DummySpots.com

Comment spam is like the mosquitos down here in Louisiana- even a few are a major PITA, but once they locate you (your blog has been around a while and/or gets some traffic), you can get swarmed to the point where you have to go inside and shut the door (i.e. disable comments) in order to keep from being eaten alive.

For bloggers wanting to allow legitimate commenters unfettered access, the Dynamic Duo of Akismet and Comment Timeout have proven to be the “mosquito net and Deep Woods OFF” combination we’ve needed.

I’ve used Akismet for about 6 or 8 months now, and it’s truly a lifesaver, as it can separate “real” comments from spam with amazing accuracy, allowing real people to post on your site, and segregating the trash to be reviewed/deleted by you behind the scenes at your convenience.

However, during some of those periods where the comment spams “swarm” (hit your site by the hundreds or thousands), it becomes very difficult to review them all, and we bloggers usually end up clicking “Delete All” to be done with it. Many of us would prefer to review the spam queue, just in case a legitimate comment got tagged (very rare, but it happens).

Adding Comment Timeout reduces the overall number of trash comments by about 90%, and since I added it (so far at least), I have only a few spam comments a day to review and delete- takes all of 5 seconds or so.

The next step would be to add a verification word/number for commenters. I’ve not seen that as much of an inconvenience when commenting on others’ sites, and I wouldn’t hesitate to add it if necessary to preserve my readers’ ability to comment on mine.

But at this point, Akismet and Comment Timeout are doing the job nicely.