Spammers are annoying, but thanks to technology we’ve got great tools like Akismet to keep most of them at bay. Furthermore, I’ve realized spammers can be a great way to earn passive income!
From a spammer’s point of view, if they can send out 1 million spam messages and just get 1% to go through due to an unsuspecting blogger or a hole in the spam protector, then the spammer is doing his job. 1% of 1 million is still 10,000 spam messages let loose in the world!
The Feds have cracked down on text spammers, blog spammers, and e-mail spammers over the years with increasing force. I remember one AOL spammer seven years ago facing 11 years in prison. On the fine side, each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000. See the FTC website for more. Being a professional spammer is not what you want to do for a living.
RECOMMENDED ANTI-SPAM PLUGINS
I recommend everybody install two anti-spam plugins: 1) Akismet and 2) Growmap Anti Spambot. Growmap is the plugin where the user has to check the box to make sure the comment goes through. Easy peasy. I can’t stand the CAPTCHA tool which forces you to copy some hard to read word.
The more you make your readers jump through hoops, the less they will comment. Make it easy for them to communicate. The comment system on WordPress is one of the main reasons why folks who use Blogger should switch. Blogger’s comment system is cumbersome.
Once you’ve got Akismet and Growmap Anti Spambot installed, you’re good to go for 99% of all your spam issues. But I recently found another issue I found amusing and sad which I want to address.
DEALING WITH IMPERSONATOR SPAM
Most spam is automated through a system. There’s no possible way a human being could send out millions of mindless spam individually. To do so would be the world’s biggest waste of time. But there are some who love wasting time.
There may be a point where some loser wants to impersonate you to sully your reputation on your own site. This is what recently happened to me as someone used my name, e-mail, and URL to respond to readers on FS as me. His words were unkind and belligerent.
He literally wrote over 200 individual impersonator comments on my site of which 20 got through. I’m sad that someone has so much time to waste rather than go out enjoy life like I was doing when he was spamming. He literally had to type in a different name and e-mail for each of his spam comments. So how did his spam get through Akismet and Growmap? Let me tell you how.
The first thing to realize is that Akismet does NOT keep my comments in spam folder because I’ve never marked my own comments as spam. I’m auto approved. What the impersonator first did was slip in an innocent comment in an old post under my name that I wouldn’t notice. After he saw that comment go through, he ramped up the negative spam. Obviously I deleted everything after seeing it and he laid low for a day.
Then the impersonator left an innocent comment using another name which I mistakenly approved. He spent time addressing the subject of the post and leaving a thoughtful comment. And once that comment was approved, he then changed his tone and used my name and other names to manually spam another 15 comments. I deleted everything once again.
By this time I was highly intrigued that someone would spend so much energy and time to impersonate me and spam my site. I was hiking with my friends when this latest episode was going on so I asked them to take a water break with me as I dealt with the situation in under a minute.
Here’s how:
1) Go to Dashboard –> Settings –> Discussion
2) Scroll down to the box that says “Comment Moderation”
3) Input all the IP addresses the spammer has used
4) Input your own name / handle
5) Click Save Changes
6) Input the spammer’s IP address in the comment search field and mark as spam and then delete all comments to make sure you didn’t miss any comments that already went through.
7) Add the IP addresses to your Firewall if you no longer want to earn passive income from the spammer.
I finished off the eight mile hike with my friends and checked my spam comments when I got home. Voila! Over 150 comments sat in the spam folder from the impersonator at the IP address 91.233.249.50 and 91.233.249.51. The guy literally typed over 150 different comments with different names and e-mail addresses over the next several hours while I was hiking. The comments are real comments because many of them tried to address a post, say something bad, or say something good to trick me into approving.
EMBRACE SPAM TO GROW YOUR SITE
If you actually get a human spammer or impersonator, it’s time to go out and celebrate! You’ve successfully rattled someone’s cage and got someone to spread the word about your site, boost your traffic and earn more ad revenue based on CPM, and maybe even CPC. The spammer will proceed to read everything you write and also read all your archives because they’re obsessed. Once you’ve created a system where even your enemies can’t help but come back to read what you write every time you post, you know you’re making a difference and growing.
What about getting back at them? There’s no need to waste your time on retribution because technology is doing all the work for you. All their angst and time wasted on you is retribution enough because you know that means they’re not spending time with a loved one, building a business, or enjoying life. Let them go backwards while you keep going forward.
All you’ve got to do is implement my anti-spam techniques and you won’t have to do much of anything afterward. If you’d like, keep a record of his spam by taking snapshots because you’ll get to fine him $16,000 for each spam and maybe even more for impersonation if you decide to take things a step further. My spammer has racked up penalties of close to $5 million while he wastes his life away. How cool is that? Happy blogging!
Bloggers, have you ever had a manual spammer or impersonator? How did you deal with him or her?
Regards,
Sam
Thank you for the tip on Growmap. I have been wondering which plugin to use. I am stunned by the amount of spam and they just keep getting smarter to defeat the anti-spam measures. If spam people put as much effort into a good cause they probably would have cured cancer or ended hunger or something. sigh.
It is interesting how folks would rather choose the dark side vs the bright side. It’s usually the case of laziness and finding the short cut until they get squashed. Much of SEO is like this. Instead of just writing helpful or entertaining articles, folks try to overly game the system.
Oh man, that’s nuts. I wonder how old spammers like that guy actually are. He sounds like a 13 year old. But maybe he’s 23 or 33 ha which would be even sadder.
I don’t understand why some people are so immature, especially online. Spamming about Nike shoes and LV bags is one thing, but impersonating someone is illegal and shows they have an empty life.
Those are some steep fines on the CAN-SPAM Act, which is great!
I’m pretty pumped because I always get motivated to write more content when funny things happen. And good things happen when you write more as we all know as bloggers.
I’m also glad that the spammer is helping me make money because I’ve got a number of CPM based ads. Every single visit counts and the $ ads up over time. Like earning passive income from spammers!
That’s so true! I’m working on a post about some work frustrations I’ve had and it definitely feels great writing about it!
Askimet takes care of 99.9% of the spam comments I get. Every once in a blue moon one will slip through that I have to mark as spam myself. Luckily I’ve never had a human spammer or impersonator. I can’t even imagine what the motives would be or what they would hope to gain from taking the time to do that.
Same here, Askimet is really a great tool, that is for sure. Hopefully I never have to deal with any impersonators or persistent human spammers!
It’s often really hard to see someone progress when you can’t seem to get ahead. Hence, the tried method is to try and bring other people down.
When I realized I could earn passive income from spammers visiting my site through CPM and perhaps them clicking my CPC ads, I realized there really is a bright light to everything.
Wow, that’s an amazing story. I like the positive outlook you have and you’re absolutely right – you are clearly reaching a lot of people and inspiring them, some enough to become obsessed! Thanks for the Growmap tip, I need to try it.
Kay, Growmap is definitely a great plugin. Say no to CAPTCHA!
The more people who are obsessed with your site, the more traffic you will receive. Everything is positive for growth of your site, even spammers!
Wow…. just wow! Who in the hell has that amount of time on their hands. I certainly don’t!
I do feel kinda bad for him, but only after about a second. We have the free will to do what we want. And if that’s what he wants to do, that’s his prerogative!
Most forums are full of similar type of people who hang around and chat about things they have no clue. It is appalling to see the language they use and negativity. I can understand where the person you mention gets his technique. They pretend that they have been making millions, especially in the make money online forums. As you mentioned, it is very easy to clear spam and you shouldn’t worry much about it.
That’s so ridiculous that some Internet troll would waste that much time and energy over something like blog comments. Don’t people have anything better to do with their lives?
Apparently not. But, I’m thankful b/c it motivates me to keep on writing. And hey, if it wasn’t for this spammer, I wouldn’t have written this post. Maybe one day, I’ll start a business about blogging! :)
I’ve been using captcha on my website, and it has reduced spam comments to just two or three per week.
I would advise switching to Growmap to allow your readers to just click a box to say they aren’t a spammer. I think you’ll notice an improvement in community engagement.
[…] all or responding with a “No, thank you.” I’ve already demonstrated how you can earn passive income from comment spammers in a previous post, now I’m going to demonstrate how you can conceivably grow your […]
Interesting! I’ve been meaning to look up how to ban certain IP addresses but have been too lazy to do it. Thanks for that tip.
And also thanks for telling me my site made it, because I have a “real spam” :) as opposed to the mass blasts about louis vuitton and michael kors!