbox meant this: Delete all spam comments after they’ve been in the spam folder for a month! Arrrrgh!
Like you, I like Duck Duck Go for searching, but I find myself often going to Google for the capability to limit the searches to a particular time period. Without that, I get a lot of old and useless results.
Yes, there are big differences in captchas. I use the Simple Captcha plugin, which is easy for users to solve… and it’s probably easy for spammers. I tried to sign up for one service, and I was never able to figure out the captcha myself! I like the captcha.net version, mainly because you can quickly get a new one if the current one is confusing.
.-= Lane Lester@website builder´s featured blog ..Wordpress Video Tutorials =-.
Don’t feel bad, Lane. You’re in good company. Kristi and I both thought it read “spam COMMENTS older than a month” when it reads “spam comments on POSTS older than a month” – BIG DIFFERENCE! Only Derek caught the true meaning.
I use alternatives whenever I can but I still do use major sites for specific purposes. We need to get DuckDuckGo and other search engines to add more capabilities.
The reason I use Zuula Blog Search is because it prioritizes posts by both recency and relevancy, making it easy to find the most recent blog posts on any topic.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Affiliate Tips Tuesday: How to Deep Link ShareASale =-.
Every time I think about this (I’ve read your post numerous times over the last couple of days), I keep coming back to the thought that it’s more likely a bug. Perhaps it’s related to a list of spammers, but I think something isn’t being processed correctly once the system gets a positive hit. That blank white screen is almost never something a programmer would actually code, but it’s very very often a sign of a bug. So, I’m thinking that in certain circumstances, when someone comments who has been placed on some spam list at Akismet, something gets hung in the process and the routine never finishes what it was about to do, which would account for a blank white screen most likely. Obviously, I may be wrong, but that blank white screen is a like a big red flag that shouts bug to me.
Hi Donna,
What I saw (a comment disappearing from a blog that does use Akismet but does not have the option to delete “spam” comments automatically checked) may be a bug, but the serious problems our using Akismet is causing is not.
One issue is that all of the bloggers I have asked thought that check box meant Akismet deleted spam comments after thirty days when what it does is delete any comment it considers spam IMMEDIATELY in those blogs that have that enabled. The blogger will never see them.
That brings us to the issue of who is a spammer. It appears that it only takes a few comments marked as spam to get a name or URL labeled as a spammer. Many of the names and URLs I use to comment with are flagged. Many of our regular readers are flagged.
In the comment just below yours Techlink blog says this might not be a “true white screen” – it might be one Akismet puts up to detour bots.
Kristi commented that it appears it only takes 1-3 comments to end up flagged as a spammer but dozens or even 100 of times marking something as “not-spam” to get it unflagged. Another commentator in this thread says Akismet told him it takes three.
Even if we could get real commentators names and URLs unflagged (and Leone commented here that he has been trying to get unflagged and can not) there is still the problem of words in a comment causing it to end up in spam or automatically deleted.
That misleading feature that automatically deletes comments is more troubling to me from my perspective because I always review my “spam” comments before I delete them but I know that other major bloggers do not do that.
I believe it was Barbara Swafford who as you already know has a popular blog on learning to blog mentioned to me or wrote somewhere that she doesn’t check for real comments in her spam unless someone contacts her because their comment didn’t show up.
Most commentators never do that so who knows how many dozens, hundreds or even thousands of great comments are being deleted every day?
Given the way Akismet works IMHO it has to go. The only question is what do we use to replace it? I’m open to suggestions. I just sent you a message through your contact form. Email me when you get it?
I noticed you didn’t use any keywords in your comment so you may want to read the post I’ve featured in CommentLuv in this reply.
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I have received much more information from Dr. Ann via email. As is often the case with those who try to raise awareness, she has been targeted by trolls that have called her all kinds of names in an attempt to reduce her credibility.
That is a commonly used tactic for discrediting the sources of information you do not wish to be made public. I am pasting more of what she has sent me lately below.
If you believed the disinformation about her I ask you to reconsider. She IS a real person who IS connected with a real online college. Ann Voisin is Chair of the Business Department and Provost at Linda Christas College.
She is involved in a College Doctoral Thesis around using the Internet for increasing business for The Lego Group through working with sites that sell their popular Lego Building Blocks such as Toys Period.
It is through the issues their students working on that project ran into that Dr. Ann recognized the huge problems Akismet presents to businesses using quality commenting to expand their visibility. Remember that the comments themselves as well as the links are valuable to businesses.
Here are excerpts from several emails that Ann Voisin sent directly to me. Perhaps she has grown tired of being the target of smear campaigns or just prefers email to commenting given all the problems they have had getting the comments to actually appear in blogs.
Ann Voisin wrote:
“I have been around and around with Alex. [Alex replied above in the comments here. He is the public voice for Automattic, the company behind WordPress and Akismet.]
He has two basic responses:
1) You are wrong
OR
2) We are just doing what our users want
The first puts the blame on the complainer as seeing what isn’t there.
The second virtually admits that the complainer is correct. However, it’s not Akismet’s fault.
These fellows are just evil.”
Dear Gail,
It is the WAY comments going to spam and comments going to moderation are handled that makes all the difference.
With comments going to moderation, as you will see when you leave a comment on a site like ToysPeriod, there is a notice saying simply that the commenter is thanked and that the comment will be carefully considered by the moderator.
With Akismet, the comment disappears, and is treated differently when the url is subtracted.
I would break the experiences down in the following manner:
Where WordPress is not involved for an Akismet targeted person or business:
45% of the sites simply have the comment appear with links showing, no moderation required.
50% will have some form of moderator control
5% will have blocked a commenter who has visited BEFORE, and that is important. Very rarely os a person blocked on the first try.
In the WordPress community, for the same person or business targeted by Aksimet, the experiences seem to break down in the following manner:
60% of the time, the comments disappear without any notice, but removing the url will allow the person to at least leave a notice to the blog owner of what has happened. (The person has already been told YOU OR YOUR BUSINESS OR SCHOOL ARE NOT WELCOME as part and parcel of the site’s behavior. The damage has been done.)
20% of the time the person will be white paged and not be able to notify the blog owner at all.
20% of the time the comments will be either moderated or accepted outright.
So what we have is a huge difference between how it FEELS to a first time visitor to a site depending on the judgment of Akismet.
In business, it is the FEELING of welcome that is king. There are too many businesses out there that have a clear shot at communication, especially the “big brands” you mention, to add the additional disadvantage of having some very weird folks taking pot shots at the little guy through a white sheet like anonymous killing off of messages which is the Akismet signature.
It just makes any reasonable blogging effort hell for those unfairly targeted by Akismet. We have never had a p**n site actually leave a comment on our college site. Machine generated stuff, yes, but never a comment. Akismet can very easily tell the difference, but even when notified, the attacks on the innocent just escalate.
They have no mercy, and the hell of it is that WordPress business owners never seem to have taken a business 101 course. They seem to be perfectly willing to give up a percentage of their business to Akismet, and will actively defend Akismet attacking the person who notifies them of the arbitrary trashing of their comments.
Some of MY comments about Akismet can be Googled. (Never the positive ones though.) That is, people who evidently are SEO managers not only reject what I’ve told them as a TRICK, but they publicly ridicule me. They don’t get it either. In that case, the Akismet victim becomes the target of mockery.
Evidently these are very uneducated people who are claiming to be guides for other bloggers. That can only be the answer. Even a basic humanitarian approach to business will tell owners that as a business owner one doesn’t treat others that way.
However, the point is missed by I would say 90% of internet consultants who have hung out their shingle claiming to HELP small businesses prosper.
The first thing they do is recommend WordPress because of its easy use, and the plug ins, CommentLuv and Akismet. After that, the person who takes that advice becomes yet another site adding to the human and business relationship carnage. People like me who are only trying to get people to actually read messages before trashing them are viewed as some kind of kooks. Well kook I am. And, kook I shall remain.
Regards,
Ann
Those who raise visibility for problems that most people can not clearly understand can often be easily discredited by smear campaigns. I assure my readers that Ann is NOT a kook. She has had a much clearer view of this problem than even I did for a very long time.
Spammers steal our time and that is why we hate spam so much. Finding out that Akismet is sending many of our comments directly to spam or worse – deleting them outright – also steals our time.
Make no mistake about this:
I just received an email that included this question: “I was just speaking with our web manager, and he said, why don’t these folks just use a catcha. Bots almost never read them. That would take care of 95% of the spam problem without running into PR problems that lose following.”
While there are spammers and bots that can now get past captchas,
Kikolani Kristi and I are discussing why we use Akismet instead in chat. She wrote, “People hate captchas… seems like if you explained there was less chance of their comment being deleted out, they would be ok with that though.”
Given the choice between possibly having all your comments sent directly to spam and deleted in blogs that have the “delete spam comments instantly” feature turned on would you rather see us all use captcha instead?
We would definitely want to use one that is easiest to read – some of them are really challenging.
Math is another option. I was using Peter’s Math plugin but had to disable it at least until I determine how to change some setting that caused it to conflict with the cache plugin we need to use.
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I think I have figured it out. This is a test post because Akismet has deleted my other two posts. I talked about Bots and how they are trying to slow or break bot nets by creating a white screen. I won’t go into detail because I am unsure if this will even post!!
.-= techlinkblog´s featured blog ..Summer is the busy time for parents!! =-.
I just rescued two of your comments from SPAM but this comment made it live by itself. Are you saying that you used the same name (techlinkblog) and URL in ALL the comments but the other two got blocked because of the words in the comment itself?
I do not have any words blacklisted in this blog unless they are profanity and I don’t think I even have any of those blocked. I do not use any other plugins like WPSpamFree which also blacklisted words automatically.
This makes the issue even worse. Even if you test to make sure your name and URL aren’t blocked you would have to test every single comment too – if Akismet decides to give us back the place to test. I had no idea how serious this was until now.
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@Growmap
That is correct, I don’t cuss when I talk so I know my comments were cussing or should of been filtered. I would like you to email me directly I would like to talk to you about some things.
Paul Sylvester
techlinkblog@gmail.com
.-= techlinkblog´s featured blog ..I have disabled Disqus and enabled CommentLuv!! =-.
Hi Paul,
I’m sending you an email now. You can also find that information on the contact page here or use the contact form should you ever not have my email address handy.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
arggg, Did Akismet do that to me now??
I can think of only one thing, when it comes to the blank screen. That they are trying to break or slow down BOT and if that is true then they also are intentionally deleting comments without people knowing.
Although this is just theory, it is logical that they want to prevent bots from finding other blogs. Bots like to go from blog to blog by getting the url from other blogs, so that would slow them down or break the bot because of the white screen. Although if I was a bot writer, I would also include a timeout feature in the bot so it would most likely just slow them down to a point!!
[NOTE FROM GROWMAP: This comment went directly into SPAM and I approved it from there. I see this is a duplicate of another comment you tried to get through.]
.-= techlinkblog´s featured blog ..I have disabled Disqus and enabled CommentLuv!! =-.
The Only problem with this is figuring out if it is a true white screen or one that Akismet puts up to detour bots. Since most bots go from blog to blog by getting links from other such links, this would indicate that Akismet is truly trying to break the cycle for bots. This would be the only reason why they would intentionally do it and not tell anyone. Also this would indicate that Akismet knows far more than they are letting on. If they are doing the blank pages intentionally then they are also automatically deleting posts intentionally!!
Although that may or may not be true, I am however drawn to the conclusion that is the only logical process to technically “BREAK A BOT”. Although it wouldn’t stop them from long, I am sure the programmers have thought of this and instituted a time out feature, so it would more likely slow them down.
[NOTE FROM GROWMAP: This comment also went directly into SPAM and I approved it from there.]
I like the way you think, Paul. So how did your test go? Did you see the white pages when your comments went directly to spam here or did you see something else?
Our suspicion is that you only get the white page when your comment is immediately deleted and that is not SUPPOSED to happen in blogs that don’t opt in to that featured and I do not.
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I guess for high traffic websites, use of catcha would be desirable since this would not delete legitimate comments yet still filter spam especially from those automatic softwares & bots.
Hi Claire,
That is one alternative we’re considering. I’m seeking others and there are other spam plugins we need to research. You could greatly benefit your site by reading the post I’ll feature in CommentLuv in this reply.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv Community =-.
I think it is a bit of a glitch caused by the new upgrade to Akismet. I checked with my host and there were no such blocks in place and the domain was not black-listed. Clicking this button probably refreshes the system. Certainly it seems to resolve the problem and cleared the alert message and shows that everything is running fine.
I am leaving this comment so that readers of this post can see an example of Copied Comment Spam. This comment was copied from this WordPress support page.
This illustrates very well the issue of what bloggers want versus what businesses need versus the challenges for those who can not write English well to make a living online.
The reason they use copied comments is that they can barely write English. The reason businesses hire them is because incoming links are so critical to staying in business. More incoming links = better search engine ranking = more leads and sales.
This issue is seriously compounded by the fact that one search engine has a virtual monopoly on business leads and sales now because Internet users have handed it them. The solution is to USE OTHER SEARCH ENGINES.
My personal favorite search engine is DuckDuckGo and I could use your assistance to encourage my favorite Blog Search Engine to add them as an option.
If you have other independent search engines you prefer please leave them as replies to this comment. [NOTE: by independent I mean not the big three – any others not owned or controlled by multi-national Corporations.]
We as bloggers have the opportunity to change the direction our economy is heading. All we have to do is start supporting small businesses both online and off by recommending them, reviewing them, writing about them and especially by learning how to properly use anchor text when we link to anyone.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Father’s Day Word of Mouth Gift Card Giveaway =-.
You mention that being taken to a blank page after posting a comment usually means the comment got deleted. I’ve had this happen to me numerous times but didn’t realise what was happening.
Sometimes I’ve returned to a blog post I’ve commented on a few days later to see that my comment (in which I’ve tried to be intelligent and add value to the initial post) has been accepted, only to find it hasn’t.
However, I see comments dated after mine accepted that only say things things like “Nice post” and I sit there dumbfounded as to why their spammy comment is there and my legit one isn’t. I though it was individual bloggers removing my comments for some reason, but perhaps it is this instead.
Hi Gillian,
I am certain that it IS this instead that is deleting your comments and leaving those others. Did you know there are bloggers that install KeywordLuv and then report anyone who uses business related keywords as spammers?
Obviously they don’t “get” the whole concept OR they think it is only for their buddies.
All of us who understand how all this works must start keeping track of where we leave comments and which appear and which do not.
I often now also save my entire comment in Tomboy Notes or publish them at FriendFeed. That way I can copy and paste it back in if the blogger asks for it.
I use FriendFeed when I know the site is unlikely to approve what I wrote or when I want to comment on a site that requires registering or logging in to comment.
Serious commentators would do well to create a spreadsheet and keep track of every comment they leave. I hate having to do that and haven’t been but I will definitely start now.
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Akismet is a great anti spam filter plug in. We’re using it in one of our blogs. It really saves time and hustle to check spammy comments.
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Yes Teena, but at what cost? How will you feel when it is your comments that are instantly deleted – and that IS very likely because you are promoting a business and many bloggers equate business URLS or keywords with spammers.
The business you are promoting could benefit from requesting their free local search directory listings as I explain in the post I featured in CommentLuv in this reply. Many but not all of the directories are U.S. based but the largest are not.
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well this explains what akismet is – something i’ve never bothered to figure out even though i use wordpress for all my sites. Its a bummer that its filtering out lots of good comments. I don’t know if you should turn it off though, if you’re already fielding 150+ comments, how many would you be fielding without it? yikes!
It really just depends on the volume. Although there is no guarantee that you will get 150 comments a day. It can be more or less, just like searches and user participation is the key. So turning it off won’t ebb the flow but it will let the blog owner see the comments that are being erased!!
.-= techlinkblog´s featured blog ..I have disabled Disqus and enabled CommentLuv!! =-.
Hi Cat,
Akismet is the most widely used method for preventing really objectionable spam from appearing in WordPress blogs that prefer to allow comments to go live right away.
As the (currently) most important spam plugin they have a responsibility to be responsive to the WordPress blogging community. If they wish to continue to be the most used plugin they need to be transparent about what they do with our comments.
The reason I have always used Akismet is that I prefer not to pre-moderate comments because that is a burden on commentators who never know if their comment will appear later today, tomorrow, next week or never!
Believe me, Cat, I do not look forward to finding out how many more spam comments are being deleted automatically. It could be dozens or even hundreds – but if Akismet really is NOT deleting comments it should be just about the same as I see in spam now.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
Hi,
As I said in answer to your emails:
The Akismet plugin for WordPress does not delete or hide spam comments unless the user has specifically requested it to, by checking the “discard spam comments on old posts” box. It’s controlled by the user, and totally optional.
The default is for that feature to be switched off.
I’d appreciate it if you could correct your article to reflect this.
Hello Alex,
As I explained in this post, I personally wrote a comment in one blog using the name and URL I use for commenting in another blog. When that comment did not IMMEDIATELY go live as that blog is configured to allow I logged into the blog where I left that comment, went into the spam folder and the comment was NOT there.
I waited 24 hours and then 48 and the comment never appeared. I then went to the page which has now been removed and did tests on multiple names and URLs I use for commenting only to find that many of them did not appear on that blog.
I am willing to concede that the comment not appearing COULD be because of some other technical issue and am willing to do additional tests to diagnose the exact cause. I will test to see if I can reproduce the problem and I will keep watching to make sure if I can’t now it doesn’t come back.
I know about the feature to have Akismet automatically discard spam comments on old posts and none of my blogs is configured to do that.
I also know that many bloggers never check their spam folders and because of that Akismet’s policy of sending an ever increasing number of comments directly into SPAM is just as bad in those blogs as deleting them altogether.
My readers know that I always tell the entire truth as I understand it and we will get to the bottom of this issue. They also know that if I find I am wrong that I will publicly say so and will share all the facts and research I am able to compile.
There needs to be a major discussion on just what spam is and how many “strikes” as one of my commentators calls them it takes to have your comments relegated to spam.
Even some very well known bloggers do not check their spam folders. I believe they should. Many new bloggers would not know to do that. Because those two things are true, it is important that Akismet’s criterion for what is spam needs to be clarified and the number of reports increased to reduce false positives.
That Akismet removed our ability to check to see which names and URLs we commonly use when commenting are being sent directly to spam (or disappearing – it is impossible to tell which using the function that was available on that page) makes it more challenging for us to know what needs to be unbanned.
We need to know in advance – BEFORE we waste our time writing comments that will never get through to the blogger – which names and URLs don’t work and which do. We need that function to be available there or elsewhere.
If you would like me to do further testing knowing which names and URLs I use are affected would greatly speed that process up.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
The title of this article is “Akismet is Deleting Comments We NEVER SEE!”. That’s simply not true. Akismet will only ever discard a message unseen if you ask it to (with the “discard” option) – something your article doesn’t acknowledge. It’s quite misleading, as a glance at the comments here will show.
So let me say it again, loud and clear: the Akismet plugin for WordPress will never delete comments unseen unless the owner of the blog has explicitly asked it to. That’s our official answer, on the record. You don’t have to take my word for it – our plugin code is open source, so you can review it for yourself to confirm it.
If something is causing comments to disappear on your blog and you don’t have the “discard” option turned on, that something is not Akismet.
The test site is there to help Akismet staff diagnose problems. There are any number of reasons a comment may or may not appear there, many of which have nothing to do with Akismet – it requires staff intervention to check. We’ve disabled it temporarily because too many people were misinterpreting its results (your comments didn’t appear because they were moderated). We received no requests from you asking for help or indicating that comments posted by you were incorrectly caught as spam. We would have helped if we did. We’ll be happy to help you (or anyone else) now if you’d like to contact Akismet support with the details.
To those pointing out that different people have different opinions of the definition of spam: you’re absolutely right! Everyone has a different opinion of what is and is not spam. Each blog has its own individual standards and policies for the kinds of comments they accept and the kinds they don’t. That’s perfectly fine – it’s why Akismet produces different results on each blog. Akismet learns each blog owner’s standards and policies from the feedback they provide in the form of spam and ham reports.
In other words, a comment that is considered ok on one blog might be considered spam on another. That’s up to the blog owner to decide. Akismet will learn what each individual blog owner wants and adjust its results accordingly.
Gail, the problems you’re describing (comments disappearing, large volumes of missed spam) are consistent with an external problem, such as a buggy WordPress plugin or theme, a bug in WordPress itself, and/or a network issue. If you’d like to contact Akismet support with the details (including specific examples of recent missed spam and false positives) we’ll do our best to help track down the cause. You’re running an old version of WordPress which does in fact have a bug that is known to incorrectly spam some comments (even when Akismet says they’re not spam).
Alex from Akismet wrote (in the comment I am replying to here but that may appear above other replies made before this one):
“The title of this article is “Akismet is Deleting Comments We NEVER SEE!”. That’s simply not true. Akismet will only ever discard a message unseen if you ask it to (with the “discard” option).”
Most bloggers were NOT aware of that before I wrote this post. I edited my title to Akismet Deletes Comments Bloggers Never See because that is absolutely true. I remain unconvinced that Akismet does not delete comments we never see in our own blogs even when that check box is NOT checked.
Akismet IS deleting our comments that we leave in other blogs. We are not privvy to how other bloggers have their Akismet configured. Bloggers DO NOT know that and those checking that box do not realize how many of their favorite commentators’ comments are being immediately deleted.
And now you have removed the method that allows bloggers and other Internet users to find out which names and URLs they can no longer use because they are already considered spam.
The blogs I was using when I saw that comment NOT ever appear do NOT have that option checked. It does not use any other comment related plugins such as WPSpamFree that exhibit similar behavior. Maybe there is another technical issue involved and maybe there isn’t BUT the bottom line is this:
I never write anything based on what I see in only one blog or only one business. I confirm everything on multiple sites and with many very experienced collaborators.
Even if the problem with comments disappearing is never seen again it is important that bloggers who use Akismet clearly understand the serious negative implications to others that flagging them as spam or turning on that check box has.
Click on Plugins in your left sidebar and then ALSO IN THE LEFT SIDEBAR find Akismet Configuration and uncheck it if is is checked.
I will add screen captures showing where that is to this post shortly.
One other very important point. Akismet does NOT only send comments to spam based on what that individual blogger has flagged. It sends comments to spam (or deletes them outright) based on what others have reported. This is why that is critical:
Once a name or URL has been flagged as SPAM their future comments are sent directly to spam (or deleted if that box is checked). Many bloggers never check their spam folders and will not ever read this post so they won’t know what that box is doing.
This is important because it is individuals and small local and online businesses who need this visibility and ability to reach each other the most.
Anything that reduces our ability to connect with each other hands power over us to the plutocrats who control our lives too much now – and if you think it is bad now, as the song lyric goes “you ain’t seen nothing yet”.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
I think the concern isn’t the ones in the spam filter that get discarded. I think the concern are the comments that do not come up period. I have tried this on my own website after being emailed by someone saying they commented and it never showed up in the backend. I used their same information on my blog using Akismet, and then got the white screen when submitting it. When I went into the back end, there was no record of it in the approved, pending, or spam filters. But if I used other credentials, I was able to get a pending comment just fine.
I have seen this happen on other WordPress blogs. I have commented on other blogs and gotten the white screen, or just sent back to the original post with no indication that a comment had been submitted, emailed the blog owner, and have them tell me no comment came through.
I have also tested on a WordPress.com blog that I own, and when I entered a comment on it using the same credentials it automatically gave me a message that the comment was spam and was deleted. When I logged into the WordPress.com account, sure enough, the comment was not anywhere in the backend.
I personally love how much Akismet filters out of my blog, but I would like to be comforted by the fact that all comments will end up somewhere in the backend so I can approve it if I choose, as opposed to wondering if someone’s comments are never coming through. I would think that if Akismet can put a comment filled with a two page long x-rated romance story with about 15 – 20 “special keyword” links, it can send all comments through and let me decide whether I want to delete them completely or not.
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As I have been following along with the discussion and testing of various name / URL combinations with respect to how they are, or are not, showing up on blogs using Akismet, I tried to look at this from the perspective that there might be something else at play that is causing this behavior.
However, the fact that only certain name / URL values are resulting in the white screen with the comment not even appearing in the blog owners spam / awaiting moderation comment list leads me to believe that it is in fact Akismet filtering out these comments. If it were something other than Akismet, I would imagine that it would not be as easily reproducible for only those combinations and that it would happen more often, and most likely more randomly.
One other thought that I had was the possibility that the comments resulting in the white screen had special characters in them that could potentially cause a problem in the WordPress database, thus explaining why the comment was never fully submitted. However, I would suspect that people that have experience with leaving comments would not be using such characters in the name or URL that they are submitting.
I have had experience with commentators that have been stuck in my spam queue, even though I consistently marked their comments as not being spam. While I have not heard from anyone that has left a comment on my blog that did not show up, it appears that I would not know this unless they contacted me to ask what happened to their comment as it would not even be in my queue for me to take action.
As much as I would like to believe that there is something else at play here preventing certain comments from showing up anywhere on the blog or in moderation, I have not yet come up with a rational explanation other than these comments being filtered out by Akismet. That is unfortunate for many reasons, one of which being that I have always felt that Akismet has done a good job of identifying spam but at least providing me the option to review the comments that it believes to be spam, not simply filtering them completely.
.-= Derek´s featured blog ..Notification Day =-.
It sounds like you’ve checked the box that says “Automatically discard spam comments on posts older than a month.”
Can you report that to WordPress.com support please? To the best of my knowledge there is never any message displayed by WordPress.com that resembles the one you’re describing.
We verified that the “automatically discard spam comments on posts older than a month” was NOT checked in the blog where the comment never appeared. Having a background in diagnosing computer issues, I concede that this requires more testing to truly determine where the cause(s) lie.
I say multiple because there are other plugins in use that exhibit similar behavior, especially WPSpamFree.
I first suspected that other message Derek reported might have been generated by another plugin until I realized he said he tested on a WordPress.com blog he controls. I will have to spend more time in WordPress.com blogs and note which blogs I comment in.
[NOTE: Bloggers need to realize that WordPress.com blogs and self-hosted blogs are quite different in many ways and different plugins can have varied interactions.]
I and others I collaborate with will start documenting which reactions we see in which blogs of what type from now on so we can gather information to determine the causes.
We need Akismet to restore the function that allows us to determine what names and URLs we use are banned from the start. It is unfair to bloggers who do not have multiple blogs to test this in that their time will be wasted in this way.
I would offer to assist them but there is only one of me and I am already doing all I can fit into a day. If Akismet expects us to believe they have our best interests in heart they need to give that back. Surely you have a site that is scalable enough that the post of one blogger like me can not be too much for it to handle.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
On one hand, it sounds like Akismet is supposed to monitor the comments, to keep down the spam. Isn’t that the whole purpose of the application, after all?
On the other hand, any and all comments that are filtered should be set in a folder for the site administrator to view.
[NOTE FROM GROWMAP: Your comment went directly into spam so you have been reported as a spammer and Akismet is putting every comment you leave into either into SPAM or deleting it instantly OR a word in your comment triggered it going into spam.]
Hi Jennifer,
Yes, we need REAL spam to be filtered. The problem here is that so many who are not spammers are now banned from getting their comments through in every WordPress blog that uses Akismet – people like YOU who don’t even use keywords.
I can not speak to whether you ever wrote a spammy sounding comment but I can share that many of the names and URLs I use when commenting are flagged as SPAM and many intelligent bloggers I know personally who comment here are sent immediately to spam which means THEY have all been flagged as spammers too.
Akismet’s official spokesman has commented in this post that Akismet deletes comments immediately written by every person who has been flagged as a spammer in any blog that has a box checked – a box that most do not realize does what it does or they would never use it.
Read more about when Akismet deletes comments.
Who is flagged as a spammer? You, me, Techlinkblog and so many more.
Whose comments instantly get deleted even if they are not flagged as spammers? Anyone who uses a word or phrase Akismet blacklists because it doesn’t like them.
One problem with the people who design these types of filters is that they are anti-business. They block words like business, marketing, selling, etc. so any of us who comment on those subjects are particularly affected by this.
Those are NOT dirty words. Selling is not inherently bad and marketing is not inherently evil. In trying to cut down on real spammers they have eliminated the ability of real businesses to gain visibility and for us to find the best products and services.
I hope many will take time to read my post about Word of Mouth Marketing that has more to say on that subject.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
I think we’re getting an advance look at what it will be like when the feds start “protecting” us from all the confusing information that’s available to us on the Internet. President Obama, in a recent commencement speech, described just how serious is the problem. Think how much simpler life will be when we are only provided with “information” the government selects for us.
Yes, Lane, that is precisely where this is going. I hope many others have their research and thousands of links to important information saved offline so they can get to it and share it when it can no longer be found in search engines.
Unfortunately, all Internet traffic is routed through AT&T’s servers so they can actually filter out results even from independent search engines whenever they choose to do so. Read about how we know this from testimony from an AT&T Technician involved in the AT&T Class Action lawsuit. That link is to the story at Wired. I have many others.
We already live in a Police State and some are trying to Save the Internet as we know it.
Most Windows users have given third parties access to their hard drives and keep their email on Webmail servers where they give up what few privacy rights are available to us. There is a severe lack of Webmail privacy and very little email privacy.
I am willing to bet that few reading this already knew any of it and if they heard it before the implications simply did not register. Every time I think about this subject something Ann Landers or Dear Abby published when I was a little girl comes to mind (this version borrowed from this post about Professor Erlinder:
“THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Those living in Germany during the time this was written about never saw it coming. They denied it when it was happening. Some still deny it now. When I was young I never understood that quote that “Those who refuse to study history are destined to repeat it”. I truly do now.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
It’s real censorship. Does it mean that we loose the last freedom Temple – blogs ?
I am agreed with “Gary from machinima”, we use CommentLuv and KeywordLuv at corporate blog and have no problem when need edit inserted links.
Thank you Anna for contributing to this very important discussion. In answer to you question, “Does it mean we lose the last freedom Temple – blogs” the answer is YES if we do nothing to spread the word and stop what is going on.
We must be willing to disable Akismet if that is what it takes to ensure we do not.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Local Search Directory Listings =-.
I have to agree with Paul Sylvester I hope that people are able to judge what is spam and what is not. Because sometimes those programs are not perfect. You have to wonder if some people are being reported as spam by Akismet that are not spamming and just are writing comments that they feel like writing. I believe in the system where people are able to report spam and not have a program do it for them.
I say we should Crowd source this so we can find out who are the spammers and who are truly using the comments for what they are supposed to be for!! This is Paul Sylvester, I just registered my account so I can have more of a choice with picking what I want to share!!
.-= techlinkblog´s featured blog ..Don’t Do business with: “Check Management Services [CMS]” (collection agency) =-.
James, there is no doubt that most people definition of spam is far too broad. Note the examples I used in this post – those are actual statements made directly to me.
One that really concerned me was a very well educated man who has a blog who felt that spam comments were any that linked to any site that was not related to his niche.
That is really scary. No matter what your niche and what business someone else has it is VERY likely that they have an interest in what you write about even if it has nothing to do with their business.
Anyone who understands the importance of link building knows that a wise blogger or business owner builds links whenever the opportunity is there – and we are giving them that opportunity using KeywordLuv – so why should those who are interested in what we write not read our posts, comment and also get a link?
It does not matter that they are not in “our business” nor does it matter what their business is. We are all very busy. We can only read so many blogs and we only have so much time for link building. Combining the two is the perfect solution.
Paul, I am glad you registered and know that in this blog all keywords that are not obscene or profane and are related to businesses of most all kinds are welcome. (Those not welcome already know who you are.)
One challenge is that the spammers know how to get around filters. They have tools that cloak their IPs so IP bans don’t work. They have ways to slightly change the wording of comments so they aren’t exactly the same each time.
Only those who do not spam for a living are unaware of what technology can and can not do. How many bloggers that you know have any idea that THEIR real comments are being flagged as spam?
Many bloggers are far too quick with the spam button. Some will even report any comment from anyone they don’t already know as spam! They truly do not realize the implications of their actions on those innocent commentators.
We must always remember that every person knows different things about each and every topic. Few know as much about technology as we do and they never will so we can not give them a weapon they don’t know how to use properly and not expect bad consequences.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
I agree with this. Not all people has the ability to switch their HATS into a level of professionals. I feel bad about those people who just want to show interest in Topics they want to learn/discuss.
I personally think this is just another scenario of “If it’s none of your business, then just sit there and listen.” pretty sad.
I guess it’s not easy to classify spam. I have keywordluv, commentluv and if I don’t like a particular site (because of it’s niche) I still approve the comment but edit out the URL. Akismet has twice blocked a buyer who wanted to ask the banner prize on one of my blogs, thankfully the buyer tried a whois and contacted me directly. Before I comment on a blog, I look carefully if the blog is approving any comments at all.
I see other spam protection plugins like wp-hashcash, wp-spamfree and bad behavior, I wonder if there more false positives in those systems.
Thank you for taking the time to comment Gary,
Thinking bloggers delink comments and delete those that are obviously spam or contain objectionable content but we do not report sincere commentators as spammers.
Many of the blogs I comment in use wp-spamfree and I truly dislike some aspects of how it works. When you enter a comment containing any word it doesn’t like you get told your comment is “spammy”.
If you’re lucky you can click back and edit the comment. If you’re not the comment disappears and I bet most commentators just “pick up their marbles and go home” when that happens. I have to REALLY want to comment to write a comment again.
That has trained me to always copy my comments before I hit submit. If I believe a site will not publish my opinion – like this comment I would have made about the Google MayDay Update that SEL refused to approve – I publish them at FriendFeed or StumbleUpon or here.
Some words WPSpamFree will not allow are marketing and business – words I often use because I collaborate with other blogs on how to grow businesses and Internet marketing strategies.
Thank you for mentioning the others. That gives me a place to start looking for an alternative.
For those who, like me, don’t know what Machinama is, here is Gary’s definition: “achinima is not just a realtime form of animation, it is the art of cinematography in a virtual environment.”
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Twitter Tools: Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts =-.
I do not spam blogs still they banned me once. It was not akismet problem but one good soul actually marked my serious comment as spam on his blog. Henceforth I was getting banned on some blogs until I contacted akismet support. They were pretty good to me and got me out of the blocked list 🙂
.-= Ajith Edassery´s featured blog ..MaxBlogPress Ninja Affiliate Plugin Review & $30 Discount Coupon =-.
Hello Ajith,
Please read the part of this post where I explained that bloggers have personally told me what THEY personally report as SPAM. It is impossible for any sincere, active commentator to NOT end up being reported as a spammer.
Before Akismet removed that test page I verified that I have been reported as a spammer many times for many different combinations of names and URLs for multiple different sites – mine and those I moderate for small businesses.
While some may not like my message what I write is certainly not truly spam. I never put advertisements in any site but I DO use relevant keywords in KeywordLuv blogs only. I have never hired anyone to leave links.
Every commentator is likely to get banned at some point. The problem is that the banning is invisible to most. How many hours will millions waste writing comments that disappear and never even know it? How many relationships will be damaged because the commentator falsely “assumes” that the blogger deleted their comments?
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Father’s Day Word of Mouth Gift Card Giveaway =-.
Interesting findings. I never mark anything for spam. I do have akismet and spamfree installed but if they don’t catch it, I let it go through.
.-= Mike Roosa´s featured blog ..Hitting The Snooze Button =-.
I wonder if It would help if she let everything through and have people report the spam messages, that might give Akesmit a chance to figure out what is truly spam and what is real!!
.-= Paul Sylvester´s featured blog ..Watch Doctor Who Season 5 Episode 7 : “Amy’s Choice” =-.
Hi Mike,
Objectionable, real spam still gets through Akismet. Lately I have had to manually moderate recently approved comments to catch them. I also regularly delete weak comments left by outsourced SEO types especially when they leave more than one in the same post.
I am more liberal on leaving comments than most because this is a teaching blog and if I just delete them they don’t learn anything. If I explain how the comment can be improved or why most bloggers would think it was spam they’ll get better.
Incoming links with appropriate anchor text is what helps blogs and small businesses to be found in the search results for keyword phrases that are highly relevant and important to them.
It is a good thing for us all to assist them in doing that. When their businesses succeed they have money to hire more people and buy from other small businesses and THAT is the key to improving our economy.
That is why we use KeywordLuv and CommentLuv and encourage bloggers to welcome commentators who have businessess.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
I would have to agree on that part. I am more strict when it comes to obvious spam and that is what annoys me. I have to moderate every comment because of the chance that there is one that is irrelevant and just tastes like spam. I am going to use Askismet the next few weeks to see if I am also getting the same problem as others. I have added the KeywordLuv Plugin also because I find that might encourage people to post more! Have you seen a difference in the amount of posting on your blog??
.-= techlinkblog´s featured blog ..Sometimes I don’t want to be Human but an Android! =-.
Like all useful tools, KeywordLuv is a double-edged sword. It definitely increases readers, subscribers and commentators from among those who understand the importance of link building.
It also attracts many commentators who write English poorly or are paid for link building who have no idea what they are doing. I do my best to assist everyone to understand the importance of link building and also how not to be a spammer.
My post about CommentLuv has some excellent advice for blog owners and commentators. Another is Tips for Leaving Comments That Don’t Get Deleted – Contributor or SPAMMER?.
Bloggers are welcome to link to those posts or use excerpts in their commenting policies if they wish. Everything I write is to spread awareness and others are welcome to use liberal excerpts and ideally to link to the rest for the few who want more details.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Father’s Day Word of Mouth Gift Card Giveaway =-.
Three items to add to this discussion:
1. Linda Christas College engages in deceptive practices, which may be why Akismet considers them spam. She and a colleague there once commented on my blog with specific verbiage, which I too had recovered from Akismet’s spam folder. But, I later learned from other bloggers who commented in response to Linda that she had written the same, exact comments on their blogs, too. I don’t need to tell you that a spammer’s characteristic is a duplicate comment in multiple blogs.
2. Akismet is not the only WordPress plugin for spam. There are many others. Bad Behavior, for instance.
3. How come your disclosure policy at the top of this page doesn’t include information about commenting and spam filtering?
.-= Ari Herzog´s featured blog ..How Would You Respond… If Prevented? =-.
Hello Ari,
While pasting a long message into multiple blogs instead of writing long, original comments each time is something that spammers do I would hardly call it “deceptive practices”.
Linda Cristas College recognized this issue long before I could confirm it. They are very concerned about censorship and as you can see by this post now that I have confirmed that it IS happening I am just as concerned as they are.
Yes, in frustration they have posted the same comment about this issue in multiple blogs and some bloggers first thought this was some con they were running. I assure you it is not. I have been testing this issue for a long time but only now confirmed it.
We have got to learn to discern the truth and not assume that if someone else says someone is a spammer or a liar they are. We must look at all the facts ourselves and determine what is REALLY happening.
I agree that Akismet is not the only spam plugin but it IS the one most used by bloggers and in business blogs. If their plugin causes comments to disappear they should TELL US that it does that. We should be able to opt out of that behavior. It should not quietly censor the blogging world. If you never knew it did that would YOU have figured this out for yourself?
I am unsure what you are expecting in my disclosure policy about commenting and spam filtering. Let me know and I will be happy to answer and update as needed.
Come back and read the reactions of bloggers in this post over time. I am willing to bet that none of them thought before they read this that real comments were disappearing from their blogs or that THEIR very real comments were being censored by Akismet.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
I find that Disqus does a really good job with comments and spam. Have you thought of using Disqus instead of WordPress in your wordpress blog??
http://disqus.com
.-= Paul Sylvester´s featured blog ..Watch Doctor Who Season 5 Episode 7 : “Amy’s Choice” =-.
Disqus and IntenseDebate both have other issues and many serious bloggers hate them both. Any system that forces you to try to log in wastes time and we have so much to accomplish and precious little to waste.
Most of us are firmly in the DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv camp and that is where we plan to stay. Hopefully someone who sees this will have or be willing to create an alternative plugin we can use to replace Akismet.
Most likely Akismet is functioning precisely as designed and they have no motivation to change it. Only a small percentage of thinkers will care and the masses will not ever realize what is going on.
[HINT for those reading this: If you understand what I write you ARE one of the few who think. Just wanted to let you know because often those with the most wisdom do not realize why they are “different”. It is because you are awake and paying attention!]
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
I just did a quick test of Disqus, and it failed to incorporate existing comments, even though it is supposed to do so. I followed the provided instructions to accomplish this.
@coffeefandrl I find Disqus takes an hour to two to incorporate your messages into their system. You just have to make sure to export your comments after the first install and wait about an hour or two then you should see all comments on disqus from your board!!
.-= Paul Sylvester´s featured blog ..Watch Doctor Who Season 5 Episode 7 : “Amy’s Choice” =-.
Thanks Paul for assisting Lane. I’m still not a fan of Disqus though. Anything that slows down my ability to get more done is not good for me.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Father’s Day Word of Mouth Gift Card Giveaway =-.
That’s appalling news you share in this post. I’m not optimistic of a good outcome unless the Akismet maintainers do something. I went to the test site, but there doesn’t seem to be anything to do there.
Hello Lane,
The problem is that few that are not very technical will understand the seriousness of this issue. On the test site you enter a comment using the name(s) and URL(s) you usually use when commenting and submit it.
If your comment appears that name and URL are NOT blocked by Akismet. If it does NOT appear that name and URL ARE being blocked by Akismet.
We can NOT tell using that test whether the comment is ending up in the SPAM folder or disappearing but if you have more than one blog you can test that.
Comment in a different blog using the name(s) and URL(s) that do not show visible comments on the Akismet site. When the comment doesn’t show up look for it in the spam folder. Most of the time it WILL be there but as of two days ago I definitely proved that sometimes the comments NEVER APPEAR IN SPAM.
That means that the blogger never sees them. They can not every approve them and get you unbanned. Every comment you make using that name or URL is simply invisible in EVERY SINGLE BLOG that uses AKISMET – unless you figure it out and manage to get Akismet to unban it.
Most will never realize what is going on so I need everyone to spread this post far and wide. Those that do often have difficulty getting unbanned.
The Twitter ID that appears here is invalid. Next time you comment if you enter a valid Twitter ID it should update all the comments across the blog.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Freelancers: How to Get More Freelance Work =-.
Thanks for the reply. It’s obvious you’re seeing something different from me at that test site. The URL is strange: http://podz.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/moved/#comment-3373 I clicked the Home link, and it said comments were off.
Hi Lane,
It appears that my post got Akismet’s attention. What was on that page when I wrote this post has been removed and I now see that the two comments I preserved in this post say “Your comment is awaiting moderation. ”
Last night they were visible and anyone could test comments there. As of yet I do not see a public response from Akismet. Surely they already know how their plugin works and could clarify if they wish.
I added screen captures of cache showing what WAS there when I wrote the post and what I see now to the bottom of this post so everyone can see clearly what has changed.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
I’m not sure what is supposed to happen at the URL you link to?
http://podz.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/moved/#comment-3373
All I’m getting on that page is a post titled “Akismet love” with content “Please contact Akismet Support for help with Akismet.” – below it there’s a text saying “Checking…” and nothing never happens. No way of submitting a comment and no comments to read, either.
I personally have never experienced Akismet deleting any comments without sending them to spam first, but it’s normal behavior for spam filters to delete what they believe are “too much spam”, so to speak. I’ve seen this happen with Apple’s MobileMe several times. I also think I tried it with Gmail even. Most goes to the spam folder but if the mail is just too spammy then it doesn’t even get to you – I would imagine it’s the same with Akismet.
Still, I’d prefer to have Akismet eat a non-spam comment every now and then, than having to manually moderate THOUSANDS of comments each month.
But we’ll see if Akismet goes public with information regarding these allegations.
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s featured blog ..May 2010: Blog Summary & Income Report =-.
LOL It appears that I have gotten Akismet’s attention and that page has changed. We can no longer use it to test whether our comments are banned or not.
I tested in multiple blogs every time Dr. Ann or one of her students complained that they were being censored and every time the comments they entered or that I entered using their information were in SPAM.
Then several days ago I saw comments disappear. Comments I WROTE that had no spam in them. I wrote them using the information for one blog submitted to another blog I moderate. The comment disappeared and NEVER showed up. I waited 48 hours. It still didn’t show up.
The danger of letting “Akismet eat a non-spam comment every now and then” is that we don’t know how many comments it will eat. What if it decides to “eat” every comment related to freedom or privacy or a particular race, religion, country or historical incident or anything related to small or online businesses or YOU?
When censorship is invisible that is when it is the most dangerous to our liberties. While I truly dread how much SPAM I would get and having to pre-moderate every comment in this blog I will if I have to in order to make sure every person has a voice online – at least here.
I delete 150+ comments every day that Akismet puts in spam. Before I do I “rescue” at least 3-4 real comments that are genuine, long and from real commentators.
Now that I know Akismet causes comments to disappear I have no way of knowing how many never end up in spam. It could be dozens or hundreds or even thousands and I do not look forward to manually managing them but I will if I find no alternative to Akismet’s censorship.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Twitter Tools: Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts =-.
You wrote:
“The danger of letting “Akismet eat a non-spam comment every now and then” is that we don’t know how many comments it will eat. What if it decides to “eat” every comment related to freedom or privacy or a particular race, religion, country or historical incident or anything related to small or online businesses or YOU? ”
– I still don’t think you can use the word “censorship” in this case. It’s SPAM FILTERING and it usually does a good job at it, but like with e-mail spam filters, it sometimes fails 🙂
Of course it’s never nice to be caught up in a spam filter. Trust me, I know. I work in a business where we legit use words such as “free” and “money” in newsletters etc., it’s a hassle each time and also just normal e-mails between clients/providers can get caught in spam filters if their spam score is too high. It’s the price to pay for not having to manually process spam mails/comments.
Until better comes along, I’m afraid we just have to live with it or start to manually moderate. Or, of course, switch to a different plugin (in case of wordpress).
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s featured blog ..May 2010: Blog Summary & Income Report =-.
If Akismet, Google and other huge sites decide to “filter” specific people, topics and information that IS censorship. The masses will never know the difference or if they notice they will likely do nothing. It is up to those who see where the path ahead goes to say something about it WHILE WE STILL CAN.
A filter is simply a tool used by a computer to censor specific actions, words and information.
Those who doubt what I say might read this about How Google Censorship Works.
How long will we keep thinking we pay no price for all those Free Google services?
When we are on the moderating end the price seems small – when we are the one whose voice is gone will it still seem worth it?
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Affiliate Tips Tuesday: How to Deep Link ShareASale =-.
I still think you’re calling the “censorship” gun wayyyyy too early in this case.
I have tested this myself several times and if you send a “spammy enough” e-mail to member of Apple’s MobileMe service (or hotmail for that matter), the mail NEVER gets to the user, not even in the spam folder. It’s rejected at the door step, so to speak.
Actually, with Hotmail, they can even ban your SMTP server on its IP address for a short while, meaning all other mails going to Hotmail from that mailserver for the next XX minutes (or hours?) will be rejected, never received.
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s featured blog ..May 2010: Blog Summary & Income Report =-.
Hello Klaus,
A system that “filters” specific people, opinions and subjects IS censorship. Here is a decent definition of censorship.
That filtering can be good when it filters out what we find objectionable. The slippery slope is defining what is objectionable.
Kristi and I both find profanity and over-sexualized content unsuitable to for mixed audiences – and when I was younger what is now shown nightly during Prime Time Television would have only been seen in what are euphemistically called “Gentlemen’s Clubs”.
I have no doubt that there are many who would love to make everything I write disappear because it conflicts with their agenda and they DO have the power to do that right now.
The only thing that will keep them from using that power is the outcry from many if this blog, my comments elsewhere or even my physical person disappear. I am counting on my visibility online and allow my actions to be guided by Divine Inspiration.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
@growmap, I just submitted a comment that I think went into your spam folder – it doesn’t appear here or as “in moderation”. Please have a look.
I suppose that proves my point, in that particular post 🙂
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s featured blog ..iPhone 4 Wrapup from WWDC ‘10 San Francisco =-.
Hi Klaus,
Akismet DOES delete comments we never see IF we select a particular option in the configuration – an option that bloggers who were using it did not realize did what it does.
Jump to this comment for a better explanation of when Akismet deletes comments.
There are other comments in this post that speak to the reason for the white page. Alex from Automattic who is apparently the public spokesperson for Akismet answered Kristi’s comment where she said, “I used their same information on my blog using Akismet, and then got the white screen when submitting it.” with “It sounds like you’ve checked the box that says “Automatically discard spam comments on posts older than a month.”
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Father’s Day Word of Mouth Gift Card Giveaway =-.
Gail, this sounds like a very serious problem. I use Akismet and it blocks most spam. I write six blogs, so I do get a lot of comment spam, including some that gets through the filter. I probably mark 5-10 comments a day as spam, but I’m always careful when I do so because I know how powerful that is.
I’ve also found that certain words trigger a block of my comment. “Selling” seems to be one of them.
I like your idea to try to get Akismet to be more responsive and responsible with the power they have. I don’t think it’s likely that an alternative will displace Akismet. They seem like the Facebook of spam blockers, but I don’t know the actual numbers for the different anti-spam plugins.
.-= John Soares @ Information Products´s featured blog ..Second Twitter Account? Your Help Needed… =-.
Hi John,
Akismet is ubiquitous in WordPress blogs but that does not mean they can do whatever they want and we should condone and allow it. You are wise enough to know the power of marking others as spam but most new bloggers don’t.
Even many experienced bloggers see spam as anything they are not interested in seeing and click spam on tons of legitimate comments. I have no doubt that selling, marketing and business are all black-listed in many spam filters but what if our blogs are ABOUT marketing and the solution for our economic woes is supporting small businesses – which I firmly believe it IS?
In the past whoever controlled the media controlled the buying habits of the masses. The same people control the media, multi-national “Big Brands” Corporations and Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and tons of Web sites beholden to them.
We have a choice to make. We either let them take back the power to reach each other or we consciously stop giving them that power. Please read the comment I wrote that links to Google’s vision for cleaning up the Internet cesspool for more details.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..The Truth About Buying UPC Codes =-.
Gail, I agree with you. This is a scary situation.
Hopefully the Akismet folks will listen to reason. I also hope they don’t have a one-strike-and-your-out policy. I think a commentator should have to have certain number of spam designations before they are actually considered spam.
.-= John Soares @ Information Products´s featured blog ..Second Twitter Account? Your Help Needed… =-.
I don’t know how many it takes to get in the spam filter, but it takes a LOT to get out of it. I have dedicatedly marked commenters in my spam folder as safe, and it has taken months for one or two of them to get out of that area.
.-= Kristi@Blogging Tips´s featured blog ..Simple On-Page Tag Optimization for Bloggers =-.
Akismet pulling that test page and their silence is deafening. I know that if we keep marking a particular commentators comments as not-spam that they will stop going in the spam folder eventually, but if they never even get to the spam folder what hope do they have then?
I have never seen anyone theorize how many “spam” hits it takes to get a URL or name relegated to spam and they are never going to tell us because telling real commentators also tells the spammers and the unethical competitors who would love to keep others from using comment link-building.
The problem with that “we can’t tell you because then the bad guys will know” idea is that they’re going to figure it out anyway so why not tell the innocent who aren’t nearly as likely to have any idea they are being affected?
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..DoFollow CommentLuv KeywordLuv Community =-.
I am not sure. Is it a mistake or other problems that lead to this error?
Generally speaking, Akismet is a good tool to help bloggers to stop those spam actions. Without this plugin, I think many blogger will need to spend lots of time on deleting the spam comments.
.-= Duia Chi´s featured blog ..Choosing Web Hosting Service – 3 Factors You should Consider =-.
You are correct Duia Chi,
If we disable Akismet we WILL have to either find an alternative or spend a lot of time moderating comments and manually deleting spam. That is a small price to pay for freedom of speech.
In this excellent post in the ConsumerCal blog post about giving up our freedoms, they quote Bruce Schneier as saying: “The famous quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin reads: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” It’s also true that those who would give up privacy for security are likely to end up with neither.”
We can NOT afford to give up any more privacy or freedoms or the illusion of freedom we have here will become all too obvious even to the sleeping.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Father’s Day Word of Mouth Gift Card Giveaway =-.
Akismet is doing a good job for wp users. I am using spam karma now. Going to use akismet.
.-= Katy Caroline Designs´s featured blog ..The Shack =-.
That all depends on what your goals are and whether you care that comments in your blog are being censored by a third party you have no control over.
Yes, I have appreciated what Akismet has done to keep the real spam from going live instantly on this and all my other blogs and I don’t even have a huge issue with it putting comments it thinks are spam in a spam section even though I know many bloggers are not reviewing them there so they are almost as good as dead in many blogs.
What I can not condone is having them simply disappear into thin air. Hobby bloggers may not get too concerned over that but if you are serious about your blog that is totally unacceptable.
Businesses that have blogs and use Akismet are losing leads and sales because of this. No wonder Dr. Ann at Linda Christas College is so concerned about this. They are an educational site – they can not have their students and potential students being censored.
This blog provides a valuable service to businesses that can least afford advice that is proven to work. I do not want ANY business to be unable to ask their questions and get answers here.
Censorship is DANGEROUS to our Society especially when it is invisible. Any tactic that creates the equivalent of Internet Censorship will have chilling effects on us all.
The sad thing is only the few will ever recognize the problem or understand the importance – especially if widespread online censorship ends up making it harder for us to ever find those who would warn us about it!
It has only been a couple of generations since most Americans owned their own farms and businesses and understood that to survive and grow they had to be able to reach new customers.
In years past only those who had deep pockets and could buy advertising could thrive. The Internet changed that and I am the first to admit that many do not understand the difference between spamming and building relationships but that does NOT mean we should eliminate what could allow us to put our economy back on firm footing by Supporting Small Businesses.
This is far too important to keeping a roof over people’s heads and food on their tables and that is EVERYWHERE not just in the U.S.!
Word of Mouth can change the road we are on that leads to a future far worse than the Great Depression but ONLY if we do our part. More details in the post I’ve featured in CommentLuv about Word of Mouth. That post contains statistics that clearly show why the economy is NOT going to recover if we don’t change our ways. Please read it.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Word of Mouth Marketing =-.
It’s not censorship. That’s something the whole Dr Ann-gang has going on. So I probably wouldn’t start talking about how long time it’s been since the Americans owned their own farms and business 🙂
As I said, it’s not censorship. It’s spam filtering.
It’s your own decision if you want to ‘outsource’ your spam filtering to Akismet or not. It’s the same as e-mail spam filters. We all know (or we should know) that there are chances e-mail get caught up in spam filters and many spam filters will even remove the mail (not even sending it to your spam folder) if the spam score is too high. I don’t see why Akismet should be any different on that part (but the option would be nice).
.-= Klaus @ TechPatio´s featured blog ..May 2010: Blog Summary & Income Report =-.
Hi Klaus,
Although Dr. Ann is the one who first raised this issue they have little to do with my writing this post. It contains information about comments I wrote that never made it into the blog.
It also has a comment from Kristi about specifically what she sees when comments don’t go through. Her description of the blank white page is clear and accurate.
The fact that email spam filters introduce a similar challenge to getting email delivered is not a good reason to have comment filters doing the same thing.
Few Internet users realize that their ISPs are trashing a large percentage of their emails including important email from clients in their quest to eliminate or at least control the massive quantities of spam.
That is why I tell people they MUST use closed loop communication. Do NOT assume that the recipient received the email you sent or the chat message or the Tweet until they TELL you they did. None of these methods is 100% reliable.
In the case of both email and blog comment filtering, the goal should be to remove REAL spam and not emails or comments we want to see. How much “collateral false positive damage” is acceptable depends on your point of view.
Those who are sick of spam may think it is better to have some false positives than it is to let some spam slide through while those who are trying to contact you or someone who invested much time in writing a thoughtful comment about your post will be very unhappy to find their comment disappears.
Even worse is that many bloggers don’t test their comment forms so using them doesn’t always work and emailing you either using an address you provide or via the contact form may not make it through your email spam filter.
Bloggers need to make sure their contact form accepts URLs – many do not and that means anyone who tries to contact you who can’t figure that out on their own (most average Internet users) will not be able to get a message to you except in your comments.
I agree with Kristi that it is strange that really obvious spam gets through over and over but real comments do not. This IS an indication that whatever algorithm Akismet is using could stand improving. Every day I get dozens of pharmaceutical related spam messages – how do THOSE get through?
I want to say in defense of anyone working to perfect a spam filter that it is definitely NOT a simple task. The spammers have great motivation to find a way to get their messages through because there is so much money in what they promote.
I did not write this post lightly – I have done a lot of research to determine why comments go missing and I have defended the use of Akismet to Dr. Ann and others because it DOES provide a very valuable, time-saving service to bloggers.
Without a good anti-spam plugin pre-moderating every comment would HAVE to be done or our blogs will be flooded with objectionable comment spam containing non-G-rated words and subjects.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Local Search Directory Listings =-.
I used to allow Dr. Ann’s comments until she started using my comments section to as a soapbox about how Akismet was censoring her students. I say the exact same comments on many other blogs. It’s no wonder some people got upset and started spamming her comments.
She would have been far better off using the content form.
.-= Sire@The Knight In Shining Armor´s featured blog ..The Importance Of Honesty In Blogging =-.
Hi Sire,
I did express to Ann that commenting in blogs about the Akismet problem was probably not the best way to do that; however, we can not argue with the fact that it did eventually get results.
.-= Gail @ CommentLuv´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.