Akismet Deletes Comments Bloggers Never See!
Those are the headlines that appeared on GrowMap the popular blog of link building specialist Gail Gardner, when she first recognized
a problem with Akismet and the comments on her blog. As she and several others bloggers acknowledge in the post, some legitimate comments were being deleted by Akismet before blog owners get a chance to see them. This prompted Andy Bailey, a well-known WordPress plugin developer and creator of everyone's favorite link building plugin for commenters – CommentLuv, based on ideas and suggestions from Phil Hollows from FeedBlitz and Dazzling Donna Fontenot, to introduce an alternative for Akismet users. The new plugin is called G.A.S.P. for short which stands for GrowMap Anti-Spambot Plugin and it is available for download from the WordPress.org Plugin Repository.
Save time moderating comments! Download GASP Today!
GASP is so simple to use, that I highly recommend you download it today and activate it right away. Let me show you how easy it is for both you, and your legitimate commenters to take advantage of.
In the screencast video I encourage to download, and rate the plugin. Once you have it installed, your readers will see “Check box to confirm you are NOT a spammer”. That's all legitimate commenters need to do. If you want more information, please check out a post by Karen from BlazingMinds about how GASP is a must for every blogger!
Read more about GASP vs. Akismet here!
Featured User on the CommentLuv Home Page
I also used the screencast as the opportunity to introduce a new feature being offered at the CommentLuv website called “Featured Member Site”. I promise to give you more details about this feature in an upcoming blog post. For now, I would just like to savor the moment of having this blog featured on the Comluv.com homepage, member page and unban url page. Thanks Andy for putting me in the spotlight and letting me have my “15 minutes of fame” on the ComLuv.com website!
Leave your comments
Have you downloaded the GASP plugin for WordPress yet? Please share your thoughts and experiences with missed comments using Akismet.
Lol am about to download it!!! Thanks for sharing and keep up the good work.
Hi Samuel, thanks for giving GASP a try. Come back and let us know what you think.
I will give it a try too on a bigger blog of mine and let you know what I think about it.
Hi Alex, thanks. I spoke to Gail earlier and she and Andy are looking forward to feedback from users. Have a great weekend.
GASP is really a good alternative to Akismet…
Hi Ileane,
I haven’t downloaded GASP yet but will give it a look.
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Ryan
Hey Ryan, I’m sure you’ll find that installing Andy Bailey’s GASP plugin will be a time-saver as you will see an immediate reduction in the amount of spam you need to moderate and discard. I haven’t seen any spambots since I installed it and for me, that’s huge.
Hey Ileane,
Nice concept. Another great plugin Andy.
Will going to try it.
Thanks for sharing. Great Job Ileane
Hi Devesh, please share your thoughts about GASP on Twitter and your blog is possible. Bloggers will appreciate learning what a fantastic time-saving plugin GASP is. Thanks for the kind words too!
Hi Ileane,
Congratulations on your CommentLuv Fame! I’m sure it will be way more than 15 minutes.
I have GASP installed and, in an unprecedented move for stodgy old me, immediately deactivated Bad Behavior and Akismet. That’s based on two things:
1. My belief that Andy Bailey et. al. have cracked the code
2. The endorsement of the bloggers that I read and follow
Yep, networking is a powerful thing. Thanks for sharing and spreading the word!
Cheers,
Mitch
Hi Mitch, good for you! I have a tremendous amount of respect for Andy and his plugin development skills to. I’m very hopeful that installing this plugin marks an end to moderating spambot comments, and an end to the fear of losing legitimate comments from our friends and readers. Now let’s have a CommentLuv party over here!
I will give GASP a try on another blog first as Akismet works really well on my blog now. I haven’t lose any legitimate comments since I installed WordPress.
I still see you are featured on comluv now, it should be a month of fame for your contributions to blogosphere. 🙂
Tuan, you are so kind! I think another featured member site will appear on Comluv.com in a day or two. But I’ll be back!!
Very nice plugin , and great thinking of reducing spam along with not troubling commentators with captchas 😛
However i am having issues implementing on my wp theme ,it doesnt show up ! gotta check and debug my wordpress theme .
Thanks for sharing
Hi Blog404, Gail mentioned on her blog that she will address any support issues through her contact page http://www.growmap.com/contact/ One thing you can do is go to your dashboard and the settings page for the plugin and confirm that the plugin is active. I didn’t make any changes to the settings but just to be on the safe side I clicked “save changes” anyway. If the problem continues please let us know. Thanks for downloading it and keep in touch.
Hi Ajinkya,
Remember that if you are logged in you won’t see it! You have to log out or look using a different browser. I bet it is there but you were logged in.
There was some problem with my comments code so i reset’ed all my options and activated this GASP
And now ! This works like a charm and up-till now i have had no automatic stupid spam comments 😛
Marvelous work by developer , this plugin is a beauty !
Blog404, that’s great news! Thanks for letting us know.
Hi Ileane,
First of all congratulations for that ’15 minutes fame’. Its great to be featured on commentLuv.
Complains about Akismet has raised even more problems. Akismet was throwing some genuine comments in spambox causing us more time to skim through the spam list with a hope to rescue some genuine ones there. Now if it is found that it deletes automatically some comments, its even worse.
As a solution if you have referred this plugin which simply ads a check box on comment form, will it be that effective? Spammers and those programs that can identify your name, email and comment boxes and have the ability to fill up with their content, won’t they be able to mark that check box? Because the plugin is just started, it might appear effective, because the evil heads have not written some nasty scripts yet to mark that checkbox automatically, does it mean it will remove spam comments out of our system? Might be its because you’ve not given much technical details, if it has smart algorithm to fight agains spams effectively! Would love to hear more of it.
Hi Suresh, I feel confident that Andy will address those issues as they arise. This is the first spam free Saturday I’ve had since I started blogging. Try it and you’ll see!
Thanks for acknowledging my golden 15 minutes. I’m still savoring them….
Sure! I don’t doubt when so lot of bloggers are adoring GASP, I believe it works great. I’m installing it.
Great news Ileane. Spam free eh??!! I know Gail was despairing over the amount of spam she was having to deal with on a daily basis. Now it seems those problems are over. Kudos to Andy and to commentluv. You’re looking very happy as the featured blogger on there too 🙂
Patricia Perth Australia
Patricia, the GASP plugin is super simple and I haven’t seen any spam since installing it and this is day two. I’m very pleased with it. Thanks for the visit.
I installed this plugin and there is no spam inside my comment box. Its really wonderful.
Hi Ileane
It’s a small world.
First saw reference to this plugin yesterday and then came across your post today.
My site has been going for about twelve months and the spam has slowly built up – currently on about 50 spam posts a day.
Akismet catches most of them but I still have to do a daily check to see if it has caught any legitimate comments.
Noticed a few comments on the GrowMap site asking for the “confirm you are not a spammer” check box to be above the submit button.
Submit being the final thing you want to do.
Don’t know what you think.
Thanks for a great video.
Hi Keith, Gail tells us how the inspiration for the GASP plugin came from the fact that legitimate comments from people like Linda Christas were being discarded by Akismet before the blog owner sees them. It turns out many bloggers overlook this option in their Akismet configuration settings.
GASP provides the check box which is a good thing because if a legitimate commenter forgets to check the box, they see a short reminder message and their comment remains intact when they go back and check the box. I hope this answers your question and thanks for voicing your concerns. I hope to see you here again soon, thanks!
Thanks Ileane
That sounds like a good idea.
On some of the Captcha type anti spam devices, if you forget the Captcha, you have to type your comment again.
A reminder sounds like a much better idea.
Just checked it on this response, and as you say you get a gentle reminder but are not navigated away from the page.
Hi Ileane
Just deactivated Akismet and activated GASP.
I’ll check for spam in a couple of hours – here’s hoping.
Keith, that’s super! Please don’t forget to give the GASP plugin a rating in the WordPress Plugin Repository http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/growmap-anti-spambot-plugin/
I’m sure Gail and Andy will be very appreciative.
Will do Ileane
Thanks for the link to the WordPress Plugin Repository.
It is worthy to try since Akismet often makes the miscalculating.
Hi Dana, how are you doing with your new site http://worthycellphone.com? Sounds like you have experienced false positives with Akismet too. Please let us know if you install GASP and what you think of it.
I started testing it this morning as well.`So far so good.
Congrats on being featured!
Hey Dennis, thank you! Thanks for spreading the word about GASP too. I see in your CommentLuv link you have posted about GASP on your blog so I’m heading over for a visit now.
Thanks for the comment!
Still good, no spam this morning.
Have you seen Typhoons comment? He brings up the point, “I would not consider using this plugin because it might annoy people by checking that box every time they comment.”
Checking a box is a small price to pay for getting your comments to go through.
So true. As I’ve commented a couple times elsewhere, there are so many blogs now with commentluv/subscribe to comments/entering twitter ID, etc., what’s one more tick box to check while you’re there?? 😉
I am well happy with it, being one that’s tried it for a couple of weeks now, it’s stopped spam dead really, how can we complain. 😉
It is so simple, a box to tick!?, that I wonder why it’s not been done before, or why it’s not something that could have been implemented by someone or already had an antispam plug in, like askimet for example…
But damn good job done by Andy there 😉
Wondering if it’ best to turn askimet off or not?
Hi Rob, I agree it’s really simple and I love the fact that if you miss the check box for any reason – there’s no need to retype that awesome comment you just left! Thanks for the support Rob.
That’s true… might be an idea to add the to the blurb, wonder if it effects the plugin, if I do?
I turned askimet OFF about 5 hours ago… not a single spam yet. 😉 so far so good, and having already used the new plug in for a while anyway I had an idea it would be ok. 🙂
Rob, I turned off Akismet also. I think in all the excitement and the rush to record the video done and get the post published, I neglected to deactivate it. 😉 Thanks for being one of the first to come on board!
Rob, I turned Akismet off also, so far so good.
As for the tick box, i have one commenter so far on my announcement (in commentluv) raise the point – – “I would not consider using this plugin because it might annoy people by checking that box every time they comment.”
Care to respond?
I’ll respond to that one Dennis, if it is annoying them, then maybe they could be a potential spammer, but too be honest, the many that are commenting on sites with the plugin, outweighs those that aren’t 😉
(red faced) I kinda meant reply to him at my place. lol
You’re right though, that is certainly one potential reason. I avoided using that in my reply though, for fear he might assume I was speaking to him.
Right again, this time 100%, “the many that are commenting on sites with the plugin, outweighs those that aren’t” 😉
Hi Dennis…
To be honest, if that bothers them, I think it’s lame… 😉
Really… the page goes nowhere, the comment is still there if they don’t tick it… and then they just tick it to carry on and post the comment?!
If that is a problem, then best give up now.
Oh you’re 100% correct. I responded by saying, on blogs like mine, with THREE other boxes to look after (subscribe to comments, commentluv, twitter name), basically, what’s one more right there?
Dennis, I see that Karen and Rob have already offered responses to Typhoon’s comment (btw – where did he post that comment? on your blog?). I will add on to what they said – Akismet was creating false positives, which sent comments from friends and regular readers hanging out in the spam folder with the trolls and spambots (in hopes blog owners would rescue them) AND unless the blog owner has their settings configured properly, Akismet will delete comments that totally vanish and never see the light of day. Now what’s more annoying, hanging out with trolls and spambots, losing valuable comments that vanish from the blogosphere or checking a little box?
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 🙂
I ♥ GASP!
Yes on my blog. I was kinda hoping everyone would flip over and respond to him there. LOL
You’re right as well. One thing I said was, this plugin allows you to completely deactivate Akismet…I think most plugins work WITH Akismet, meaning the same issues could still arise.
Wow Ileane your blog is getting so busy, great job and an excellent video. Earlier this week I saw the announcement about this plugin and kinda skimmed over it, glad you made the video. Looks like I will be giving this a shot, Andy always does great work.
Hi John, thank you for saying that and welcome to Basic Blog Tips! It’s awesome seeing you here old friend. Installing GASP will be a huge time saver for you. Keep me posted! Have a great day John.
Wow nice Plugin thanks Ileane, gonna download it and install it right now, I spend 40% of my online time every day reading spam so I dont accidentally mark something as spam when its not.
Thanks again Ileane. 🙂
Hey Sayed, you’re welcome. Isn’t it insane the amount of time we spend skimming over all that rude and ignorant spam, looking for legitimate comments? Well, let me correct that statement – the amount of time I USED to spend was insane. HA!
Hey there Ileane, loving the screen cast 😉
Thanks Karen! Some people like to watch rather than read 🙂 I’m glad to see that you followed me as the Featured Member Site on the ComLuv.com home page. Have a great day!
Yep, I thought I’d give it a shot, see if my stats have more ComLuv coming in on them 😉
Karen, I saw a hefty amount of hits from ComLuv in my stats this past weekend. I have a warm hug waiting for Andy if I ever get to the UK. 🙂
Have not yet given GASP a try Ileane but since you are recommending it, I might just give it a test run on one of my blogs were SPAM comments is spreading. I am assuming though that we have to deactivate Akismet first before using this right? Thanks for the heads up!
No, you don’t have to turn it off, I didn’t, but I have now. 😉
I turned it off too Rob. 🙂
DiTesco, thanks for the vote of confidence. Please come back and let us know how many hours you gained in your schedule after not seeing any spam for a few days. I gained at least 1/2 hour per day so far since I installed GASP.
Have a great day! 😉
Ileane
24 hours and not a single spam comment – I almost miss them. LOL
Did I read it here or somewhere else that you have to check the commentluv box after the submit button so you might as well have the GASP box after the submit button – makes sense to me.
LOL!! Keith it’s funny I almost miss those spambots too. But they can go and play on some one else’s blog because there’s a SPAMBOT FREE PARTY GOING ON OVER HERE!!
Did you ever get the one that would start off by asking why their comments kept being deleted? Or the what about the ones that “found your site from doing a Google search on an (unrelated) topic” and then there’s the one that…oh boy, I can’t even remember it’s been so long ago. HA!
Oh yes… had all those.
Did you ever get the one that said…
“I think I’ve read this article somewhere before… do you realise that plagiarism is a serious matter?”
At least they could spell plagiarism. LOL
Oddly enough I do too. It was pat of my morning schedule, and for now I’m a little lost during that time. LOL
Don’t get too comfortable for they may return. Maybe I’m the anomaly, but 24 hours after deactivating Akismet and activating GASP, I started seeing approved comments about percoset, round asses, and blowjobs — forcing me to hit spam, spam, spam.
Annoying. I might go back to Akismet.
Ari, those little nasties found their way on to your blog. But let’s be clear about GASP – it works against SPAMBOTS not human spammers. Fortunately for me I have only encountered a handful of human spammers since I installed GASP. The bigger problem with Akismet is the false positives that are created by legitimate commenters.
Did you ever compare your average daily spam count before and after installing GASP? If you’re getting such a high number of human spammers, I can’t imagine how many spambots you were seeing when you were using Akismet alone (or did you have another spam plugin?).
Thanks for sharing your feedback Ari. Please keep me posted.
I since realized certain keywords — percoset, anal, etc — were not included in the default list of words WordPress checks to determined if they be moderated against spam. So, I added those words. Let’s see…
Ari, if you’re finding repeat abusers, you can also add their email addresses to the blacklist under your “Discussion Settings”. I have added a handful of emails there as well. It’s great to hear that you might be getting to the bottom of this. Thanks!
That sucks, sorry to hear it man. You’re the first I’ve heard of so far.
In my own case, I’ve been totally free for nearly 2 months now.
I saw so many tweets and saw two other posts about GASP 10-10-10. I didn’t understand what was going on … now I do and will download it. Now off to read the other posts (on the same subject). Make that 3, I forgot Karen did one too.
I never knew that about Grow Map either. So cool.
ttyl (I should be up and running today – no holiday at the Society so when I get home and after the gym.)
That would have been mine… 🙂
I got great looking readers. 😛
Yes Rob, it was. I guess everything about this plug-in should covered! 🙂 So, I won’t try to write about it. I’m off work now .. – downloading now.
I would confidently bet 100 bucks you see an improvement. 😉
No fair Rob. There’s no way you can lose that bet. This is day four and a ton of legitimate comments came in last night and not one ounce of spam. This is the life isn’t it? 🙂
Which is why I was confident enough to say say it 😉
Been about ten days for me, not a thing. 😉
Kissie, I honestly think that was the most I was ever mentioned on Paper.li for one post! And did you see the high number of views on StumbleUpon (btw- way did you Stumble yet?).
Gail really deserves a ton of credit for spearheading a task that might have seemed insurmountable to the rest of us, yet the solution that Andy developed is so clean and simple no one can understand why it hadn’t been done before.
Thanks for your comment. I was hoping that you didn’t lose your spot on the commenters widget at the top of the page 🙂
I have read about this plugin somewhere.
Haven’t tried it yet, will definitely do it.
Thanks for the review Ileane!
Hey Kimi, This is day 4 with no spam! Please give GASP a try you’ll see why we are so pleased with it. Thanks for the comment.
Ileane!
So true, i have installed this awesome plugin yesterday, and i have no spams, which really works great.
I will also post a review on this in my blog for my readers/visitors soon.
Love this plugin!
Hi Kimi, I so glad you are having a good spambot-free day! Thanks for the feedback and I’ll check out your review, just send me the link.
Ileane, today i post the review.
The link is on my latest post under my comments lol ↓
Thanks.
Hi Ileane,
Sounds a very promising plugin to control spam, I saw this feature in Suresh Blog. I will also disable Akismet and intall GASP immediately.
Thanks for Sharing
-Imran
Hi Ileane,
I thought I would pop back in here and give you an update.
My blog has been spam-free since October 9th. After reading the discussion here, I realized that I never really pored over the flagged spam – I had always bulk deleted it. As this was going to be my last time viewing spam, I slogged through 244 comments to see if any legitimate comments existed.
I am relieved to say that only two comments were not spam. Both were trackbacks from topsy.com.
So, Akismet is history! Long Live GASP!
Cheers,
Mitch
No problem Brian
If you don’t check the box and hit submit… you stay on the page and a message pops up warning you.
And best of all… you don’t lose your comment – fantastic.
Give it a try on this blog.
Thanks for the reply Keith,
I think you just won me over on this plugin. The fact that you don’t lose your comment and it warns you before navigating away is the perfect feature.
Hi Brian, I see that Keith was able to be an advocate for GASP on my behalf. Thanks Keith!
I just installed GASP two days ago. I must say this plugin is an awesome balance between akismet and captcha. It’s absolutely brilliant in that the checkbox isn’t annoying like a captcha phrase, but it does just enough to stop the automated spam. I haven’t gotten a single spam comment since I installed it. I too have uninstalled akismet.
Hi Richard, welcome to Basic Blog Tips. Thanks for your positive feedback about GASP. An update was issued this afternoon, so please make sure you update your install.
I just installed it on my primary blog and will absolutely give feedback after some experimentation. Thanks so much for the information.
Hi Christine, welcome to Basic Blog Tips, so nice to meet you on such a positive note! Please come back and give us an update. Thanks.
Ileane
Don’t know what your most popular post is… but this one may well be in the lead shortly.
Looks as though this plugin has really captured the imagination of bloggers who are fed up with that stuff we used to get, what was it called? Oh yes… spam.
Spam? thing of the past, thing of the past. LOL
Keith, did you see the update that was released this morning. Please be sure to update your installation of GASP. I think it has something to do with people leaving the name field blank, doesn’t really matter it’s just good to always have the latest on any plugins. Btw – thanks again for spreading the word!
Not seen it.
My dashboard is not showing that there is a new version.
I’ll check again tomorrow.
Thanks for letting me know.
Hi Ileane,
This is actually my first time here on your blog. I came here via Keith Davis.
I will definitely try out that new GASP plugin. Do I need to disable Akismet if I install GASP? As you can tell, I’m quite new to all this 😉
Thanks for sharing this and have a great day!
Ilka
Hi Ilka, welcome to Basic Blog Tips! Now that you have installed GASP, you can uninstall Akismet, we all did! Cheers!
A word of warning Ilka… you may miss all those spambot comments. LOL
Yikes!!! That reminds me … I haven’t checked my spam box in a couple of months.
Thanks for reporting this Ileane…this is great to know! I do get a LOT of spam and it’s such a pain to have to go through it, so if this can help curb that than awesome!
Ciao =)
P.S. Congrats on your Commentluv 15 minutes of fame. =)
Hi Michele, yup you need to get the GASP plugin asap! It will make a huge difference in the amount of spam you see and save you the time and trouble of going through them looking for your friends and new readers who left comments you need to approve.
For me this is Spam-bot Free Day # Six and counting…
After installing it realized it only works with the default wp comment system. 🙁 I currently have Disqus installed.
Guess I’ll try again once I change my comment system. Thanks again!
Wow Ileane,
You have the huge following of a true leader here. I would love to have you invite all your blogging friends into our blog collaboration of Bloggers Supporting Bloggers also known as The Secret Blog Club.
If you are willing I would like to make you a Global Moderator and work one-on-one with you. We have a plan that can double traffic and lower Alexa for all blog members under 30,000. I would love to see all of your readers and collaborators have numbers as good as your super-strong 109,241 Alexa Rating in the U.S and your International number down below 50,000 too!
Gail, I would be honored to take on additional responsibilities with the Secret Blog Club. Thanks so much for asking. Let me know what needs to be done.
Hi Ileane,
Thanks for sharing this! I wasn’t aware of this.
I’ll download now.
Do you know how it works with Conditional Captcha?
Take care,
Evelyn
Hi Evelyn, you can deactivate Conditional Captcha. You’ll soon find that GASP is the only spam blocker you’ll need. I find that many people refuse to leave comments on blogs if they need to enter a Captcha. The GASP plugin only requires your commenters to check off a box. Please let me know how you make out with it or if you need assistance. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
I have disabled Akismet for some time now. Currently downloading GASP. Can’t wait to give it a try. Might even write about my experience with GASP after trying out for some time.
Hi Sarah, welcome to Basic Blog Tips. Please come back in a few days and tell us how GASP has impacted the number of spambots you see leaving comments on your blog. Thanks!
This article is very useful for me. Thank you very much.
This plugin is awesome I got to know about through strictlyonlinebiz.com/blog/ but the only bit of a down play was that I did not see any spam but got some trackbacks that were spammy, I just have to install the simple trackback plugin, thanks
You are just too raving about this plugin, it is really a time saver!
Iroko, I talked to UDEGBUNAM from Strickly Online Biz about the spam trackbacks that he is getting and if you are getting them too I should say that I have another concern about them. Are these sites stealing your content? If you think that is a possibility please take a look at this post called Video on How to Stop Plagiarism from Jonathan Bailey. Let me know what you think. Thanks Iroko.
This plugin would really creat the kind of community we all want when we started blogging, making your blog post really reader active but I just we just have to change some of the language that the plugin was suppose to generate, so that the guys behind the spambot would not use that again to make a better software!!!
I am going to try it soon after I post this comment. BTW, thank you very much for letting us know. This option will really help a lot. 🙂
Great Saksham, thanks for following the link I left for you and for giving GASP a try. Let me know what you think of it.
I stopped using Akismet as well. GASP works really well on my blog and it has really stopped the spams from coming in and taking over.
Hey Kharim, I noticed you were using GASP. You really don’t need Akismet once you install GASP but I know that some people a nervous about removing it at first. But I’ve been fine without Akismet for almost 3 months now. GASP is really a fantastic plugin.
Thanks Kharim.
Thank you, Ileane! I’ve been seeing that check box everywhere and was wondering why everyone was using it. I didn’t know Andy had this plugin. I will be installing it on my site today. As always, you’re a treasure trove of helpful information.
Hi Brad. That little check box on GASP is the stroke of genius that propels this plugin to awesomeness! Glad I could introduce you to it – I’ll stop by your site asap!
Many thanks Ileane I think this is exactly what I have been looking for. I’ll return to give it a rating if it works for me which I’m sure it will. And thanks for your commentluv plugin too… well done 🙂
So i gonna install Gasp and deactivate Akismet.. Well done Nice post.
Akismet catches most of them but I still have to do a daily check to see if it has caught any legitimate comments.
Noticed a few comments on the GrowMap site asking for the “confirm you are not a spammer” check box to be above the submit button.
Submit being the final thing you want to do.
Don’t know what you think.
Thanks for the wonderful video..
I also installed the plug in and I think it’s promising. I just deleted Akismet. I am thinking now if I am going to install keywordluv.
Thanks so much Ileane,
Easy to install and setup. I deactivated Akismet and will see how it goes.
I have a question, what to do with trackbacks?
In my case I typically write articles that get published all over the Internet. Then I get these trackbacks to my blog. I can only see that the other site is getting a backlink from my blog. Any help would be great, should I disable this? Do I lose the Google “linkjuice”? Some of the trackbacks do not have dofollow links in the resource box so why should I reciprocate?
Thanks so much,
Selina
Selina, I use the Simple TB Validation plugin which will weed out unrelated trackbacks. If you see those trackbacks that say something like ” I don’t usually link to unrelated articles but….” these are the types of spammers this plugin will address. When you actually take a look at those sites you will see that they aren’t really linking to you in the first place. These spammers are so naughty…..
Thanks for the feedback Ileane.
Do you know if allowing trackbacks takes “link juice”?
Perhaps just not allowing any is the easiest thing to do?
What criteria do you use to allow one, if I may ask you?
Selina
Selina, I’m not 100% sure about this but I would say, yes. Links are links and in that respect they would flow link authority. The only trackbacks I would allow are the ones that I generate myself (by submitting to Blog Engage or similar service) and ones from other blogs that I’m familiar with. The bottom line is that it makes a lot of sense to allow trackbacks to related sites that can benefit you and/or your readers.
Thank you Ileane.
Selina
Selina,
If legit bloggers catch on that you do not allow trackbacks, they may stop linking to you, do you want this?
I just downloaded the plugin, thanks for the tip. 🙂
Good for you Dennis. I like how you can alter the message next to the box. I like the one @DiTesco uses “Nothing personal, just pls. confirm you are NOT a spammer.”
🙂
This is too weird Ileane. I remember leaving this comment but not on this post.
I’ve been using GASP for months and have several comments above from last year.
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Thanks for this plugin, but One Quick Question, is there a blogger (Blogspot) version of this plugin? Thanks again.
rahuman,
G.A.S.P is a plugin for WordPress and you should not need it on Blogger. Google has a different spam blocker on Blogger. Let me know if you need instructions for how to activate it.
Before I installed the GrowMap Anti-Spambot Plugin in this WordPress blog I would get more spam in one week than I ever got on my two Blogger blogs combined over the past 18 months!
thanks in advance 🙂
Can we use it on blogger if not then which is best for blogger?
Rahuman, G.A.S.P. is WordPress plugin.
Google has activated automatic spam detection on all Blogger blogs. If you want to read about it you can go here http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?&answer=187141
Thank you very much. 🙂
GASP plugin really looks very effective,good work done by you.keep it up.
This is the second post that I read about gasp and I think this is really a great one. I am definitely going to have this added. Ill do this first thing when I open my computer at home. Thanks for sharing.
I use Akismet on several blogs. Never even heard of GASP before finding this (via ProBlogDesign.com). So far, I’m happy with Akismet, but like all good things, the day comes when something better comes out.
I’ll give GASP a try. I frequently use plugins for a while, then recommend the good ones to my real estate pro community on Active Rain.
Hi Alison, welcome to Basic Blog Tips. I think a lot of people are afraid to turn off Akismet. I installed GASP 8 months ago and I never look back. It’s a huge time saver and I don’t have to wake up and sift through those disgusting automated spam messages looking for my friends comments.
Honestly Alison, I’ve seen spam 0 since installing GASP and deleting Akismet. 😉
That is so true with Akismet. Even if you already commented to a particular blogsite and got approved, it may still block your succeeding comments to that site and most admins are not even aware of it. Andy Bailey is totally awesome!
You’re exactly right! Akismet will even put comments in spam on your very own blog! And Andy is pretty awesome – btw the new version of CommentLuv should be here any minute 🙂
GASP is the solid reason why we need to ditch out Akismet – the anti-spam plug in with lots of false positive.
Hey Raymund, you got that right! Out with Akismet up with G.A.S.P.
This is going to come in handy. I had a client that was having the problem with Akismet deleting legit comments so I tried TypePads Antispam plugin, but he still had the same problem. I am going to try GASP on one of my sites and see how it works.
Hi Arelthia, how are you? I didn’t even know that Typepad had a plugin, but it sounds like it works similar to Akismet. G.A.S.P. was built with entirely different functionality so I’m sure your client will be pleased. Keep us posted! Thanks for stopping by.
I think now if am going to install keywordluv. I’ve heard lots of good things about it in other blogs and it looks promising!
I know that keywordluv is a little bit beneficial to commenters that’s why I am spending the whole day looking for a site that has a keywordluv plugin, but just want to know the benefits for the owner of site/blog which have this plugin.
We maintain a lot of blogs on our dedicated server and we are migrating everything over to GASP and KeywordLuv and getting rid of ASKIMET. I am very pleased about the people who have created the GASP plug-in. This has been one great step to fight spam on all of the WordPress blogs.
Thanks Ilene,
I have certainly seen that all over the net but I didn’t know what it was. It’s so common that I thought is might be a WordPress setting I had missed.
Wow! I have to admit that I’m stumped when I read your posts’ title. I’ve just been blogging for less than a month but already I’m wondering how many comments and trackbacks I’ve lost because of that. Thank goodness I’ve come across your blog. I’ve uploaded Andy’s GASP plugin in my blog as you’ve recommended. Many thanks!
Glad to stumble upon such a helpful article!
I have several blogs that I post to on occasion and about a year ago I noticed more and more emails requesting moderation of a comment. As I reviewed the comment in the moderation cue, more and more of them made no sense and it was evident that “the commenter” had not read my blog post.
For a while I just went in and deleted them but that got to be a hassle on 4 different blogs and the number of comments steadily increasing.
Luckily I stumbled across this particular plugin and installed in on all my blogs. I have to say that it stopped the spam comments almost 100% immediately. I still get the random “nice post”, but I am not getting the endless links and poorly worded random comments that plagued my sites for the last year.
Hi Ileane
I took you advice today and installed the GASP antispam plugin and removed the Akismet plugin. It took like 2 min. and everything looks to work just fine. Thank you for the tip Ilene.
Ohh I see this everywhere in the blogosphere but never know what the plug-in is called lol thanks Ileane
Hi Michael. I’m glad you found it now. I guess you’ve tried it out already at this point. Thanks!
I land to this post after read your great tips about 5 unnecessary plugins before, and now I really want to try GASP to replace Akismet. thanks a lot..
Hi Gunny, be sure to stop back and let me know how you like GASP. Thanks.
Hi Ileane, just tried the plugin, very easy to install and set the plugin, will see this plugin performance for next few days.
Ileane,
Thank you for sharing great tool with us. Previously I have used Akismet for my blog. And now I added GASP plugin from Andy Bailey for my another blog. The plugin looks great. I hope it also work like Akismet to avoid spam.
Thanks again for sharing the tool.
All of bloggers need comment spam saver plugins. It really saves lots of time. It does the same work as captchas but easier than it, for the reader. I definetely recommend it to all bloggers.
After trying GASP today; this plugin is an great !
Captcha is so old school and annoying for visitors, long life for GASP !
Thank you for it 😉
Yup, it’s one of the reasons why I’m disliking Askimet. They don’t even give bloggers a chance to approve a possible good/valid comment!
Ever since I got CommentLuv pro I have not user akismet any more, in fact it bugs me that WP have now decided to add Jetpack also to the “must” list of useless plugins. Now one has to delete Hello Dolly, Jetpack and akismet from one’s fresh installation.
Hi Ileane. Great information shared here. I am looking forward to download GASP soon. I am hoping it is a spam free plugin. Thanks
GASP is really an awesome plugin. It’s a good alternative of Akismet. 🙂
Thanks Ileane for writing about it.
I need to give GASP a try but I heard it wasnt over hyped. Need to give it a try though. Thanks