Disqus Reduced My Blog Spam 99.9%
I updated The Daily Haggis to WordPress v2.6.3 and the Akismet Spam Protection plugin this weekend, and this morning I discovered a new set of statistics available on my WordPress dashboard: Akismet Stats.
What produced was the amazing chart you see above you: A graph of comment spam on this site over the past few months.
What I discovered, much to my glee, was that since I swapped out WordPress’ default commenting system with the Disqus commenting system, it’s decreased my “comment spam” from over 2000+ comments a month to less than FIVE. In percentage numbers, my comment spam has decreased 99.9%!
“Comment Spam” for those that don’t run a blog, is when internet marketers leave comments on a blog or website that have absolutely NOTHING to do with the content of the article. It pretty much involves much of the same poor advertising skills employed as e-mail spam: poor grammar, mispelling on purpose, and always for the same services. Fake pharmaceuticals, real estate crap, or whatever. They usually leave links to their spam websites which more often than not result in a 404 page not found error.
I fought for years trying to keep this site clean of comment spam. At the worst, I was deleting probably about 20-40 comments a day. When WP released the Akisment plugin, it went down drastically, but I still had to log in occasionally and clear out the caught spam.
In August I switched over to Disqus, which is a comment replacement system that integrates with social networks, offers comment rating features, threaded replies, and even video commenting through Seesmic. Not only is it a great system, but the last major release allowed me to import all my old WP comments into the system for backup.
If you have a hosted blog you should switch over immediately if you are suffering from the same headaches and nightmares, switch over to Disqus! You won’t regret it, trust me.
November 19th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I'm wondering if Disqus is using its own anti-spam system or Akismet.
I mean, if I got Disqus installed on my blog, is it safe to turn off the Akismet plugin?
November 19th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I'd leave it enabled just to keep pruning your current comments and future ones. You never know when you might stop using Disqus. I do believe they are using their own anti-spam system.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:28 am
I got a positive answer from some Disqus employee that such system exists. I'm pretty amazed by your chart showing how effective it is, though.
I assume that as long as Disqus keeps evolving, I'll be a loyal user. ^^
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:50 am
Thanks.
For sharing the information on Disqus .
December 10th, 2008 at 10:01 am
Thanks for diqus for this nice commenting system!
December 10th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Is it ironic that this post is the subject of a lot of spam lately? “BusbyTest” I'm looking RIGHT at you. Go spam you crap somewhere else.
January 12th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Disqus rocks! I love their commenting system …
January 26th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
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January 26th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I have closed the comments on this entry. Spammers, go fuck yourselves.
January 26th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Haggis, I am responding to your “I have closed the comments on this entry” entry. If this ends up in my FriendFeed, perhaps Daniel Ha or someone will see it and offer advice on how to close comments on an entry. Of course, if no one ever sees this comment, then the problem is solved. Although I am left with the philosophical question, “If you enter a Disqus comment on a closed post, does it make a sound?”
January 26th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
I have closed the comments on this entry. Spammers, go fuck yourselves.
January 26th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Haggis, I am responding to your “I have closed the comments on this entry” entry. If this ends up in my FriendFeed, perhaps Daniel Ha or someone will see it and offer advice on how to close comments on an entry. Of course, if no one ever sees this comment, then the problem is solved. Although I am left with the philosophical question, “If you enter a Disqus comment on a closed post, does it make a sound?”