This version of my blog hasn't been around that long, but within days of getting it set up and running, I started fighting the spammers. And until last last week, I was beginning to think that they were winning ;-)

Part of the problem is that I just didn't know enough when I installed the software. It seems that spammers are well acquainted with blogging applications, and have figured out how to get around most of the things that we as bloggers do to stop them.

I use b2evolution, which was easy to install thanks to cPanel (an administrative interface to my server). And I was even able to pull it into my updated design for helpstuff. But it was a week before I learned about the blacklist...and by then, I had been hit with search spam, referrer spam, and comment spam.

So I started a daily routine of updating the blacklist and deleting the various forms of spam. Meanwhile, my site stats were a mess...they told me that helpstuff had suddenly become one of the most popular sites on the Web ;-) Of course, every time a spammer hit the site, the stats were updated...and updated...and updated... The kicker was last week when I discovered a referral search term that I really didn't want showing up (and thankfully, it's fallen off the search pages now). (Basically, because I wasn't deleting comment spam quickly at the beginning, it was getting caught by the search bots.)

I finally implemented some sanity-saving features. I disable trackbacks and pingbacks. I blocked domains. I even modified .htaccess, but that kinda caused a few other problems ;-), so my last change was to restore the backup version and hack the source files so that registration is required for comments.

I doubt the spammers will stay away for long...they'll figure something out. (I now get to delete several registered users a day, but that's a whole lot easier than trying to remove hundreds of bogus comments...especially when the comments all say "Sorry about this".)

Obviously, it's harder to update the blog when spending that much time just deleting stuff I don't want you to deal with. (You must get enough of your own spam...you don't need to read more here!) And I've had a couple of things going on, plus I'm waiting for some different pieces of news so that I can make announcements.

I hope you're enjoying this time of year, wherever you are :-) The backyard office is now open...Jesse likes it because he can swim as long as he likes ;-), and I like it because...well, really, isn't this why we have laptops and wireless connections? (We even watched the final World Soccer game by the pool on Sunday, which meant that there was no discussion about who would go outside and keep an eye on the swimmers and who got to watch the game.)

Talk to you soon!