Spam on Blogspot.....how to fight it? (He's gone! And now he's back! .....)

[Gunbird]

For the past 5 years I've only had the occasional spam message every couple of months, no big deal, easily killed. Yesterday, I woke up to find 50 of them about all manner of subjects on various blogposts all from the same blogger. Reported them all as Spam, but a few hours later I had 20 more so reluctantly I switched to Moderated messages. As he has a Blogspot identity (name: Blogger) since 2016 with nothing but crap and I don't quite get why he hasn't been removed from Blogpost by now, and he can still post a ton of spam, but at least now I can catch it before it hits my Blog. After checking again this morning I have deleted another 25.

Now I'm thinking about adding Chapta or making posting possible for followers of my Blog only, but I feel both are severely limiting for my readers.

Also, in my statistics there are a ton of Chinese and Russian/Ukranian referral sites that direct me to pages with nothing but Bloglinks.....is that something to be worried about as well?

Anyone any ideas or pointers? I really like blogging, I don't want to end this because of the spammers.

[Elbows]

I've had the occasional spam - but nothing massive.  Obviously you got entered into some database somehow and you're just getting targeted more than normal.  I'd definitely put a post or note on your blog about why - and see what you can do to contact Blogspot/google and see if they can help you resolve it?

I've had to go to moderated comments because of the same crap.  I have not had 20-25-50 though.

[Gunbird]

It's a bit weird, the spammer has had an account since 2016 and he links to a page which is just full of links to make money online, bitcoins etc. Yet when I google this page I only found 1 German Blogger who was innundated by spam from this guy and that was  quite a while ago. Atm I'm still getting 5-10 posts an hour.....I might switch to Blog followers only for a week or so and see if that stops him. I've reported it to Google now as well just for extra measure.

Bloody annoying though.

[Elbows]

Indeed!  Let me know how it goes; lest I run into the same nonsense.

[AndrewBeasley]

I follow a lot of blogs using a reader so I never show as a follower so limiting the comments to followers would give me an issue

When my blog was running I found moderation better as it forced me to read the comments and I increased my feedback by replying on more comments through this.

[jamesmanto]

I always moderate comments.
Adding Captcha would be good too.
Makes you less attractive and the spambots go elsewhere

[OSHIROmodels]

I get a couple of them a year fortunately but I'm getting lots of Russian hits on a regular basis which throws out the actual hits.

[Gunbird]

I follow a lot of blogs using a reader so I never show as a follower so limiting the comments to followers would give me an issue Shocked

When my blog was running I found moderation better as it forced me to read the comments and I increased my feedback by replying on more comments through this.

Yes Andrew, that has me worried too. It's an additional hurdle to post if you have to be a follower first, so I'd prefer not to go that way. Fortunately, replying has never been a probem for me....if people are kind/interested enough to leave a comment, the least I can do is thank them. Unless you are a spammer. Then you get reported.

I always moderate comments.
Adding Captcha would be good too.
Makes you less attractive and the spambots go elsewhere

Hmm James, that it does, but also less atrractive for the casual visitor. Still thinking about it though.

I get a couple of them a year fortunately but I'm getting lots of Russian hits on a regular basis which throws out the actual hits.

I've found out the hard way that using Chinese or Ukrainian header for your Blogpost attracts a ton of hits from thos areas as well, and those 2 particular topics have had a steady stream of hits ever since.

Status as of today. No reply from Google, but also no more spam posts sofar <knocks on wood> Edit: Crap, 5 more in the last half hour....

[Phil Robinson]

When I have reported spam I never got a reply, but it did stop.

Not had an issue since either, touch wood.

[jmilesr01]

I've seen an uptick in spam but nothing like your volumes.  My are all referrals for an online casino and seem to be coming from China.  I'm sure it's all legit....

I've turned on moderation which has helped.  I use blogger from Google.  It seems that Google and the spammers are in a bit of an arms race - google improves it's spam blocking and then it takes a few months for the spammers to figure a way around which then - you can guess the rest

I also limit comments to registered users which may cut down on good comments but really helps weed out the spammers

Hope this helps

[Gunbird]

Small update.

I removed the "moderated replies only" starting October and all seemed well. Till 5 minutes ago. Same guy, same shit. Seems reporting him over 100 times doesn't do the trick, so I switched Moderated back on for a while. Really shitty, but what can you do, as reporting someone clearly doesn't do squat.

[Tactalvanic]

If its always the same one guy, maybe a little bit of html or java editing

eg

http://www.mybloggerlab.com/2016/07/how-to-block-spam-comment-bots-in-blogger.html

Something along that line?

Might be a pain, but also might be just enough to get the job done as long as there are only 1 or 2 abusers that you need to deal with?

[Gunbird]

Nice, Java, been a while, I will give that a go. Yup, it is always the same guy whose ID is Blogger (yeah, really) and uses a set number of replies over and over again. I'm beginning to think it is actually a company bot of Blogger as they don't bother stopping him.

[Eric the Shed]

In the the last two days I have been hit by a number of redirections from other blogs - log cabin quilts....alaskan estate agents....all very weird

and yes still getting hundreds of hits from Russia...

[Norm]

Well, you have just made me go and check my blog. I hit the 'design' button to get to my dashboard or whatever it is called.

Anyway in the header information it says "We have enabled automatic spam detection for comments. You should occasionally check the comments in your spam inbox" I have no idea how to turn this on or off, or even that I had it. Anyway, I then checked my spam box and there are 5 very obvious spam posts located there that have clearly been detected and dealt with.

Is that something that might help you? I am guessing that the feature also ensures that once you mark a poster up as spam, it remembers to treat all their posts as spam.