Dealing With Comment Spam

Comment spam is one of those problems that isn't likely to disappear anytime soon.

It's a pity, but it's just one of those things you have to deal with.

So how can you deal with it?

The most obvious methods would be to configure and use plugins like Akismet or TypePad Antispam.

Both systems are available for most of the common blogging platforms and can even be used with other web based software such as VBulletin.

Unfortunately neither system is perfect.

In some cases you will find that you still get a lot of junk that makes its way into your moderation queue or worse still, valid comments get marked as spam and you simply don't see them.

If your blog is under constant attack by automated comment spam bots two things can easily happen:

1. Your site can become sluggish, as the amount of traffic hitting the comment form will have a negative impact
2. You will still have to check the suspected spam queue, so if it's particularly large you will probably overlook valid comments

Other methods that people like to employ involve checking the UserAgent of the commenter ie. checking to see if it is really a human or not. Of course that also adds to the overhead.

One method that I've found extremely helpful is to simply close comments on entries after a certain period has elapsed. So instead of leaving comments on posts open indefinitely I might choose to close them 30, 60 or 120 days later. It may not be ideal, but it certainly helps mitigate the nasty side-effects of spammers.

What do you do?