Spam Plug-Ins
Thanks to Steph for pointing me in the direction of two Anti-Spam Plug-Ins for WordPress. I installed Bad Behavior yesterday (works on any php-based blogging software, not just WordPress). When I found 24 spams this morning, I went back to check the Bad Behavior help logs. They recommended working in tamdem with Spam Karma 2. I just installed that, and this is one robust plug-in! If you’re “set it and forget it,” this won’t do much for you (except WORK), but if you like configuration capability, you’ll be all over this Plug-In. I’ll have to reserve judgment for a couple weeks, but at first blush, this is one impressive tool.
Why two Plug-Ins? If I understand correctly, Bad Behavior stops Spam before it gets into your site by checking to see if it complies with robots.txt. One benefit of Bad Behavior is supposed to be a reduction in bandwidth-wasting access to your site by spam-bots (much worse than fem-bots). Spam Karma 2 deals with it after it slips through Bad Behavior’s web of protection.
If everything works right, these should be transparent to you.
I know nothing about how they work (hey, I finally got up the nerve to play around in my sidebar) – Bekke does all the care and feeding of my blog in that regard, but I know she was very excited about the Bad Behavior plug-in.
I think my skyrocketing bandwidth usage has plummeted (1/2 and back to pre-spam levels). After Spam Karma2, I had a couple spams (all caught by Spam Karma 2). Since then…nothing. Is it a lull in onslaught, or has the One-Two punch killed spam for now?
(NOTE: I have an incredible amount of bandwidth included with my basic hosting package, but some people aren’t so fortunate. Bandwidth isn’t, per se, a concern of mine, but why waste it on this crud?)