For last couple of weeks, the ChurchMag server has been rebooted due to CPU overload.
The reason?
Spam.
For years, now, ChurchMag snagged between 150 to 300 spam messages … per day.
You can imagine the strain it puts on a server.
Since acquiring ChurchMag, things like server maintenance automatically fell into my lap. It reminds me of when my wife and I bought our first house and one of the appliances stopped working. My wife, Anne, looked at me and said,
“Time to call the Land Lord.”
Ha! As I struggle through the details of owning and operating a professional blog, I’ve had the same feeling.
Attack!
I was faced with a decision this past weekend. Either upgrade my server to handle the onslaught of spam, or add some sort of captcha.
I hate captcha.
I tried integrating Jetpack comments, but I need to hop on a new theme before that will work. The way Jetpack works, it keeps the spambots down, as you are required to initiate some JavaScript action when you want to leave a comment.
So what to do?
3rd Party Comment System
I considered a 3rd party comment system, but I don’t like them. The comments on ChurchMag should be on ChurchMag, not lost inside some sort of 3rd party comment system that requires additional steps for readers to leave a comment. I understand why sites like Mashable and Techcrunch need these, as the number of comments they receive everyday needs more automation. ChurchMag is an in-between size blog and I would rather keep my comments WordPress native.
So, I began looking into a solution that was not traditional captcha, but remained native to WordPress.
Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin (GASP)
For the time being, I’ve opted to use the Growmap Anit Spambot Plugin. For two days, now, I am happy to say that my spam comments have been minimal. Going from 150-300 spam comments to only one or two, is sizable! Not only will this lower my CPU usage, but I will be saving myself about an hour a week!
Here’s how it works:
Growmap adds a simple checkbox to your comments:
Here’s the admin, so you can see what your options are:
[Click for Larger]
Nice, right?
Conclusion
I would like my final solution for fighting spambots to be the Jetpack comment system. I’ll eventually get to that as ChurchMag makes the appropriate theme upgrades, but in the meantime, I am really happy with how GASP is working. Asking you to check one box before submitting your comment isn’t too hard or complicated and the reduction in spam has been phenomenal.
To learn more about GASP and to download it, visit the WordPress Plugin Directory.
How do you fight those pesky spambots?
[Image via My Island Tribe]
Jimmy says
I’ll be honest, the WordPress comment system is was keeps me and probably others from making more comments on Church Mag. I don’t like filling out my name and email every time. The comment system is my least favorite thing about this site.
My favorite commenting system is Disqus. Livefyre is ugly and messy IMO and I’ve made 0 comments on Techcrunch since they switched. I don’t mind the Facebook comments, but I understand not everyone has a Facebook or wants to use it for commenting.
WIth Disqus, I like that you can control the comments in the WordPress system and they are still stored in your WordPress database, so if you have to change systems for whatever reason, the comments aren’t lost.
Eric Dye says
Don’t you have to sign-in with Disqus?
Jimmy says
There are multiple sign in options including the proprietary Disqus account, or you can leave a comment as a guest. I’m usually signed in to Disqus or Facebook or Twitter…
It is just a smoother experience in my opinion.
Eric Dye says
Cool. I’m wondering if the move to Jetpack comments will be better. If not, I may have to give Disqus a look …
Adam Shields says
That is a pretty elegant solution. Not a lot of effort, far easier than captcha and still will stop most spam.
Eric Dye says
I thought so. And the decrease in spam has been profound. I actually had “dealing with spam” on my Wunderlist! It took time to scroll through those hundreds of daily spam comments. Not anymore! 😀
Daniel Berman says
Fighting spammers and hackers is not fun. I have seen stats personally born out that more than half your site visitors can be bots in certain cases.
Have you tried ZB Block – http://spambotsecurity.com which can nail spammers before WordPress even loads? I know you guys run a heavy duty CDN to keep things running here, but you might also check out Incapsula – http://www.incapsula.com.
Eric Dye says
I like the idea of killing spam before it hits WP. I’ll check it out–thanks man!
Chris Gambill says
Thanks for the info. So, are you also still using Askimet in conjunction with GASP, or is this the only anti-spam barrier running on ChurchMag?
Eric Dye says
I’m running both, as Askimet will keep any bad pingbacks in cue as well as a few manual SPAM comments (although rare).
Govind says
Have you considered using a honeypot-based approach? Akismet is effective but not 100% so 🙁 My websites too are plagued by comment spam and while re-captcha is quite effective (as deployed to some of my client sites) it’s still a pain a read/understand for most folks 🙂 There’s a bot blocking plugin (see wpbeginner dot com/plugins/how-to-block-spam-comment-bots-in-wordpress-with-honeypot/) [aka something to try next]
Eric Dye says
I’ve been really pleased with this new plugin. 🙂