If you have had a blog for any time at all, you are well aware of the spam comments situation that exists will all forums and blogs.
While there are many solutions out there, I will try to highlight the ones that I have personally used and my experience with them.
1 ) AVH First Defense Against Spam
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/avh-first-defense-against-spam/
AVH F.D.A.S. does a good job of preventing spammers from ever reaching any other plugin, and sometimes before even seeing the comment form. It works off of the “Stop Forum Spam”, “Project Honey Pot”, and “Spamhaus” blocklists. These blocklists help to identify previous spammers based on an IP address. If the visitor’s IP address scores high enough, it will be blocked. All of these settings are configurable for sensitivity. With any plugin that uses a blocklist, there is a possibility for false positives. I have not experienced this myself yet, and this plugin is #1 right now for my needs in preventing spam.
2 ) Akismet
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/
Akismet still does a decent job of preventing spam, as is by far the most widely used plugin because it ships with most WordPress installs. It uses a score based system to identify spam based on visitor’s IP address, name, comment text, and probably some other identifiers as well. It does a pretty good job when used alongside of another plugin.
3 ) Defensio Anti-Spam
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/defensio-anti-spam/
This plugin claims that it needs to be run stand-alone from other plugins. With my experience, it makes no sense to run Akismet and Defensio together since they both use the same type of algorithms and API to determine spam. I’d turn off Akismet when using this, but it could be used fine with most other plugins that do not use a scoring system to identify spam.
4 ) WP Recaptcha
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-recaptcha/
Nothing thwarts comment spam bots like a good CAPTCHA system. This plugin adds a human input check on your comment form that must be correct before the form can be submitted.
5 ) Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin (G.A.S.P.)
Link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/growmap-anti-spambot-plugin/
The idea behind this plugin is simple. It adds a checkbox that the user must check before they can submit the comment form. If bots try to submit without it being checked, they will be stopped on the server-side as well. Overall, this does a very good job of preventing automated spam bots. CommentLuv Premium includes this plugin as part of their paid plugin.
That’s it.. If there was a combination that I would use, I would pick AVH First Defense Against Spam and the Growmap Anti Spambot Plugin. If you wanted to be extra careful, you could include WP Recatpcha and then Akismet or Defensio for a final layer of defense. As always, when running more plugins, it does have a tendency to slow down your blog and admin dashboard as well.
I hope you enjoy my journey on starting my very first company as well.
