Unfortunately, once your blog starts to attract a following your blog may soon become inundated with spam. Especially the comments section underneath each of your blog posts. While you may be tempted to change your blog’s settings to remove your comments sections, it’s a far better idea to use captcha tests to prevent spammers from hijacking your blog.
How to keep your blog spam free with captcha:
1. Force your readers to correctly complete a captcha test each time that they attempt to post a comment on one of your blog posts
The quickest most effective way to prevent bot style spammers from leaving comments on your blog posts is to force your readers to successfully complete a captcha test before their comment is posted for all to see. As the vast majority of spam bots are unable to write out captcha codes or to click on certain parts of a captcha picture.
Traditional captcha codes involve getting your readers to write out a blurry code, which is near on impossible for spam bots to figure out. While more recent captcha tests tell readers to click on certain parts of a photograph. As an example, a captcha image may be split up into a grid-like pattern and may instruct readers to click on each part of the grid which features a piece of a street sign or a car.
Better yet, each time that a reader visits your blog and attempts to leave a comment, they’ll be given a new captcha test which has been randomly selected. Which means that intelligent bots, which are capable of saving data, won’t be able to trick your captcha tests.
2. Require your readers to successfully complete a captcha test before they are able to send you a message
While the vast majority of spammers will try and target your blog’s comment sections, some spammers may also try to spam your email or inbox.
If you don’t want to have to sift through dozens of spam filled messages, in order to locate genuine messages from your fans, fellow bloggers, and potential sponsors, it’s well worth forcing visitors to your blog to successfully complete a captcha test, in order to send you a message. As there’s no point wasting your time deleting spam which clogs up your inbox!
3. Seriously consider utilizing honeypot technology
If you’ve never heard of the term honeypot technology, it refers to a form of security, which effectively tricks spam bots into outing themselves. When a spambot tries to fill out a captcha test, in order to leave a comment, they’ll see an extra question which is only visible to spambots. As soon as the spambot fills out this data field, they’ll be marked as a spammer and they’ll be permanently blocked from leaving comments on your blog posts.
If you’re determined to keep your blog spam free & tidy it’s well worth using captcha tests, to ensure that the only individuals who are permitted to leave comments on your blog posts or to contact you directly are human, instead of an annoying spambot!
