Comments on: Battling Referrer Spam with Wordpress http://tatumweb.com/blog/2006/01/21/battling-referrer-spam-with-wordpress/ Pentecostal Rumination and Review Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:20:05 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Rich http://tatumweb.com/blog/2006/01/21/battling-referrer-spam-with-wordpress/comment-page-1/#comment-761 Rich Tue, 24 Jan 2006 07:23:58 +0000 http://tatumweb.com/blog/index.php/2006/01/21/battling-referrer-spam-with-wordpress/#comment-761 Thanks, Michael and Angsuman, for your quick responses to my blog post. Yes, Michael, I read your blog post on dealing with blocked accesses. As I recall, I also decided to stop using Bad Behavior because Akismet provided enough protection that I felt I didn't need Bad Behavior as much. At the time my chief problem was comment spam and that was my reason for initially installing BB. When Akismet worked, I felt I didn't need two plugins performing essentially the same service. Akismet does come with its own set of problems--notably false positives--but I haven't experienced that problem yet. I apologize if you felt I gave your plugin a bad report--it worked fine, and I used it for some time, and enjoyed success with it. However, I had some friends who could not get through, and I had no control over their proxying environment, thus, I had to disable it several times in order for those folks to get through. In the end, Akismet provided what I needed without the extra protection BB provided. Now that I was faced with the new problem of referrer spam, I wanted a solution that at least let me know when users were getting blocked--and Referrer Karma does that. When I saw IOERROR in the blocked logs, I immediately whitelisted it. Apparently, when RK attempted to access your aggregator feed, it didn't find my content, and all subsequent clickthroughs from your domain got 302'd. Sorry about that. Fortunately, I have been completely spam referrer free for the last 24 hours, and GrabPerf shows no obvious impact to site responsiveness. Angsuman, I seem to have gotten RK to work with wp-cache with the help of the mclude wrapper for my RK php functions. It's still too early to tell, I may experience more problems requiring the removal of RK, but I suspect (now) that the mclude wrapper would work for your plugin as well. Again, for both of you, I'm sorry if it seemed I was dissing your plugins. I appreciate the WordPress community a great deal--this is a great publishing and authoring platform, and I'm indebted to the many plugin authors like you two who tirelessly give away the fruits of your intellect and labor to people who all-too-rarely say thanks and all-too-easily criticize your labor. Thanks for your work on our behalf, and thanks for stopping by. Regards, Rich. <a href="http://tatumweb.com/blog/">BlogRodent</a> Thanks, Michael and Angsuman, for your quick responses to my blog post.

Yes, Michael, I read your blog post on dealing with blocked accesses. As I recall, I also decided to stop using Bad Behavior because Akismet provided enough protection that I felt I didn’t need Bad Behavior as much. At the time my chief problem was comment spam and that was my reason for initially installing BB. When Akismet worked, I felt I didn’t need two plugins performing essentially the same service. Akismet does come with its own set of problems–notably false positives–but I haven’t experienced that problem yet. I apologize if you felt I gave your plugin a bad report–it worked fine, and I used it for some time, and enjoyed success with it. However, I had some friends who could not get through, and I had no control over their proxying environment, thus, I had to disable it several times in order for those folks to get through. In the end, Akismet provided what I needed without the extra protection BB provided.

Now that I was faced with the new problem of referrer spam, I wanted a solution that at least let me know when users were getting blocked–and Referrer Karma does that. When I saw IOERROR in the blocked logs, I immediately whitelisted it. Apparently, when RK attempted to access your aggregator feed, it didn’t find my content, and all subsequent clickthroughs from your domain got 302′d. Sorry about that.

Fortunately, I have been completely spam referrer free for the last 24 hours, and GrabPerf shows no obvious impact to site responsiveness.

Angsuman, I seem to have gotten RK to work with wp-cache with the help of the mclude wrapper for my RK php functions. It’s still too early to tell, I may experience more problems requiring the removal of RK, but I suspect (now) that the mclude wrapper would work for your plugin as well.

Again, for both of you, I’m sorry if it seemed I was dissing your plugins. I appreciate the WordPress community a great deal–this is a great publishing and authoring platform, and I’m indebted to the many plugin authors like you two who tirelessly give away the fruits of your intellect and labor to people who all-too-rarely say thanks and all-too-easily criticize your labor.

Thanks for your work on our behalf, and thanks for stopping by.

Regards,

Rich.
BlogRodent

]]> By: IO ERROR http://tatumweb.com/blog/2006/01/21/battling-referrer-spam-with-wordpress/comment-page-1/#comment-744 IO ERROR Mon, 23 Jan 2006 10:24:57 +0000 http://tatumweb.com/blog/index.php/2006/01/21/battling-referrer-spam-with-wordpress/#comment-744 I should also note that something's terribly wrong with your Referrer Karma installation. It's going into a nice endless loop and never actually displaying the blog. This isn't going to please people who come to your site from links to it, should they happen to run across one. I should also note that something’s terribly wrong with your Referrer Karma installation. It’s going into a nice endless loop and never actually displaying the blog.

This isn’t going to please people who come to your site from links to it, should they happen to run across one.

]]> By: Angsuman Chakraborty http://tatumweb.com/blog/2006/01/21/battling-referrer-spam-with-wordpress/comment-page-1/#comment-740 Angsuman Chakraborty Sun, 22 Jan 2006 17:37:31 +0000 http://tatumweb.com/blog/index.php/2006/01/21/battling-referrer-spam-with-wordpress/#comment-740 > but it doesn’t play well with wp-cache It works with wp-cache. However because of the architecture of wp-cache the plugin (any plugin for that matter) is not invoked for the cached page. So it can only bounce when the plugin is invoked. In effect that means it appears to be partially working. As it stands no plugin based solution will be able to serve your needs with wp-cache, with its present architecture. The only way is to "continuosly modify" .htaccess, either directly or through some nice UI. > but it doesn’t play well with wp-cache
It works with wp-cache. However because of the architecture of wp-cache the plugin (any plugin for that matter) is not invoked for the cached page. So it can only bounce when the plugin is invoked. In effect that means it appears to be partially working. As it stands no plugin based solution will be able to serve your needs with wp-cache, with its present architecture. The only way is to “continuosly modify” .htaccess, either directly or through some nice UI.

]]> By: IO ERROR http://tatumweb.com/blog/2006/01/21/battling-referrer-spam-with-wordpress/comment-page-1/#comment-739 IO ERROR Sun, 22 Jan 2006 12:03:23 +0000 http://tatumweb.com/blog/index.php/2006/01/21/battling-referrer-spam-with-wordpress/#comment-739 I receive about two or three reports of someone being blocked daily. Every single one of those has turned out to be something specific to that user's environment — just like it says on the error page — like a poorly configured, malicious or abused proxy server, or the fact that their system is chock full of viruses sending you exactly the spam you're trying to get rid of. Not a single one has turned out to be a truly "legitimate" browser access. The very few which indeed were actual human beings were, as you are probably well aware, highly suspicious, and for good reason. You claim legitimate accesses were blocked, and yet didn't follow the very simple directions on that page you linked to? Shame on you. I receive about two or three reports of someone being blocked daily. Every single one of those has turned out to be something specific to that user’s environment — just like it says on the error page — like a poorly configured, malicious or abused proxy server, or the fact that their system is chock full of viruses sending you exactly the spam you’re trying to get rid of.

Not a single one has turned out to be a truly “legitimate” browser access. The very few which indeed were actual human beings were, as you are probably well aware, highly suspicious, and for good reason.

You claim legitimate accesses were blocked, and yet didn’t follow the very simple directions on that page you linked to? Shame on you.

]]>