Is your blog plagued by spam, spammers and spambots? Do they annoy you? Do you know they’re even there and the damage they could be doing?
Allowing spammers and spambots to follow your blog makes it easier for them to attempt to flood your blog with spam comments. In turn, this opens the floodgates to your readers becoming the victims of scams or having their computer, tablet or phone infected with malware.
There are many different types of spammers in the blog world. From those who leave uninvited links, those who flood your posts with pleas to check out their blog and follow them, and comments from spambots; they can all be a nuisance.
Some spammers are easy to spot. The clues are in their name.
Some spammers try a little harder to trick you.
The above comment may sound genuine, but just look at the web address where it’s come from.
Recently, many blogs on WordPress have been flooded with spam comments from dog breeders. My blogging friend Renard at Renard’s World wrote about them.
I’ve witnessed some bloggers approve and respond to the comments from these spambots. The comments look genuine, but they’re not. Here’s an example of a spam comment from one of the dog breeders.
Approving and allowing comments from spammers and spambots onto your blog posts will damage the ranking of your blog. It may also end up resulting in genuine readers clicking on links in comments or visiting the sites of these scammers resulting in them becoming victims of scams or having their computer infected with malware.
These spammers often leave messages on posts that look authentic and nice, but they never mention anything about the contents of the posts (other than saying they like them) and often trick bloggers into believing they are genuine.
Spammers who follow your blog will also click the ‘like’ button on all your posts in the hope that other readers will see their gravatar icon, and visit their site. Once there, the reader puts themselves in danger of being scammed or having their device infected.
How Do You Spot Comments From Scammers and Spambot?
WordPress has recently improved the subscribers’ page of a blog. Not only has this helped spotting spammers and spambots, but it’s easy to remove them as subscribers to your blog.
Here’s a screenshot of a comment from a spambot. I’ve highlighted the spammers name for instructions on how to unsubscribe them from following your blog further down in this post.
The Akismet Anti-Spam software that WordPress provides is excellent at dealing with spam, but it doesn’t catch it all.
Comments from spammers rarely have an image in their Gravatar, but spammers are now getting clever and inserting an image in their profile (like the one in the previous image).
Here’s how to spot, check and remove spammers and spambots as subscribers to your blog.
- Make sure you are viewing your blog’s dashboard in ‘Default‘ view.
- Copy the name of the spammers blog.
- On your blog’s dashboard, go to ‘Users‘ – ‘Subscribers.’
- On the ‘Subscribers‘ page you’re taken to, paste the spammers blog’s name in the ‘search box.’
- If the spammer is following your blog, their name will show in the results.
- Click the three dots next to the blog you want to remove.
- Click the ‘Remove‘ button to unsubscribe the blog from following you.
- The spammer has now been unsubscribed from following your blog.
Spammers who follow your blog are more likely to try and flood your blog posts with spam comments because they get notifications when you publish new posts. You can mark any such comments as spam, but I’d recommend you unsubscribe them from following your blog.
Of course, there is nothing stopping spammers from subscribing to your blog again, but every time they follow, unsubscribe them. As I have found out with those dog breeder spammers, they soon get fed up of having to keep subscribing to your blog.
Let’s Wrap It Up
- Don’t allow spammers, scammers or spambots invade your blog or stress you out.
- Spotting spammers, scammers and spambots is easy to do. Follow the guide in this post.
- Never approve or respond to spam comments.
- If you’re unsure a comment is from a spammer, check out their website address first.
- Always unsubscribe spammers, scammers and spambots from your blog. Follow the guide in this post.
- Although the Akismet Anti-Spam software that WordPress provides catches the majority of spam, it won’t catch all of it.
- Approving and allowing comments from spammers and spambots onto your blog posts will damage the ranking of your blog. It may also end up resulting in genuine readers clicking on the links in their comments or visiting their website and becoming a victim of scams or having their computer infected with malware.
- Look after your readers, not the spammers, scammers or spambots.
How do you deal with spam, spammers and spambots on your blog? Share details in the comments section.
Layout, content, settings, and format might differ on self-hosted blogs.
Follow Hugh on social media. Click the buttons below.
If you enjoyed this post and want more like it, enter your email address and click ‘Subscribe’ to stay up-to-date with my latest content.
Copyright @ 2024 hughsviewsandnews.com – All rights reserved.
Discover more from Hugh's Views & News
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Hugh's Views & News 
Many thanks for all this, Hugh! I was told a while ago when talking to the Happiness Engineers(!) of WP that one could not remove a follower – thank you for showing me how this is done! Very useful and bookmarking your post.
Sorry to hear they gave you incorrect information, Annika. Glad this post came to the rescue.
Congratulations Hugh! You won the Inspire Me Monday Linky Party. You will be featured on my blog tomorrow.
Janice
Thanks for the great news, Janice. Have a great week.
Thanks as always Hugh. I will have to see if its the same on my site.
Thank you for sharing your various links with us at #274 SSPS Linky. Hope to see you again next week.
Self-hosted blogs tend to be different, Esmé. But I’m sure there will be a way that you can remove spammers as subscribers.
Yes, I guess its different, so I will have to do some digging to see what I can find out. At least your info is a starting point.
Thanks again for another amazing and helpful post Hugh. I get lots of spam and I notice a few ‘company’ names often. I would never have thought these companies would subscribe. Thanks for sharing how to unsubscribe them! :) I will share this in my September Writer’s Tips :) x
Some of these companies who follow our blogs will sit dormant and not bother us, Debby. Some will send you a direct message via your contact page so they can get your email address (beware if that happens). Some will flood your posts with uninvited links. The ones to look out for are the spammers and scammers who will also press the ‘like’ button on your posts, hoping that some of your readers will click their gravatar icon and be taken to their site.
Thanks again Hugh. Oh yes, I get ‘contact’ messages and links galore. Thanks again for this great information. :)
Such a useful, helpful post – thanks Hugh! I’ve had ‘Jason Lawrence’ liking my posts too. Luckily, I’ve got comments moderation on so it further stops spammers from spamming me.
Having comment moderation switched on is another line of defence against the spammers, Sunra. Good to hear you have it switched on. ‘Jason Lawrence has many accounts, most associated with dog breeders. So keep a lookout for them.
I hadn’t thought about unsubscribing them. Extra work, but it may be worth it for the persistent ones – thanks!
Extra work, but all worth it, Dan. And once you get rid of them, it’s much easier to remove them if they follow your blog again.
Thanks Hugh for the advice.
You’re welcome, Stevie.
Excellent and very helpful post, Hugh. I check their link to see if it is legit. If it’s not I delete the comment and block them. I don’t have a lot of spammers but every now and then one or two will pop up.
Good to hear you don’t get many spammers, Eugi. Marking their comments as spam and blocking them is excellent advice. But, of course, they’ll just come back under another account.
Spammers are a persistent bunch, Hugh. I often wonder if they don’t have anything better to do in life.
Given that they only need 1% of us to click their links and be scammed, they’re making money out of it, Eugi. So they’ll keep trying.
I was going to add that I believe a spammer followed me and hijacked my blog page on WordPress last September. I’m going through the list now and looking for oddball emails, dog breeders (found 6!), and others that my instinct says aren’t someone actually reading my blog. I’m glad you mentioned the fake profile pic, too! That also helps make the decision. Zap! They’re deleted. Thanks again, Hugh!
Did you have to get the WordPress HP engineers involved with that hijacking of your blog page, Terri? I wonder how they did it? That’s rather worrying to hear and makes it even more vital that we unsubscribe these spammers from our blogs.
As I mentioned to Colleen, some of these spammers are also now trying to leave spam comments on the day a post is published. So closing off comments may not always work.
No I didn’t at the time, Hugh, I went through Meta (Facebook) and literally begged them to help me. The hacker was able to spend some $$ from my checking account through Facebook because I had added a payment to my account back in late 2016. I got my $ back via my bank and with help from Meta/Facebook, who blocked the hacker. Then I simply deleted the page. I’m sure they got through from my blog, but I couldn’t prove it, although as I deleted subscribers yesterday, I saw an email that looked a lot like the one that hacked me. Crazy world. Thanks again for sharing this information, Hugh!
A frightening story, given that they may have gotten to you through your blog, Terri. But glad you were refunded the money that they took. These spammers will keep trying. They only need a few people to clickbait, and they’re happy they’ve got money, so they’ll keep trying.
That’s the scariest part, that other folks are not so discerning, Hugh. Honestly when it comes to blogging, social media was never much of a generator of new readers. So I don’t miss the blog page. Spambots are getting smarter….sounds like one of your 99 word stories in the making!
Excellent advice, Hugh! Not only do spammers and bots attack our blogs, I get emails that are clearly spam. I ut block those. Thank you for the how-tos again. As many of us are seeing, the dog breeders are ridiculous! Out they go with the dog waste bags!
Those dog breeder spambots are also creating new accounts, Terri. I’ve seen a few new ones over the last week. I sometimes play blogging ping-pong with them – as soon as they follow my blog, I unsubscribe them. They instantly follow again, only for me to unsubscribe them. Always puts a big smile on my face when I remove them and they finally give up.
I’m glad to have read your post and dug through several pages of subscribers! I found a whole bunch of spam with different accounts as you describe from 2021. Deleted them all–about a dozen! I’m sure these were the ones giving me so much trouble on my about me page–from a Spanish-speaking country–viagra and other stupid spam. I’ll just plan to do this weekly now that I’ve cleaned up 4 years of subscribers.
Glad you found them and unsubscribed them, Terri. But beware that they may attempt to refollow your blog. I always get notifications of new followers, which I now double-check before deciding whether to unsubscribe or leave them. That way, I can keep on top of them. And if anything suspicious comes up, I check to see if they’re following me and unsubscribe them if they are.
Just one more thing to do. But worth it!
Great Post Hugh. Helpful as ever. I think I might just link my introductions over Coffee post tomorrow to this, if I may?
Of course. Thanks, Brenda.
Thank you 😊
That’s a good catch on the dog spammers. They hit me up too! I close comments on my blog after 3 weeks. I was getting hundreds of spam comments every day and that has taken care of it. Thanks again for another great post, Hugh.
I sometimes struggle to read new blog posts within three weeks, Colleen. However, some of the spammers (following your blog) have gotten clever and now try leaving spam comments on the day a post is published. That’s why it’s vital to remove them as subscribers.
I have had no spam since I closed out comments. When I was on the business plan with WP, I had little to no spam. When I came back to WP.com, the spam was unreal. I guess you pay for what you get. I can’t afford two blogs on the business plan. LOL!
I’m on the Business Plan, and I get quite a lot of spam every day, although it all goes to my spam folder. However, I do like to go through it because sometimes genuine comments will end up there. Not many, but they do.
This was helpful. I used to remove suspect subscribers, but I wasn’t sure how to do it anymore. It seems the navigation changed recently from displaying ‘remove’ to moving it behind the 3 dots. So, I just removed all the dog breeders (again.) Thank you.
Keep on removing them if they follow you back again, Susanne. They’ll soon get fed up following you.
Good advice! Thanks
Akismet has been doing a great job for me.
That’s great to hear. They catch 99% of the spam that coms to my blog, but that 1% can sometimes cause problems.
🙂 Thank you for the shout-out and also for alerting your viewing audience about the dangers of allowing human spammers and spambots to interact with their blogs.
You’re welcome, Renard. Together, we can smash those spammers.