18 Subscribers in the last 12 hours!

[darnoldy]

Okay... i'm not a big board. These are my first 18 subscribers—but they are wierd.

I have the site set up so that anyone can read it, but has to register to comment. I also have it set so that everyone's first comment is moderated.

These 18 new folks have email addresses that are strangely-formed. They are also all from yahoo.com (what are the odds).

My first thought was comment spam—but none have even attempted a comment. Then I though profile spam—but none have put anything in their profile. <shrug>

What's the play? What else should I look out for?

 

[Danielx64]

They may not look spammers yet, view may come back later to do their dirty work.

 

[doubt]

What's the play? What else should I look out for?

Wait for a few days-weeks, they might insert their signatures with links to garbage.

 

[darnoldy]

The registrations continue (its starting to annoy me). This has got to be one guy (or bot)—the names & email addresses are too similar in structure.

I can delete these users, but there doesn't seem to be a "ban" function in WP.

 

[Danielx64]

The only thing is that you need to install a plug-in for antispam, and if you get the right one it will stop those bots from creating an account.

 

[Anton Chigurh]

They are also all from yahoo.com (what are the odds).

Very good actually, since human verification is a joke on most big email providers.

 

[Drastic]

Turn off registrations. Why are you letting people register on WordPress anyway? Get a comment plugin like Facebook comments or Disqus and let that manage it for you. It brings a few extra visitors your way too.

 

[darnoldy]

Turn off registrations. Why are you letting people register on WordPress anyway? Get a comment plugin like Facebook comments or Disqus and let that manage it for you. It brings a few extra visitors your way too.

'Cause I'm a WP noob—I don't know these things.

 

[doubt]

'Cause I'm a WP noob—I don't know these things.

Try to see the settings in WP's control panel.

 

[Drastic]

'Cause I'm a WP noob—I don't know these things.

You can disable them in the settings. Then be sure to delete the spam users as well.

 

[darnoldy]

Drastic , doubt, et al.-

Turning off registrations and deleting the ones i had was pretty straight-forward—but not allowing people to register on my site seems counter-intuitive.

There were a pile of WP plugins around social media comments... this one looked the most interesting, what do you think?

https://wordpress.org/plugins/miniorange-login-openid/

But how does this work? When I make a post, it gets shared out to various social media where people comment, then the comments are mirrored back on my site—doesn't that mean that I have several simultaneous exchanges going on that I have to monitor and participate in, that can't see each other?

 

[doubt]

There were a pile of WP plugins around social media comments... this one looked the most interesting, what do you think?

https://wordpress.org/plugins/miniorange-login-openid/

One-click login to your WordPress site using social login applications like Google, Twitter, Facebook, Vkontakte, LinkedIn, Instagram, Amazon, Salesforce, Windows Live. This means, if your user is logged in to Google, user can comment on any blog or site by simply clicking the google icon - no username or password is explicitly required! Simply enable Social Login, no setup of social media application is required and you are done.

Your site will be flooded with spam.

 

[Drastic]

The comments will still be on the bottom of your posts, but they will be powered by the plugin and NOT require people to register to your site.

Just install the facebook or disqus plugin and see how it works firsthand rather than reading about it here. If you like it, keep it. If not, delete it.

 

[Indianparents]

If you have jetpack plugin installed, you already have social comments feature.

 

[Drastic]

Jetpack has always slowed my sites.

 

[VoXX]

Jetpack has always slowed my sites.

Same here, jetpack is a hog. lol

 

[Okoji]

Jetpack has always slowed my sites.

I have not noticed this really. But I have it on my site. Maybe what I will do is to do a speed test before and after removing jetpack.

 

[draculaIII]

what i use is cleantalk spam measure.

its not a 100% but i do barely get spam. infact spam has been dropped to getting 5% spam thats a good amount.

but i also have it set up where people have to message me when they sign up verifying they actually are legit. if i get no email or nothing from the users i delete after 3 days. i also set them up for blocked role where they can only read not interact with comments, etc.

 

[DigNap15]

I had a word press site a few years ago and all I got was spam.
And then suggestons I buy some anti spam software.
So I no longer use WP

 

[Dermot]

There are free and paid anti-spam plugins for wordpress.

Some are listed @ https://www.wpexplorer.com/antispam-plugins-wordpress/