How to clean your weblog of spam
Step 1: Assess the problem. In the case of Nerf-Coated World, I had about 18,500 comments over the course of the last two years. 15,000 of these came in the last two months. How many of these were legit? Ah, suspense.
Step 2: Shut it off! When you're on the spammers' list, you should expect a steady stream of junk to come in as long as you leave the door open. It's not exactly easy to bail out the filth and clean up the joint if you don't first shut down the broken sewer pipes.
Step 3: Clean it up! I went through the database. I got rid of any post -- and any poster -- that contained "Viagra" or "Online Poker" or "Cialis". Trust me when I say, these guys get creative. And NASTY. And because they're so persistent (think constantly mutating cockroaches), they had come up with probably every spam marketing product in every combination and misspelling you can think of.
I also found it handy to search for spammers who'd left a large number of comments. One computer was responsible for over 1100 pieces of junk cluttering up my blog. Others, 400, 250, 125, on down to the dozens. These guys use multiple computers from multiple IP's to do their nasty sinful business. Weeds, I tell you. They spring up anywhere you aren't actively spraying.
After the Great Culling of Late Aught-Four, there remained, of the original 18,000 comments: about 400. And that'll drop a bit when I pick 'em over with a fine tooth comb to see which ones are illegit.
Step 4: Install anti-spam techniques. This is one area where I didn't like the available solutions. And unfortunately, Movable Type is a little schizo right now -- you have to program in two languages to get anything done on that platform right now, and sadly, some of the best anti-spam measures haven't been made available for the configuration I'm running here. I'll spare ye the technical details.
In the end, I decided on doing one main thing to turn the spammers away. It's pretty low-tech, but it should work as long as they aren't too determined. What I hope is that they'll forget about this little blog and invest their time and computing resources elsewhere.
We'll see how persistent those cockroaches are.
Meanwhile, comments are back up. Post 'til your hearts are content. Or even over-full with joy, whatever works for you.
Posted by Matt at December 30, 2004 3:27 PM
