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Find out what is triggering the spam?

  1. lostwithsawyer
    Member

    Over the last 1.5-2 days, the # of spam comments keeps increasing at a surprising rate. I usually get a couple every few days, that's caught by Akismet and i only see the # of spam that's "pending review".

    Between yesterday and today, i've had upwards of close to 70-100 spam comments show up in that spam section.
    Is there any way to find out WHAT is triggering this sudden spam attention? The comments are all on various posts, and some "in reply" to other legit comments on posts - so not like one is particularly catching another.

    Just seems strange to see it increase so greatly. I'll empty spam, check back in an hour or so and another 7 are there again already

    The blog I need help with is justalillost.com.

  2. timethief
    Member

    The vast and overwhelming majority of all "information" circulating on the internet is spam. Over 80% of all "comments" submitted to the WordPress.com domain every day are spam. The worst of that is never sent to us to moderate as it contains malware and viruses and if opened it would bring down many blogs. We have no idea what's causing the increase. The waves rise and fall. and what you describe is not unusual at all. If you had a WordPress.org install you would be experiencing hundreds of spam comments daily.

  3. thesacredpath
    Staff

    Spam always comes in waves. The spammers change tactics and such to get around the spam filter and then the spam filters run to catch up and bury them in a deep hole and then the spammers change tactics again and the spam filters run to catch up. Rinse and repeat.

    70-100 may seem like a lot, but is nothing really. On my personal site I had a period of 4 months where I averaged 200+ per day and had peaks over 1000 per day. One of my clients during that time was averaging 450+ per day with an all-time peak of 10,000 (yes, one day with ten thousand). General peaks were in the 2000 to 4000 range on her site. Luckily my site and my client's sites that have been getting hit hard are now getting next to nothing (and I've probably just jinxed all of us by saying that).

  4. lostwithsawyer
    Member

    Thanks all! Was just curious.. seemed really random like maybe I, or a fellow commenter, had posted something that was potentially a trigger word that just caught all the spam bots at once!

    :)

  5. timethief
    Member

    You're welcome. :)

  6. thesacredpath
    Staff

    You never know if something you posted caught their eye or whether your number just came up in the spammer lottery.

  7. timethief
    Member

    So true.

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