Support » Plugins » Which account is writing these spams caught by Akismet

  • Greets:

    I have a blog that’s setup to be “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” and I’m still having my Akismet queue filled every morning.

    1) I have a feeling that these are trackbacks but how do i tell if they are or not?

    2) If they are bots that are signing up, how do i tell which account it is? I don’t have accounts by these names.

    Thanks,
    -drmike

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
  • 1) Because the “User must be registered and logged in to comment” will stop people from commenting unless they are registered and logged in. If anything else is coming through, it’s pingbacks/trackbacks – you don’t have to be logged in for those.

    2) They aren’t 🙂 Install either Spam Karma or Bad Behavior to work with Akismet.

    (how odd, drmike – *you* are usually the one who answers bunches of questions! This is weird! LOL)

    Thread Starter drmike

    (@drmike)

    unless they are registered and logged in

    Agreed but how do I tell if these are trackbacks or user accounts being created by bots? (That’s my question)

    Well, I dunno. Never thought of it like that. Now, I *thought* that trackbacks were given a different class in the comments template. I’ve seen many themes (including default, I think) where trackbacks are italicized, but regular comments are not. I guess that’d be one way to tell.

    But then, if you look in your comments moderation stuff, you should be able to tell by looking at that as well. (Especially if users have to be registered and logged in – you can match the comments made to the registered users in your Users panel. *everyone* who can leave a comment is listed there. So if you have a “comment” but no user in your Users panel to match, then it’s pretty certain it’s a trackback.)

    accounts being created by bots?

    Accounts being created by bots dont come back to post. Not yet, atleast — the spammers havent figured that out yet.

    Those two examples occur independent of one another — you get accounts set up by scripts that use a spammy domain OR, when you have open commenting, you get comments that are spammy, or you get both. But you wont see a script register and then come back to post. Thats a human, IF that’s happening, and it very well might.

    My gut tells me that they are trackbacks or pingbacks.

    Thread Starter drmike

    (@drmike)

    I’m leaning towards trackbacks but wouldn’t they be connected to a post on the other end? Most of these are connected to sites and not individual pages/ posts/ whatever.

    Check the comment_type field in the database

    SELECT *
    FROM wp_comments
    WHERE comment_type = "trackback"

    should show you what’s a trackback…

    I’m leaning towards trackbacks but wouldn’t they be connected to a post on the other end? Most of these are connected to sites and not individual pages/ posts/ whatever

    No. It takes no amount of experience to submit a trackback or a pingback remotely. It takes as little as one 3 line PHP script, in fact. You dont need a blog, to send a ping or a trackback.

    Thread Starter drmike

    (@drmike)

    Test post to see if I’m still being caught by Akismet. Just ignore.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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