I’ve released version 1.12 of Comment Warning overnight. It only contains a small, non critical, change – it now counts how many comments have been made from each IP address in the Log.

What Does Version 1.12 Include?

As mentioned above, version 1.12 only includes one small, non critical, change: counting how many comments have been made from each IP address in the Log.

The number of comments counted will include all comments from an IP address, even those before the comment author was warned. It will NOT include comments that have been marked as spam (or deleted obviously).

If there are some comments for an IP address, the number will link to the Edit Comments page for that IP address, so you can check the comments left by that visitor to see if they are appropriate to remain on the site.

Note: Because of the way the Log is created, there may multiple entries for each IP address. In this case, the comment count will be duplicated for each entry from the same IP address.

How To Upgrade

To upgrade to the new version, go to the Comment Warning plugin page, download the new version, unzip it and upload it over the top of the existing files on your server.

Basically you just need to follow the installation instructions on the plugin page, without the need to activate it. Although not strictly necessary, it’s always recommended to backup your database and files before doing anything on your server.

Alternatively, if you’re already running Comment Warning and are on WordPress 2.7+, you’ll see an upgrade notification in the Plugin page of the Admin area. Click the upgrade link and it will do it all for you in about 15 seconds.

Late last week, I quietly released my new WordPress plugin, Comment Warning. Over the weekend, I added some extra functionality and it’s now reached the point where I’m ready to announce it to the world. So here goes.

Who Is Comment Warning For?

Comment Warning is aimed at DoFollow and ex-DoFollow blogs that have become a target for comment spammers, including those running the CommentLuv and KeywordLuv plugins.

Background

Although DoFollow and related plugins can reward your commentators (and help increase traffic), it also attracts comment spammers. These spammers often hunt for blogs through DoFollow lists or Google searches for terms related to the CommentLuv and KeywordLuv plugins.

The level of comment spam I get on this blog has become untolerable. I turned off DoFollow, but the spammers keep coming.

Comment Warning helps deal with this problem. In the 7 days that I’ve been running the plugin on this blog, 113 visitors have triggered the warning. The number of borderline spam comments have dropped.

Of course this means that the total number of comments I’m getting has dropped as well, but I’ve decided I only want genuine comments at this stage.

Compatibility

The plugin has been tested on WordPress 2.7 and 2.8.

I suspect that this plugin will NOT be compatible with the WP Super Cache plugin. I will be doing some testing in the near future and, if necessary, changing the plugin so it does work with WP Super Cache.

How Does It Work?

Comment Warning checks where visitors come from. If there are certain terms in the referring URL that may indicate that the visitor is a potential comment spammer, they will be presented with a warning message, outlining your comment policy. The message is displayed via a JavaScript modal ‘popup’ (not a real popup).

Both the list of triggers and the message are customisable, allowing you to control who is shown the message and what they are shown. If you come across another site or term that should be added, please let me know.

It is possible to redirect potential spammers to a URL of your choice, either immediately (bypassing the warning) or after a certain number of visits from the same IP address. However, my own personal view is that redirecting visitors is harsh.

A log of visits that trigger the warning is kept. This allows you quickly jump to any comments left by these visitors. It also adds a message, letting you know that the commentator has been warned in the past, to all new comment email notifications and to comments appearing in the Admin area.

What It Doesn’t Do

Comment Warning won’t help if a comment spammer comes directly to your site, rather than from a search or a page with a URL that contains one of the trigger words.

However, if they have been warned previously, this will have been recorded in the log and a message indicating this will appear next to their comments in the Admin panel and in comment notification emails.

How Do I Get It?

You can read more about Comment Warning and download it on the plugin page. Alternatively, you can get it from the Official WordPress Plugin Directory (or search for Comment Warning in the install plugin page in the WordPress Admin area).

The Official WordPress Plugin Directory

This is the first time I’ve added a plugin to the official WordPress Plugin Directory (when did it change from Repository to Directory?). The process wasn’t too hard, but it would have been much harder without the excellent Listing Your Plugin at the WordPress.org Plugin Directory post by Ronald Huereca on WebLogToolsCollection.

Other WordPress Plugin Development News

It was with some surprise that I noticed that this is my first release for almost 18 months! Time flies…

I’m working on some other WordPress plugins in the background and I’m still holding to my statement that I’ll update my old plugins and move them into the official plugin directory. I’ve also started thinking that I should tidy up and release some of the custom plugins that I use on my sites.

Time will be an issue, but I’m hoping I can get most of this done.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been a big supporter of the DoFollow movement, but the time has come to say goodbye to DoFollow comments on this blog.

I’m not alone in this move. Several bloggers that I follow have also turned off their DoFollow plugins in recent months. First K-IntheHouse turned off DoFollow as part of a redesign of Shankrila, then RT turned off DoFollow as well. Sometime previously, Terence Chang also turned off DoFollow.

So why are people abandoning DoFollow? The answer is comment spam.

I still believe in the DoFollow concept, but there comes a point when the amount of spam comments outweighs the number of good comments. For me, I’ve reached this point. I need to spend 20 to 30 minutes each and every day, just moderating comments. If I miss a single day, it’s a major job to catch up. I just don’t have to time to do this anymore.

Note, I’m not talking about automated comment spam – my anti-spam plugins prevent that. I’m talking about real live people who have targeted my blog just so they can get a link.

Many of the comments I receive are worthwhile and I don’t mind giving a link to these people. However, for every two or three people who take the time to make a genuine comment, there’s someone who does one of the following:

• Leaves a trivial "nice post" comment
• Obviously hasn’t bothered to actually read the post
• Just copies the text of another comment
• Leaves a flat out spam comment (read about topic x here)
• Leaves spam comments on dozens of pages in one session
• Links to a dodgy website (ie adult or pharmaceutical)
• Doesn’t use the KeywordLuv functionality as required

I have to spend a lot of time cleaning all of these up. As a result, I have very limited time to actually respond to anyone who leaves a comment. As K-IntheHouse points out:

I often see that I had missed replying to a genuine question or concern from a reader whom I could have helped in a timely manner

My thoughts exactly!

I’m also going to be turning off KeywordLuv on this blog, except on the KeywordLuv home page. This will remain nofollow so commentators won’t get any link love (thereby inviting spammers), but it will allow prospective users of the plugin to try it out.

I remain convinced that KeywordLuv and a DoFollow plugin are worthwhile, especially when you are starting out, but there is no doubt that it makes you a target of the spammers. I get hit pretty badly because I rank no 1 for KeywordLuv, which is what a lot of spammers search for.

The KeywordLuv / DoFollow combination is great for newer blogs that want to get some traffic. Also, some commentators will stick around and become valuable members of your community. The question is whether the number of spam comments is manageable.

They no longer are for me. Bye bye DoFollow.

I’ve been using WordPress 2.7 for a while now and have comprehensively tested my WordPress plugins on it. In this post, I release the results of my testing: Four plugins work fine (albeit with a non version specific bug found in one of them). One plugin seems to have problems with WordPress 2.7.

Plugins That Work With WordPress 2.7

The following WordPress plugins appear to work fine with WordPress 2.7:

• DualFeeds
• FeedEntryHeader
• LocalCurrency
• KeywordLuv

However, during testing I discovered a bug with LocalCurrency, which I’ll explain in more detail below. This bug is not specific to WordPress 2.7 and has always existed in the plugin. If you haven’t noticed it yet, you’re unlikely to.

Plugin Which Has Problems With WordPress 2.7

Unfortunately, the IFrameWidgets plugin has a problem, which appears to be related to WordPress 2.7. In fact, I suspect that this problem has existed since WordPress 2.5, but only occurs on certain browsers.

The problem is that widgets running in the IFrame widget do not appear. This seems to be related to the JavaScript no longer being able to find the height of the IFrame (the plugin hides the IFrame until it’s fully loaded, then automatically resizes it based on it’s contents).

I’m not certain of all scenarios when it will occur, but I’ve managed to make it happen with the BlogCatalog widget using Firefox 2.0.0.20. For me, there’s no problem in Firefox 3, Google Chrome and IE6.

Kirk M from Just Thinkin’, who reported the problem, seems to be having a more serious problem with the Google Friend Connect Members widget: he gets the problem with Firefox 3.0.5, Shiretoko builds, Chrome and IE 7.0.

It may be that there are two problems: a general problem which only occurs with FireFox 2 and a more specific problem with the Google Friend Connect Members widget.

I suspect the general problem occurs because the way widgets work changed back in WordPress 2.5: IFrameWidgets uses the number of the widget in the plugin logic. Prior to WordPress 2.5, you were only allow a maximum of 9 widgets, so the plugin was using the numbers 1 to 9. In versions after 2.5, there is no maximum number of widgets and the plugin is using numbers such as 320138091. It may be that FireFox 2 can’t handle numbers this large?

I am continuing investigations and hope to identify a fix soon. You can follow this issue in the comments on the IFrameWidgets page and I’ll announce the fix in a post – so subscribe to my feed if you want to know when it’s released.

LocalCurrency Bug

As mentioned above, LocalCurrency has a bug which has always existed within the plugin. The plugin works fine within a single post or page, but doesn’t always work on pages with multiple posts (ie the home page or category pages).

The plugin has been designed to work on pages with multiple posts, but it doesn’t always load the JavaScript that allows it to make the call to Yahoo! Finance. To optimise performance, the JavaScript is only loaded when the plugin finds the <–LCSTART–> tag in the post.

This is fine for single posts / pages. It’s also fine for pages with multiple posts IF the tag is in the first post on the page. However, if the fist post doesn’t have any currency to be converted (ie no <–LCSTART–> tag), then the JavaScript isn’t loaded.

I’ll be fixing this problem sometime in the near future. I’ll probably add an option to allow the blog owner to decide whether they want to convert currency on multiple post pages. If chosen, the plugin will load the JavaScript without checking the posts for the tag, circumventing the problem.

Final Thoughts

Anytime there is a WordPress upgrade, there is a chance that one of my plugins will break. This means I have to do extensive testing with each WordPress release. This takes a lot of time, but fortunately, there are normally no problems to fix.

For the WordPress 2.7 release, I did find a couple of problems – but I’ll get them fixed as soon as I can.

It’s been a while since I last posted, because I’ve been tied up with some other projects. My focus is now returning to this blog, but before I get into anything of substance, there’s some housekeeping I need to take care of.

If you subscribe to the feed of one of my WordPress plugin categories, please be warned that these feeds will be removed in 7 days time. The feeds in question are the following:

If you want news about my WordPress plugins, please subscribe to the following feed:

http://www.scratch99.com/category/my-wordpress-plugins/feed

This feed will contain news and tips relating to ALL my WordPress plugins.

Alternatively, you can subscribe to the feed relating to the tag (rather than category) for each plugin. These will probably have all the news relating to each plugin, but may also contain other posts that mention the plugin in passing. These feeds are as follows:

• DualFeeds Tag Feed
• IFrameWidgets Tag Feed
• FeedEntryHeader Tag Feed
• LocalCurrency Tag Feed
• KeywordLuv Tag Feed

I’ve taken this move for two reasons:

1. I’m consolidating my categories, because I have too many of them. This will merge 5 categories into one general category for my WordPress plugins.
2. I normally stick to one category per post, but I often have news relating to more than one plugin. This will allow such news to reach everyone who needs it.

I regret any inconvenience this may cause, but hopefully it will result in a better site.

One side-effect of making your blog DoFollow is an increase in traffic. Unfortunately, it also leads to an increase in comment spam – and I’ve recently been spammed by Make Money Online Master.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, if you use WordPress, most comment spam can be stopped using plugins (I use a combination of Simple Trackback Validation, Math Comment Spam Protection and Askimet).

However there are always borderline spam cases: such as those that leave a good comment, but use keywords in the name field, or those that leave their name but link to commercial (non blog) sites.

There are many differing views on what’s acceptable. Each blogger must make their own decision, on what’s spam and what’s not, for their blog.

Personally, I don’t mind helping my commentators by letting them use their keywords in the name field, but I want to know their real name, so I feel like a real person is leaving the comment.

That’s why I created the KeywordLuv plugin for WordPress, which lets commentators enter both their name and their keywords. This rewards your commentators and should help increase traffic to your website as a result. However, I’ve noticed a sharp increase in borderline spam as well.

Spammed By A Make Money Master

Even though I no longer have time to answer all comments, I still read every comment and look for spam.

I recently noticed someone who was using one email address, but several different websites (no problem) and different names (problem). He left 20 comments, using 10 different names and linking to 6 different domains.

Crucially, he made multiple comments on the same post, using different names. His comments were fine and contributed to the conversation – it’s just he was having the conversation with himself!

I recognized one of the domains he linked to as belonging to a prominent Make Money Online blogger: a sometimes controversial, former blackhat, who tells it like it is and who has a very loyal fan-base. I won’t say who he is. There are a few bloggers who could fit that description.

This is someone I used to read a lot (before we moved and I ran out of time). He really knows what he’s doing and I’ve learnt a lot from him. He’s even left the occasional comment here, as himself.

The Take Aways

I got several take aways from this:

1. DoFollow comment links are worth pursuing (if you use your keywords): If this guy took the time to leave comments, you know that it works.

2. Borderline comment spam is indeed a confusing issue: I’ve learnt a lot from him and I don’t mind giving him the links, but I still feel spammed.

3. This ones just for me: I’ve been able to build a portfolio of his sites, so I can see some real life examples to go with the theory I’ve learnt from him!

New DoFollow Plugin Coming

As a direct result of being targeted by borderline comment spammers (not the Make Money Online Master in particular), I’m creating a new Dofollow plugin that will discourage borderline spammers and reward those who contribute quality comments.

It goes a step beyond what we’ve previously seen with plugins like Lucia’s Linky Love, which only makes comments dofollow after the user has left a certain number of comments on the site. That was a great innovation, but I’ve had some borderline spammers who leave 10 comments in a session.

As with any spam prevention mechanism, a small number of serious spammers will find away around it, but it should discourage most of them.

I’ve got a full load on right now, so it may take a couple of weeks to finish.

Final Thoughts

Borderline comment spam is inevitable on a DoFollow blog. However, annoying as it is, you’ll also get an increase in traffic: more people reading and commenting on your blog. For me, it’s worth it, on this blog.

Hopefully, I’ll soon have a DoFollow plugin that will keep the spammers honest and make them worth for their link.

This is just a quick post to warn the borderline spammers that leave comments here: If you just leave keywords in the name field, I’ll remove the link! You must use the KeywordLuv syntax: yourname@your keywords.

In the past, I’ve been pretty easy on people leaving keywords in the name field, but that ends now that I’ve provided the KeywordLuv functionality.

I have no problem with people leaving keywords in the name field, in fact you’re welcome to, but you must leave your name too. Don’t worry, you’ll get your link juice, as KeywordLuv will strip your name out of the anchor text.

If you don’t use the KeywordLuv syntax, I’ll remove the link and you’ll see something like this:

Note the link has been removed and a message added to the comment.

Oh, and of course, you have to leave a decent comment that adds value, or I’ll just remove the comment. The full comment policy is as follows:

Rules: Leave your name! Enter YourName@YourKeywords and KeywordLuv will use YourKeywords as the anchor text. No inappropriate or offensive comments. No links to inappropriate or offensive sites. Comments must contribute to the discussion.

I don’t think this is asking too much, do you?

This post was supposed to be titled All My Loving and announce the adoption of the CommentLuv plugin. In combination with my very own KeywordLuv plugin, I would have indeed been giving you all my loving. Unfortunately, I had a problem with CommentLuv and have deactivated it. For now…

The Bad – Huge Increase In Database Size

I first noticed the problem when my daily database backup was emailed to me. The size had increased by almost 50% compared yesterday’s backup. I tracked the problem down to CommentLuv 0.999.

It seems there is occasionally a problem where each and every feed is stored in the wp_options table in the database. That means the entire feed (all 10 posts), of everyone who leaves a comment, is being stored in my database! Not only that, it stores the entire feed for each comment you leave. RT from Untwisted Vortex left 8 comments, so I have 8 copies of his entire feed.

In the last few days, 58 comments invoked CommentLuv. The wp_options table grew from 0.5MB to 3.5MB. I couldn’t let that continue, so I deactivated the plugin and manually cleared out the stored feeds (they aren’t needed).

When I went to Andy Bailey‘s site to report this, I found this is a known problem, which will be resolved in the next version. From his post discussing the upcoming CommentLuv upgrade:

** Currently, there are some cases of the default include of MAGPIE saving each and every feed cache to the WP database in WP_OPTIONS/OPTION_NAME which tends to make it grow quite large, also some users have reported it being set to “autoload on” which can have an effect on load times.

I wouldn’t expect this to affect many people, but if you’re worried it may be a good time to do a backup and see if its significantly larger than expected.

UPDATE: If you are affected, Andy has posted a way to clean the database.

The Good – Great New Features In Next Version

While at Andy’s site, I found that he is doing some really cool things with the next version of CommentLuv. These include:

1. ‘AJAX-ifying’ the plugin, so the commentator’s feed is parsed while they are writing the comment.
2. Removing the reliance on PHP and WordPress functions, so that potentially it can work on other blogging platforms such as Blogger.
3. My favourite: Adding a dropdown list of your last 5 posts, so you can choose which one you want CommentLuv to add to the comment.
4. And of course, resolving my problem!

Brilliant! You can try out a demo on Andy’s CommentLuv Ajax Preview post.

Final Thoughts

If you’re wondering why CommentLuv disappeared, that’s the story. I think CommentLuv is a great plugin and about to get better. I’m committed to running it on my site, but it will have to wait for the next version. In the meantime, at least you can get some KeywordLuv here.

I’d like to announce the release of KeywordLuv, my new WordPress plugin, but RT from Untwisted Vortex beat me to it, announcing it several days ago. I need to be quicker with this sort of thing! I don’t mind, as KeywordLuv was partially inspired by RT’s post on building backlinks via DoFollow blogs.

KeywordLuv helps you reward your commentators by separating their name from their keywords in the link to their site. This gives them improved anchor text, which can help their site rank higher in the search engine results.

Example Of KeywordLuv

If a commentator enters: "Stephen@Custom WordPress Plugins" in the Name field, their comment will have:

Stephen from Custom WordPress Plugins Says:

If they don’t enter the @ symbol, the anchor text will simply display as normal. For a live example, see the first comment below. Feel free to leave a comment to try it out!

What Are The Benefits?

Most commentators enter their name in the Name field. This helps them rank well for searches on their name, but little else!

Some commentators enter their chosen keywords instead of their name. This helps them rank well for searches on their keywords, but many blog owners will mark them as spam! Even if you don’t mark them as spam, you probably get a little tired of talking to Miami Hotels!

KeywordLuv lets them enter their name, so you can feel as though you are talking with a real person, while at the same time helping their blog rank well for their chosen keywords. It’s the best of both worlds!

The Fine Print

There are a couple of things you need to be aware of:

1. For your commentators to really benefit from this, you will need a separate Dofollow plugin, to remove the nofollow tag.
2. KeywordLuv may not work with all themes. For more information and workarounds, see KeywordLuv – Theme Compatibility Issue.

Where Do I Get KeywordLuv?

The plugin is available for download via the KeywordLuv plugin home page. More information about how KeywordLuv works and how to use it is also available on the plugin home page.