The Internet is a great way to share your information with others, whether it be useful information related to computers or health, or the less-useful specialized information like training poodles (of which, I have no fear in offending anyone who does so..) Unfortunately, there are aspects of the Internet that can make it less pleasant and very difficult to share information. Spam, which seems to almost get into your websites from the inside. In this article, I will talk tools that assist with stopping spam of content management systems: Spambots, email harvesters, and other wrongdoers.
Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress, SMF Forums, YaBB, and Joomla (amongst many) are prone to spam more than hand-coded websites because they are universally the same across the Internet. Most spam on a blogging system occurs in comments, and most spam on a forum occurs either through i. guest posting or ii. registration and then posting.
There are a few tools available to prevent spam which I personally use on this website.
At the time of posting, I am and have been using Akismet, NoSpamNX, and CloudFlare. Zero spam gets through to the site. A majority of spammers (about 3,000 a month) are blocked at the DNS level by CloudFlare — these spammers do not even see the site, it 100% blocks them with no effort on my servers part. The rest is normally caught by NoSpamNX. I don’t have a log that shows how many NoSpamNX blocks, as it simply does not even let spammers post. Akismet caught the rest, about 14 last month, which is fairly average.
Akismet : WordPress, Drupal, phpBB, Nucleus, PostNuke, Joomla, and SMF. Requires free API key for large sites, non-free for large sites. Akismet blocks at a very professional level, and deals with spam extremely well. http://akismet.com/
NoSpamNX: NoSpamNX is exclusively WordPress. Free for all sites. (Donations accepted)
This is a very handy plugin that seems to just catch spam. It does exactly what it is supposed to with no extra flares, bells, or whistles. http://www.svenkubiak.de/nospamnx-en/
CloudFlare: Free, with paid version available. CloudFlare is unique, as it stops spam from reaching your site at the DNS level. It also offers many many other services for free, for example: Caching your website when it goes offline so people can still access it, speeding up loading time (using cache), and offering many utilities. CloudFlare also offers stats and reports at a DNS level, recording even more visitors and information than what Google Analytics can. https://www.cloudflare.com/ (CloudFlare and HTTP:BL do not mix. Don’t use together)
HTTP:BL (Project Honeypot): Free. Operates at various levels — it can cover Apache 2.0 completely (with complicated setup), or easily operate through plugins for MediaWiki, Drupal, ExpressionEngine, Joomla, phpBB, WordPress, “others”, bbPress, CakePHP, Pivot, Apache with Python, Roxen, SMF, SPIP, TYPO3, Zenphoto, Zope, and easily interergrated into PHP and Perl applications.
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Black List is offered through projecthoneypot.org – a leader in community-run computer-automated spam blocking. Project Honeypot’s services are free, though they do request that you set up a honeypot on their website to attract spammers. This does not use hardly any resources. Do not use HTTP:BL with Cloudflare. http://www.projecthoneypot.org/services_overview.php
About Jesse Zylstra
Hey! My name is Jesse Zylstra, and I am the administrator of this website. I used to write about free software and programs, online web applications, and new technology -- especially open-source. Now I just write udder nonsense. I also play pipe organ, which I'm told is a fun and interesting fact about me.
In the past, I studied network administration. Now I've been trying to pursue a real fake bachelors degree for the last, oh, 10 years or so.
Stop all spam to your website, blog, or forum
The Internet is a great way to share your information with others, whether it be useful information related to computers or health, or the less-useful specialized information like training poodles (of which, I have no fear in offending anyone who does so..) Unfortunately, there are aspects of the Internet that can make it less pleasant and very difficult to share information. Spam, which seems to almost get into your websites from the inside. In this article, I will talk tools that assist with stopping spam of content management systems: Spambots, email harvesters, and other wrongdoers.
Content Management Systems (CMS) like WordPress, SMF Forums, YaBB, and Joomla (amongst many) are prone to spam more than hand-coded websites because they are universally the same across the Internet. Most spam on a blogging system occurs in comments, and most spam on a forum occurs either through i. guest posting or ii. registration and then posting.
There are a few tools available to prevent spam which I personally use on this website.
At the time of posting, I am and have been using Akismet, NoSpamNX, and CloudFlare. Zero spam gets through to the site. A majority of spammers (about 3,000 a month) are blocked at the DNS level by CloudFlare — these spammers do not even see the site, it 100% blocks them with no effort on my servers part. The rest is normally caught by NoSpamNX. I don’t have a log that shows how many NoSpamNX blocks, as it simply does not even let spammers post. Akismet caught the rest, about 14 last month, which is fairly average.
Akismet : WordPress, Drupal, phpBB, Nucleus, PostNuke, Joomla, and SMF. Requires free API key for large sites, non-free for large sites. Akismet blocks at a very professional level, and deals with spam extremely well. http://akismet.com/
NoSpamNX: NoSpamNX is exclusively WordPress. Free for all sites. (Donations accepted)
This is a very handy plugin that seems to just catch spam. It does exactly what it is supposed to with no extra flares, bells, or whistles. http://www.svenkubiak.de/nospamnx-en/
CloudFlare: Free, with paid version available. CloudFlare is unique, as it stops spam from reaching your site at the DNS level. It also offers many many other services for free, for example: Caching your website when it goes offline so people can still access it, speeding up loading time (using cache), and offering many utilities. CloudFlare also offers stats and reports at a DNS level, recording even more visitors and information than what Google Analytics can. https://www.cloudflare.com/ (CloudFlare and HTTP:BL do not mix. Don’t use together)
HTTP:BL (Project Honeypot): Free. Operates at various levels — it can cover Apache 2.0 completely (with complicated setup), or easily operate through plugins for MediaWiki, Drupal, ExpressionEngine, Joomla, phpBB, WordPress, “others”, bbPress, CakePHP, Pivot, Apache with Python, Roxen, SMF, SPIP, TYPO3, Zenphoto, Zope, and easily interergrated into PHP and Perl applications.
Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Black List is offered through projecthoneypot.org – a leader in community-run computer-automated spam blocking. Project Honeypot’s services are free, though they do request that you set up a honeypot on their website to attract spammers. This does not use hardly any resources. Do not use HTTP:BL with Cloudflare. http://www.projecthoneypot.org/services_overview.php
About Jesse Zylstra
Hey! My name is Jesse Zylstra, and I am the administrator of this website. I used to write about free software and programs, online web applications, and new technology -- especially open-source. Now I just write udder nonsense. I also play pipe organ, which I'm told is a fun and interesting fact about me. In the past, I studied network administration. Now I've been trying to pursue a real fake bachelors degree for the last, oh, 10 years or so.