Like many bloggers I use the best Anti-Spam WordPress Plugin, Akismet. Akismet grabs most of the spam but we still need to scan the filtered spam just in case a legitimate comment is in there. I don’t know why but it bothers me more when I get comment spam from an idiot site or affiliate promoter than when I get hit by the spam bots but it does.
Back in June 2006 I setup LowLifeSpammer.com as a place to re-direct spammer’s URLs as a joke. It worked great for blogs and forums. I don’t know how effective it was but I had fun with it. Every now and then I would approve a spam comment but not until I changed the spammers website link to LowLifeSpammer.com. I didn’t do it too often because it would look as if I were trying to inflate the blog post comment numbers. Eventually I dropped the site when cutting back my work load.
Well, back by popular demand, kind of (New Comment Policy – You Want To Read This), I have resurrected LowLifeSpammer.com. It’s just a simple one page site where blog and forum owners can change their comment spam links to. Just to make a point or to have a little fun. It’s great to fight back a little.
Just a couple of notes: First, please be absolutely sure it is blog comment spam or forum post spam before editing the URL. Second, I recommend updating your Comment Policy to help cover yourself legally. Be sure you inform potential commenters that you reserve the right to edit the comment and/or links.
Tags: spam
Thanks for the trackback buddy.
Dennis Edells last blog post..Twitter Gone!
My pleasure Dennis, it’s your post that motivated my to get the back up. Thanks for that.
If it’s OK with you, I may pimp the site in a post.
Dennis Edells last blog post..Guest Bloggers Wanted/Needed Right Here
lol Pimp on Dennis, pimp on.
Brian I think that you need to capture names and e-mail with Low Life spammer some how.
Need to put some thought into how to do that. Just think of the quality people that you would get.
There has to be a way
Brad West ~ onomoney
Brad Wests last blog post..Where do I get Site Banners
I was thinking along similar lines Brad. I thought a site like RipOffReport.com for spammers would be nice.
One problem is that names and e-mail addresses are usually fake and IP addresses can cover innocent people plus they change quickly. Even subject lines and content are changed daily. I had a blog there for a short time and I considered a forum like Scam.com but there’s only so much we can say about spam. I’m not sure there’s as much interest as there is for online scams.
You’re right though, it feels like there should be more than just that single page.
Hilarious. Simply a genius idea. In the 2 years I’ve had Akismet installed, it has caught over 185,000 spam comments. THAT is how much they love me. I have spammers who write entire stories, of course make no sense, just to add the links to whatever it is they want to promote-usually male products.
Beths last blog post..Blog Of The Week: The Red Stapler Chronicles.
I Beth, Thanks for stopping by. Wow, 185,000 comment spams! That’s crazy. Can you imagine if you didn’t have Akismet? That’s like 7700/month. You wouldn’t have time for anything other than screening comments. You probably still have to ban a lot of IP addresses.
this is actually a pretty cool idea!..i think it be nice (and funny) to see the spam comments come across at one central location
Pheak Tols last blog post..Manage Your Ads With The WP125 Plugin
That would be coll Pheak, something like a hall of shame for spammers.